Hudson O’Neal had a very good run going at Eldora Speedway for the Dirt Late Model Dream on Saturday night, but unfortunately, he got caught up in Brandon Sheppard’s wreck and ended his night.

With around 20 laps to go in the 100-lap feature, Brandon Sheppard had tracked Bobby Pierce back down and looked like he was going to challenge him for the lead. However, something broke on the right front or his right front tire cut down and he swerved head first into the outside of the turn 3 wall. Sheppard did a whale of a job to prevent a direct head-on impact and pancaked the wall with his right door instead. The impact spun his car so it was perpendicular to the track and Hudson O’Neal, who was running in third, had nowhere to go and collided with Sheppard’s car.

💔 A terrible ending to the #DLMDream for @bsheppb5 and @HudsonONeal71 @EldoraSpeedway pic.twitter.com/3whRmtqAUy

— FloRacing (@FloRacing) June 7, 2026

Following the wreck, Sheppard told FloRacing’s Mike Norris, “Something broke, or something happened to the right front getting into three there. Just sent me straight into the wall. Man, I was really hoping to get a charge back at that 32.”

In a video uploaded to Facebook, O’Neal, who ended up finishing 19th, reacted to the wreck and his Dream coming to an end, “Not so great of an ending to our current weekend. Was putting together a good run. What we felt was going to be a top 3 run anyway. Sheppard blew a tire out and got into the fence. The one lap I chose to run the top just wrong place wrong time. Hate that we got involved in somebody else’s misfortune, but had a good race car. Felt like that’s the best we’ve been here in a couple years and maybe with a couple more tweaks we’ll be up there standing on that stage one of these times at Eldora.”

Alongside the video, O’Neal also shared, “Glad to see Shepp is okay after that hit. We’ll get her fixed up and be ready to roll Wednesday for the Dirt Cup!” 

The first annual Shale Crescent Dirt Cup takes place at Muskingum County Speedway on Wednesday, June 10th. It pits the 12 best World of Outlaws Late Model drivers against the 12 best Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series drivers to determine which is the better series.

As for what to expect from the Dirt Cup, promoter Tristin Moran shared in a video at the end of May, “Basically what’s going to happen is it’s going to be a format of hot lap, qualify, heat race, king of the hill — which will not actually set any lineups that’s just for points — and then feature.”

“So basically, each driver and each team can win points from how they qualify, how they run their heat race, a 1v1 verse all 12 drivers on each side in the king of the hill, and then their feature finish,” he continued. “So each driver can earn points all night long. We’ll have a live tally running on our scoreboard in the infield along on Flo as well.”

NEXT: Bobby Pierce Breaks Through For First Dirt Late Model Dream Victory At Eldora