Brownstown Speedway
After missing '24 playoffs, O'Neal right in mix
By Bryan Ault
Special to DirtonDirt
Hudson O'Neal and crew chief Jason Durham. (DirtonDirt)
BROWNSTOWN, Ind. (Sept. 26) — Winning championships in any sport depends on momentum. Peaking at the right time has a way of giving teams and athletes confidence heading into big-time showdowns when championships are on the line and the pressure is at its highest. | RaceWire
Even though he faces an 80-point deficit to points leader Ricky Thornton Jr. thanks to the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series playoff seeding, Hudson O’Neal has every reason to be confident heading into the Big River Steel Chase for the Championship, starting Friday at his hometown track and its biggest annual weekend: Brownstown (Ind.) Speedway’s Jackson 100.
“Ricky's out there 60 or 70 points or whatever, but us and J.D. are pretty close,” O’Neal said Friday afternoon ahead of the fourth annual C.J. Rayburn Memorial. “And Devin (Moran), we're all pretty close right there. We're going to have to have some really good nights and Ricky's going to have to have a couple mediocre nights, you know, to be able to even it all out. But anything's possible. Whenever people start breaking or something, it can even out in hurry.”
The 24-year-old driver from nearby Martinsville, Ind., is coming off a strong performance at the Lucas Oil Late Model Knoxville Nationals. After flipping wildly during Thursday’s preliminary race, his Jason Durham-led SSI Motorsports team unloaded a backup car, rallied from his 15th starting position and dominated late in the 75-lapper, crossing the finish line more than eight seconds ahead of Thornton.
One year ago, O’Neal found himself on the outside looking in on the playoff chase as he sought to defend his 2023 series title, finishing fifth in points in a season filled with drama. Following Speedweeks, he departed the Mark Richards-owned Rocket Chassis house car and opted to run his own program before rejoining SSI Motorsports.
One year later, a full season with the Morgantown, Ind.-based SSI team has him in a much stronger position. In many ways, his triumph at Knoxville closely resembles his season: he recorded just three top-five finishes on the Lucas Oil tour's portion of Speedweeks, putting him in a hole from which he spent all season climbing out of. Even during the World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series stops at Florida’s Volusia Speedway Park, his best finish was a 20th-place run.
“Whenever we came out of Speedweeks, I don't even know that we were inside the top 10,” he said. “We had a long road to hoe, that's for sure. And yeah, we made a good hire in (crew chief) Jason Durham and he's turned our program around a lot and really helped us. It takes somebody key like that to rally the troops and bring them together and, you know, he's assembled a good team underneath of him to where everybody does a really good job and I think that's the biggest thing that's helped us, you know, get back to race for a championship again.”
The addition of Durham in March was the beginning of a turnaround. Durham — a longtime veteran who was head wrench for Jonathan Davenport during his 2022 season that saw the Blairsville, Ga., driver pocket more than $2 million in winnings — believes his driver has immense potential and sees a lot of similarities between the two racers despite their 17-year age gap.
“Hud's just, he is still very young, but he has a lot of talent, you know what I mean? He's got a lot of natural talent,” Durham said. “The other drivers in the past, they hit their prime, you know, probably in their late 30s, early 40s. Like at 24, he's probably ahead of a lot of those guys, just because of car control and knowing when to go and knowing when to save his tires and with a lot of that stuff. He's already leaps and bounds ahead of a lot of older people. He's had people that teach him like his dad, (Hall of Fame driver) Don (O’Neal), and he's been around good people.”
The younger O’Neal’s season began shifting in a positive direction over the summer, starting with back-to-back preliminary wins at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo., in May. He recorded two series victories at Ohio’s Muskingum County Speedway on July 5 and July 19 at Huset’s Speedway in Brandon, S.D. While he didn’t find victory lane in August, he recorded four top-five finishes which played a key role in catapulting him into the Chase for the Championship.
The 52-year-old Durham thinks O’Neal shares a lot of similarities with Davenport, a multitime Lucas Oil Series champion who currently sits second in points behind Thornton.
“Ironically, when we started this deal, I asked Hud day one, I said, ‘How do you want to drive?’ He said, ‘I'd rather drive right-front-first and straight, not sideways, bent out of shape,’ which is the same way J.D. drives. So that was a plus for me because I was already going in that direction. And that's the best direction to go in. I mean, J.D.’s a long-race racer, you know what I mean? Not that he can't get up on a wheel and get it done, same as Hudson, but most races that pay a lot of money are 100 laps, and that's when you got to get it done. But no, he is very similar to J.D. in driving style.”
“What you got to understand is, Hud’s 24 years old,” Durham added. “Add 20 years, he's only 44 years old. So, yes, it's probably endless for him for what he can accomplish.”
O’Neal also thinks Durham has made the SSI team gel since coming aboard in March.
“We're all getting along, we all cut up, we have fun, and that's what it's got to be,” Durham said. “This Late Model deal now anymore is a tough grind, and if you can't have a little bit of fun with it and enjoy each other, if you're ready to kill each other after two or three weeks, it ain't going to work.”
“We‘ve just been on the same page since we started,” O’Neal added. “You know, we're really good at communicating and knowing what we mean whenever we talk to each other, which is a lot. And he can see what I feel in a race car, which is so important whenever those two things are on the same page. So, yeah, it's been a great, great relationship and I think this is going to be a deal where we’re going to be together for a long time.”
O’Neal’s focus now shifts to the big weekend at the quarter-mile oval he knows like the back of his hand after cutting his teeth in Crate Late Models before capturing 2019’s Jackson 100.
That isn’t to say a strong run at Brownstown is a guarantee after finishes of 25th in March's Indiana Icebreaker and 12th in last year’s annual century grind, he knows he’ll need to step it up to have a chance of winning his second series title.
“This place is really tough,” O’Neal said. “This place will pick out a good race car in a hurry. It's one of those places that gets so technical and so slick and I got a lot of laps around here, but it just takes a lot out of your race car to be able to win here. But I think we have a good race car. We've kind of gotten a little bit better here over the last couple weeks, and I think we've been working in the right direction.”
“It would be really special. Anytime I get to come back to Brownstown and race in front of my hometown crowd, and there's so many familiar faces around here. This place brings back so many memories and it's a lot of fun to come back and see all those people no matter how the weekend goes. It’s a great weekend to be back.”
