Hudson O’Neal and SSI Motorsports announced they hired Jason Durham to be the new crew chief for O’Neal and the No. 71 car.
SSI Motorsports made the announcement on Facebook, “SSI Motorsports is excited to welcome, 𝐉𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐃𝐮𝐫𝐡𝐚𝐦, as our new crew chief! We look forward to getting back on the road and going racing!”
O’Neal added in a separate post, “Super excited to have Jason on board our SSI Motorsports 71 Team!”
Durham most recently served as the crew chief of Stormy Scott’s car in 2023 and the duo formed Category 5 Race Cars in 2024 and debuted their first car during the Wild West Shootout that year. A press release announcing Scott’s return to modified racing noted that Durham would still be servicing Category 5 Race Car clients “needing equipment, repairs, or support” at his shop in Kentucky
He was previously the crew chief for Double L Motorsports and Jonathan Davenport back in 2022 when the team dominated the sport bringing in winnings of over $2 million. He served as Davenport’s crew chief from 2018 and 2022 and won Lucas Oil’s Crew Chief of the Year in both 2019 and 2021. In 2017 he was the Lucas Oil Series technical director and worked under Jared Landers and Double L Motorsports between 2014 and 2016.
His first race with O’Neal and SSI Motorsports is expected to be on March 21st at Atomic Speedway with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. O’Neal had a rough Speed Weeks and fought various mechanical issues. He had mixed results at All-Tech with a 10th, 4th, and 25th place finishes. At Ocala he put together some consistent finishes with two top 5s and 4 top 10s. He finished 5th, 7th, 16th, 2nd and 7th in five races there. He currently sits 8th in the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series Championship standings 200 behind leader Jonathan Davenport and 90 behind fourth place Brandon Overton.
It is unclear what the status of Nick Hardy, O’Neal’s former crew chief is. Hardy began working with O’Neal back in 2024 when he launched his own team after leaving Rocket last March and stayed with him when he returned to SSI Motorsports last summer albeit Anthony Burroughs was the crew chief when he returned to SSI, but he moved on to the Longhorn Factory Team with Brandon Overton at the end of last year.
What do you make of this crew chief change?