Here is what drivers had to say following Thursday night’s FloRacing Night in America race at Volunteer Speedway:

Jimmy Owens — Winner: “It’s pretty awesome just to hear all these people cheer and wishing you well. Got a lot of great fans that stuck with me through the years. It’s an awesome feeling. Been a long time since we got the lead it seems like, but I was just telling Mac and them, ‘This might be the first time we ever won a race since we started.’ We fixed that for the year.

But I thought I gave it away there when I tagged the quarter panel with the wall. I could feel the back start getting a lot loose. I thought, ‘Daggonit it! I hope I didn’t kill ourselves.’ But them cautions really helped me. Kept my right rear cool and we was alright. I didn’t really know where to be in 3 and 4. It worked out.

Just trying to keep the car under me and just trying different lines. Just messing around and just goofed up. And just kinda got in there a little bit hard and a little bit tight and tagged the wall and all that stuff. 

It’s a great night. I’m glad everybody came out here for this race. I want to thank Vic for doing a good job. Thank all my sponsors. I know I’m going to forget half of them. Midwest Sheet Metal, Red Line Oil, Elite Ready Mix. I got to thank the McCarters for being able to help me out here. Mac’s been a big help. We just been helping each other back and forth. He’s been running some Crates. We’ve been running some Supers. And everything’s worked out. It’s just been really good. I got thank my family and just thank everybody that’s helped me.”

Jonathan Davenport — Finished 2nd: “I think I just needed a longer run there. It seemed like every time I would get an opportunity to get a run on somebody, the car in front of them would like change their line so I had to really check up. I don’t know what I did to Sheppard there early, but I felt like I about run over him because I went to slide him and as soon as I went to slide him, Moran checked up, and he tried to turn to the bottom. So I had to lock the brakes up and try to slide between him. Hopefully, I didn’t mess him up too bad. 

Then I done the same thing again. I got a run on Madden and I was going to slide him down there and he checked up and went to the bottom too. I just never did really have no racing luck. I’d get a good run over and then Madden and Benji was racing and banking off one another. So I just kinda laid back a little bit to see what was going to transpire there.

Our car was really, really good. My guys have been working their tails off on this thing. Thanks to everybody at Longhorn. Longhorn Dynamics and Tyler and Cory. That whole group there has been really working on this car. I wasn’t very happy with it early and then we kept working on it and we found some stuff with it. We just didn’t get to showcase how good it was. I think if we could’ve beat Madden into turn 1, I think it would’ve been a whole different story. Then I wouldn’t have had to work my way up through there, but it was still good enough. We could pass when the opportunity presented itself.

If I’m going to lose one like that to somebody, it’d definitely be Jimmy at this place. I don’t know if it’s going to be the last race here or not. I don’t know about all that, but this is kinda like Volunteer’s first born son, Jimmy Owens. It was cool just to see him pass Devin to win that heat. I was cheering for him. And when he was up front and I was fourth or fifth, I was cheering for Jimmy. But once I smelled a little blood in the water my attitude kinda changed a little bit. Just congratulations to him and his whole team he put together. He’s been going back and forth not racing a whole lot, but he got one for us old guys for sure. Just congratulations to him.

Thanks to my guys. Everybody that helps us do this. ASC Warranty, but first and foremost Ace Doran. Steve Martin, thank you. Thank you to Lance and Darla Landers, Nutrien Ag Solutions, Bilstein Shocks, VP Fuels. I want to give a shoutout to Mega Plumbing. This is coming up on their 25th year anniversary being in business. I talked to Donald yesterday so that was pretty cool. They’ve been big supporters of mine for a long time. 

Say hello to everybody watching back home and can’t thank everybody for putting this event, for Flo doing this, and Vic for doing all he does this for race track. It was awesome tonight. It really was. This place has got to be sometimes where it’s a little top dominant, but the later on in the race, like you seen, we could start moving around. 

I was really waiting to get into lap traffic and really do that. But anyway it worked out for us run 2nd on lap 50 or 51 not really sure. We ain’t going to [complain] about it. We got a good run.”

Hudson O’Neal — Finished 3rd: “The cautions definitely helped me. I’m not going to say that a late caution wouldn’t have in that situation, but also didn’t pass Madden ’til about at the flag stand. I slid him and he slid me back down here and I finally cleared him by the time we got to the front straightaway coming to the checkereds. We really wouldn’t have had a caution and me really make much of a difference right there. All the cautions and getting us stacked back up and kinda getting us unstrung out around that top helped me a lot. Let me pick up a few on the restarts. And then I was able to show that my race car had some speed and kinda picked maybe one or two off every now and then. 

I’m very happy with it to show speed at West Virginia last week and then to come here and similar speed, I think, is a good telling we’re definitely getting our program back better. We’re going in the right direction. It sucks we’re going into the offseason here, but we’re looking forward to 2027 already.

FloRacing Night in America points is going to tighten up for us here. Hopefully, we can creep in on it. We gained some valuable points tonight. I think we got the speed to do it, we just got to put the nights together and not have any mechanical failures or any misfortune. Hopefully, we’ll be standing up there and get a big check here sometime.”

Bobby Pierce — Finished 5th: “I was held up behind some guys. Sometimes I wasn’t as fast as the guy in front of me and sometimes I was. And there’s times when I was faster I needed to get by them and sometimes nowhere to go. Just kind of the story lately. Sometimes I’m a little better. We just need to be a little better to be able to make that pass. So 12th to 5th, that’s a good run for us here, honestly. If I can come out of here with a top 5, it’s kind of like a win. I struggle here. Haven’t been here a whole lot in my career so that’s kind of part of it. 

This qualifying here is tough. I didn’t feel comfortable in the car driving in really deep on top. So I kind of pussyfooted the middle and still had a decent lap. Started us third in a heat race, but needed to be up on the wall like Madden, and JD, and them. Maybe if we come back here another time, we’ll work on that. 

All-in-all, like I said, good night. I got to thank my crew for all their work and my dad, Justin, Kong, Darien, everyone with Longhorn and Ohlins, Longhorn Dynamics, and Vic Hill. This is a brand new engine tonight and it felt really good. We’ll go on to Modoc, fix the deck that’s blown out, and see what we got. 

I honestly feel like at Eldora at the Lucas race if I didn’t have the flat tire in the B-Main I really feel like that track would have benefited me. Josh Rice came from the back to finish third and I was beating him in the B-Main. So I feel like that could have been a top 3 run from the back. I feel like West Virginia we just kinda sucked. Pittsburgh, we definitely sucked. So it’s nice to rebound with a top 5. Just lots of bad luck. When the field’s this tough if you miss it by just a tenth or two and you’re starting second/third row of a heat race sometimes there’s just nothing you can do.

Qualifying here is what we need to work on. Like really being able to drive in deep and have the car rotate like I want to. We kind of worked on that as the night went on and it got better, but the track got slicker as well. So, it’s hard to say if that really worked or if it was just the race track.”

Benji Hicks — Finished 12th: “Another night of having the speed, just not the luck. Rolled off 3rd in the feature and held strong in P2 until a restart with 15 laps to go resulted in a broken wheel, putting an end to our shot at a podium finish.

Apparently, our luck is pretty good until one of the four things keeping this thing rolling decides it has other plans.

Another fast car, another what could’ve been kind of night. On to the next one!”

Mike Marlar — Finished 18th: “I think my body brace or something went into my tire ’cause I was coming up through there picking them off pretty good. I got up, I don’t know, 8th, 9th something like that. My car got really bad going in the corner and it finally just scooted the back end in there when I was behind some traffic. And got in the wall a little bit and it crunched my spoiler so my spoiler was half ripped off. You could feel it big time then. So that happened and I think a body brace went in the tire, shredded the tire basically. Just one of those things. Didn’t hurt anything too bad. We’ll race tomorrow. It’ll be fine.

I’m not going to say I was fast, but I was decent. And then I kind of had a line going there that I was passing some guys when they would kind of make, I guess, the wrong commitment and I could get by. So got to doing that and I thought I might end up maybe around 5th, 6th, maybe by the end of the race. 

Bobby’s like one of them guys you just really need to get around him ’cause he’s making things happen. So he makes a little, not a bad chaos, but a little bit of chaos behind him. Because when he slides or whatever, everybody reacts and you got to—. But, yeah, Bobby and I were coming up through there pretty good, I feel like. And even in the heat today, me and Bobby were pretty fast.

That was a new car. Hadn’t made any laps on it. This is just a really tricky place to run right against that fence qualifying. I wasn’t comfortable. I really qualified kind of poor. Started fourth in the heat, run fourth, started 16th and learned how to drive it a little bit until I didn’t there at the end, I guess.”

Garrett Alberson — Finished 20th: “We kind of last minute put a different right front spring setup on there. And when we were on the bottom of the track it was actually really good. Thought I kinda had something for them there for a minute. I was just trying to take care of my tires, but then it rubbered. And I got up in that rubber and that banking and it was like really crushing the right front too far and the tire blew out. 

Like I turned into turn 1 and all of a sudden that thing fell to the ground and straight into the wall. Whatever we had in the right front was just too aggressive into the bumps or something. Just finally blew that tire out. 

We’re always trying to go with a little something especially when we’re behind. I feel like we’ve been behind all year. Our feature program’s been really behind all year. Just trying to get better in the feature. This is my second time here ever so I don’t know what I’m doing here.

I thought I needed to be a little different in the right front from the heat. And for a second I thought we had landed on something pretty good like when we was down the banking kind of touching the left sides in that brown, I felt really, really good. But as soon as that top rubbered and the pace picked up my right front was way too low. I was kind of in a bind already and then I finally blew a tire out.

It’s a cool place. I don’t know what they could do to keep that top from rubbering so early in the race. It did it when I was here last time too. But when it’s early, it’s cool. Driving into that banking it’s a totally different driving style, which I felt like I gained a little bit on driving wise. I’m not aggressive enough on the restarts, but once it got into that rubber I couldn’t turn at all and I was just kinda hanging on for dear life. And a tire blew out so it just kinda went all downhill from there.”

Nick Hoffman — Finished 23rd: “I was trying to get off the race track and there was still just enough mud down there that I slid into the infield wall. A [crap] night altogether. I qualified terrible. I got myself tight both laps in three and four. Did that on my own. Then you’re trying to dig yourself out. It’s been frustrating all night. 

About a lap before that it felt like I was losing brakes and I don’t know if I was starting to get oil all over my rotors or what, but ended up breaking a motor is the ultimate end goal of what happened.

So down the front straightaway I hit the switches and shut it off and was just kind of coasting. And then I was just trying to get off the race track without causing a caution and I drove through all that mud and then crashed myself again. Just [crap] happens. Second time I’ve done that. Oh well. [Crap] happens.”

NEXT: Jimmy Owens Banks FloRacing Night In America Race At Volunteer Speedway Winner’s Check