Hudson O’Neal got his second straight win at Ocala Speedway and his third overall with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series to pad his points lead.
O’Neal started the night off strong qualifying second in Group B with a lap of 14.416 just behind Brandon Overton, who ran a lap of 14.338. He started on the pole in Heat 4 and cruised to a win. That put him fourth in the feature and he quickly made his way to second passing Brandon Sheppard and Drake Troutman with a good run on the outside of the track. He then began hounding Brandon Overton for much of the race.
After a couple cautions for Cory Lawler and Garrett Alberson, the race had a lengthy green flag run and the leaders began navigating lap traffic. With 17 laps left, O’Neal looked poised to strike as he poked his nose below Overton, but he was unable to complete the pass. He tucked in behind Overton for the next couple laps and even had a little bit of a scary moment as he slipped up exiting out of turn 2.
He’d be able to maintain his position and kept tracking Overton down. Overton then suffered heartbreak when he had a left rear tire go flat during a caution that also saw Brian Shirley and Dan Ebert suffer right rear flat tires. It’s unclear how it happened, but the previous lap, it was possible he make contact with Daniel Hilsabeck when he was attempting to lap him.
O’Neal would inherit the lead and then easily survive a couple more cautions. Carson Ferguson suffered a flat right rear with 11 to go and Brandon Sheppard would suffer one with 7 to go. Josh Rice also lost power during the final caution.
In victory lane, O’Neal told FloRacing’s Ben Shelton, “Speechless. I don’t even know what to say. What an amazing start to the year for this SSI Motorsports team. We gotta give credit where credits due. Kevin Rumley and Longhorn Chassis has helped us some. It’s just so awesome to be in this situation I am. Whenever I cross the checkered flag that was the first thing that came to my mind, I’m just speechless.”
“I try to give all the glory to God and just do the best that we can every day, and it’s just so awesome to be in this position,” he continued. “It wouldn’t be possible without all you fans, without these amazing race tracks, and without Lucas Oil Model Dirt Series for giving us a great place to race.”
Speaking to the race, O’Neal added, “Whenever I was running second to Overton there whenever we would get stretched out after the restarts I was kind of running down here through those holes just off the gas a little bit, about half throttle, just making sure. I felt bad bouncing off the chip every time we left the hole. And then when we got to lap traffic I’d try and pick it back up again. Then whenever I got the lead, I’m going. I looked at that board and I seen the 99 and the 1 car behind me and I knew it was going to be some tough company. So I was just trying to get away as fast as I could.”
Second place finishing Devin Moran said, “Just a good points night. The 71 car, they’re just a little bit better than we are right now. He can get up front quicker than we can. The only two heat races we win we have all Speedweeks we won the features those nights. So just gotta keep working on the early night package and get ourselves starting up front. We can get there at the end of the night, we just gotta start up there.”
Feature Results
- Hudson O’Neal
- Devin Moran
- Tim McCreadie
- Jonathan Davenport
- Drake Troutman
- Brenden Smith
- Max Blair
- Kyle Bronson
- Ricky Thornton Jr.
- Clay Harris
- Brian Shirley
- Blair Nothdurft
- Daniel Hilsabeck
- Dan Ebert
- Brandon Sheppard
- Dillon McCowan
- Brandon Overton
- Josh Rice
- Tyler Erb
- Carson Ferguson
- Cory Lawler
- Boom Briggs
- Garrett Alberson
- Ryan Montgomery
- Cory Hedgecock
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