Muskingum County Speedway
Ferguson's promising Lucas Oil weekend fizzles
By Kyle McFadden
DirtonDirt staff reporter
Carson Ferguson (93) at Muskingum County. (heathlawsonphotos.com)
ZANESVILLE, Ohio (July 5) — Carson Ferguson could’ve had his finest weekend yet as a Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series campaigner, starting from the front row of Friday’s feature at Atomic Speedway and knocking on the door of a top-five Saturday at Muskingum County Speedway. | RaceWire
Instead, an engine issue four laps into Friday’s feature while leading at Atomic and flat tire Saturday at Muskingum derailed the Lincolnton, N.C., driver’s promising two-race stint in Ohio.
“We’ve had a lot of speed, just no luck,” said the 24-year-old Ferguson, who finished 21st and 11th at Atomic and Muskingum over the weekend. “We just try not to pay attention to the box score, where we start, where we finish. But we showed a lot of speed.”
Friday was without question the best opportunity Ferguson has had yet to win a nationally touring feature. He started from the outside front row of the 50-lap main event on a fast racing surface — a surface that posed as rough-and-tumble for many frontrunners, starting with Ferguson.
Though he outgunned the pole-starting Ricky Thornton Jr. on the initial start, leading the first two laps comfortably as Thornton and Brandon Sheppard battled behind, worry immediately fell came him on the third circuit when his powerplant dropped a cylinder just before the lap-four stoppage for a spinning Hudson O’Neal.
“I heard it, felt it, didn’t have the power I had,” Ferguson said. “I didn’t know how much longer I could stay out. I didn’t know how bad it was, so we ran that lap-and-a-half, then that caution came out, and there was no point staying out after that.”
Ferguson never imagined relinquishing the lead as he continues to chase his first Lucas Oil victory in what’s now 75 starts on the tour.
“That’s the last thing I ever thought, you know?” Ferguson said. “I’ve never won yet, so pulling in under caution while leading was not the best thing to do in the world. Just bad circumstances.”
The silver lining for Ferguson and his Paylor Motorsports No. 93 team is “we saved what we could” with their powerplant that dropped a cylinder while leading Friday’s feature at Atomic. Others weren’t so fortunate.
“Luckily we didn’t run hot and bake the motor or anything like that,” Ferguson said. “It was just a sudden deal.”
Saturday at Muskingum County, Ferguson and his team “struggled all night with the balance,” but they elected to try something different setup-wise.
“Just trying some things. I thought we hit on it there in the feature, but as I said, the tire going down ruined it for us,” said Ferguson, who was up to sixth on lap 40 before his tire blew on lap 53 of 60. “Racing hard after those restarts for a few laps created a big enough gap in front of us and it’s hard to make that up.”
Ferguson had challenged Thornton for fifth up until he noticed his right-front tire started losing air right before he lost the sixth spot on lap 41. He rode around those next dozen laps knowing that his right-rear tire likely wouldn’t make it to the finish.
He salvaged 11th place, which wasn't much consolation for the mentally-taxing weekend. With 26 Lucas Oil races in the books and 25 remaining, the tour is officially onto the second half of the season.
Ferguson grades his first half on the tour, where he has one top-five and 11 top-10 finishes, a C because ‘it’s one of those things, you guess on a few questions of the test, and you could ace it or end up with a C.”
“That’s where I feel like we’re at right now,” said Ferguson, whose best finish of fourth came Feb. 4 on opening night of the Winternationals at Ocala (Fla.) Speedway. “We’re guessing, and hopefully we can hit on something soon.
“Right now, I feel like we’re good enough to run 10th, maybe a few spots better. But I don’t feel like we have the speed to be in the top-three or -five consistency. That definitely takes part in our decision-making for the feature; adjustments and try stuff for when we come back. We try to hit on something instead of doing the same routine thing every night. We’re just trying to hit on something. If it was easy, everyone would do it.”
In a perfect world, Ferguson would like to be a few notches better heading into the heart of summer where crown jewel races and big car counts dot the schedule from mid-July through Sept. 4-6’s World 100 at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio.
On one hand, he likes how he’s been able to move forward and up the leaderboard as features progress, which should suit him well for long-distance races like the Silver Dollar Nationals, North-South 100 (Aug. 7-9 at Florence Speedway), Topless 100 (Aug. 15-16 at Batesville Motor Speedway), Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway’s Rumble by the River (Aug. 22-23), the Hillbilly 100 (Aug. 29-30 at Lernerville Speedway) and the World 100.
But this weekend at Iowa’s 34 Raceway on July 10 and Missouri’s Lucas Oil Speedway on July 11-12, he may end up taking the same approach as he did this past weekend of stepping a little more out of the box setup-wise in attempts to get a little better.
“It’s hard to test things where there’s a true field of World of Outlaws and Lucas guys,” Ferguson said. “We come to these Lucas races, and we’re not testing stuff necessarily, we’re trying different things out of our comfort zone to try and hit on something. It’s easier to do that when you feel like you can drive to 15th or 10th no matter how bad or good the car is.
“It’s hard to branch out and do something like that when all of us are together. At all those races, that’s what it’s going to be. Hopefully we have a good, decent baseline for the big races coming up, so we can be more confident in our decisions.”
