Billy Moyer put the 2025 Hell Tour competitors on notice with a strong performance on opening night at the Brownstown Bullring.
Moyer was second fastest in Qualifying Group A and qualifying overall with a time of 12.927 behind Mike Harrison who ran a 12.709 second lap. He followed that up with a win in Heat 2 to start outside of Harrison, who won Heat 1, for the feature.
Moyer took the lead on the first lap rolling the top through 1 and 2 and motoring past Harrison on the back stretch. He would lead the first 12 laps relatively unchallenged. However, on Lap 12 he got over a hump coming out of turn 4 that killed his momentum and allowed Mike Harrison to setup a slider going into turn 3 and take the lead from Moyer.
The veteran was not done, he stayed within striking of distance of Harrison rolling around the middle of the track for the next handful of laps before he made his move to reclaim the lead. He struck when Harrison bounced over the hump coming out of turn 4. Moyer dove to his inside and completed the slider coming out of turn 2 on Lap 18. Harrison tried to immediately respond, but Moyer held him off and began to gap him as he put down more laps. As they got into lap traffic, Moyer continued to extend his lead to over a second putting multiple lap cars between him and Harrison and he cruised for the win.
Following his win, Moyer was asked how this win compared to all of his other storied wins. He told DirtVision, “Well, they’re all good when you win. It don’t matter if it’s in your backyard or its the World 100. It’s nice to win them all.”
“We’ve had such a rough start to this year,” he continued. “That just some things happened. People don’t know that we lost our trailer here a couple weeks ago. The tongue broke off of it and went down through the ditch and totaled everything out. And we’ve been completely rebuilding everything and changed a bunch of stuff in this old hot rod and, man, we got it back pretty good now. It feels like the good ole days again, you know, when I’ve got something underneath me to work with.”
“I was nervous all night long after the heat race, it felt so good. I didn’t want to mess it up, but I didn’t want to leave it too free and not pay attention to what the race track was doing,” he added. “Anyway we flipped a coin back there and made a few little adjustments to it. The little hot rod was good. The Longhorn car and the Clements engine really worked well tonight.”
Discussing his battle with Harrison, Moyer said, “We was having fun there. He hit that lip there and I kind of got underneath him and then he roughed me up there a little bit a couple of times, pushing me it felt like, or I think it was him. Anyways, at the end … I was trying to pay attention to the lap cars in front of me. Just not to make a mistake. I was riding the brakes so bad. They was probably glowing I’m sure. We lost my brakes there right towards the end of the race so I was just glad to see the checkered flag.”
Outside of Moyer winning, Brian Shirley was back on track after skipping The Dream to build a new car, but he suffered mechanical issues during his heat race after he had set fast qualifying time in Group B. It appeared that he had fixed the issue based on a Facebook post indicating he would be digging through the B-Main, but Shirley did not take the green flag for the C-Main.
Official Finishing Order
- Billy Moyer Sr.
- Mike Harrison
- Shannon Babb
- Brandon Sheppard
- Tanner English
- Drake Troutman
- Jose Parga
- Jason Feger
- Tyler Erb
- Dillon McCowan
- Joseph Joiner
- Jackson Hise
- Kyle Bronson
- Frank Heckenast Jr.
- Clay Stuckey
- Dennis Erb Jr.
- Michael Kloos
- Matt Bailey
- Christian Hanger
- Thomas Hunzicker
- Rusty Griffaw
- Rodney Melvin
The 2025 Hell Tour is back in action tonight at Kankakee County Speedway in Kankakee, Illinois. They will then head to Peoria on Thursday before a date at Tri-City on Friday. It wraps up the week at Fairbury on Saturday.
What do you make of Moyer outdueling Harrison for the first win of the 40th annual Summer Nationals Hell Tour?
NEXT: Bobby Pierce Responds To Accusations That His Tires Were Not Flat During The Dream At Eldora