Brownstown Speedway
Professionalism key for drama-free Lucas playoff
By Todd Turner
DirtonDirt managing editor
Checking out the Brownstown oval. (DirtonDirt)
BROWNSTOWN, Ind. (Sept. 26) — No driver wants to get in a wreck competing on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. But during the five-race Big River Steel Chase for the Championship that begins Friday at Brownstown (Ind.) Speedway, drivers particularly don’t want to tangle with, upset or hinder any of the four series drivers chasing the $250,000 tour championship. | RaceWire
In some cases, reigning series champ Ricky Thornton Jr. of Chandler, Ariz., Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga., Devin Moran of Dresden, Ohio, and Hudson O’Neal of Martinsville, Ind., might get a wider berth battling non-playoff competitors at the quarter-mile oval in Southern Indiana, which hosts the $10,000-to-win C.J. Rayburn Memorial on Friday and the $50,000-to-win Jackson 100 on Saturday.
"I’d say like if those guys are pulling up a slider, you might not try to rush around the outside,” said Brownstown regular Cody Mahoney of Madison, Ind., among the weekend's Lucas Oil entrants. “You may let them go ahead and slide up and lift for them and then maybe try to turn back under. There's a lot of different scenarios that would go on there, but you definitely want to mind, mind your P's and Q's with them.”
Drivers are typically aware of who they’re battling, and while the playoff scenario over the next five races adds a wrinkle, Lucas Oil Series director Rick Schwallie expects competitors to handle it all professionally.
"I ultimately feel like everybody shows up to the race to win the race,” Schwallie said Friday afternoon in the series trailer. “Everybody should have an opportunity to go out there and compete. Hopefully, everybody shows one another respect, whether it's playoff guy or non-playoff guy.”
Schwallie will handle race-directing duties and talk to drivers via the one-way communication system, but he doesn’t plan to issue warnings to drivers to be extra careful among the Big River Steel Big Four.
"We won't like put a hedge of protection around those guys or anything, so to speak,” he said. “Hopefully that just doesn't happen on the racetrack. Hopefully everybody races at a professional level and it's all fine. But I think everybody's here to win the race. That's why they come in the gate.”
Lucas Oil regular Clay Harris of Jupiter, Fla., knows that the playoff drivers, already clearly the best drivers on the series, will raise their competition level another notch at Brownstown, next weekend at Pittsburgh's Pennsylvania Motor Speedway and for the Oct. 17-18 finale at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio.
"I know them boys are definitely going to try a lot harder when you know it's the playoff season,” Harris said. “The nerves are getting up. They're trying to win this championship, so they're going to drive way harder than they usually do for sure, and they're not going to give you an inch. They never do, but it's definitely a lot closer now.”
Harris is confident enough in his skills that he’s going to race them just like he’s raced them all season.
"I try not to run anybody over in general, but like if I'm in contention to win, I ain't gonna give nobody an inch for sure. I don't care who they are honestly,” he said. "I'm here to win races, not do nothing else.”
Lucas Oil Series rookie Dan Ebert of Lake Shore, Minn., says he’ll take note if Thornton’s No. 20rt, Davenport’s No. 49, Moran’s No. 99 or O’Neal’s No. 71 are in his proximity at Brownstown.
“Naturally, I'm going to look out for those guys a little more, particularly if — and I don't plan to be — but if I happen to be off the pace, I'm definitely going to give them more room because at the end of the day down the road if roles were reversed, I would like and appreciate the same from them,” Ebert said. "I've always been taught to race people the way that they race you. So I'd be happy to give respect to those guys. They've clearly earned it and with me being a rookie this year, I definitely don't want to ruffle too many feathers.”
Mahoney, who comes to Brownstown fresh off his career-richest victory two weeks earlier at Hidden Hollow Speedway in Colson, Ky., says he’ll keep it in mind that he’s a supporting actor in the season-long points chase on a series where he rarely competes.
“For me, obviously it doesn't matter much, but you see how hard them guys have worked all season long so the last thing you want to do is get involved in some kind of altercation with them,” Mahoney said. “But they're so good, I mean, you don't really have to worry. You're more likely to have to worry about yourself more than you got to worry about them, right?
"I'd probably cut them guys more slack knowing how hard they've worked and they went this far in the season with their points and what they've got on the line than maybe you would anybody else.”
While Schwallie said series officials “look forward to that type of pressure” in fairly officiating high-profile events, he’s hopeful there aren’t tough calls that involve the playoff competitors.
In a playoff event last season at Brownstown, playoff contender Tim McCreadie was involved in a close-call caution while running seventh that forced him to go to the rear of the field. A driver getting sideways is a routine call in many ways, Schwallie said, but the ruling had more eyes on it because it involved a playoff contender and left him with a 19th-place finish.
"I feel like we're consistent in calling that that way every time, but it's never popular when you have to, whoever it is,” Schwallie said.
Ideally, playoff contenders won’t be involved in controversial wrecks or rulings during the tour’s final five events.
"You want them to settle it out there and not involve us,” Schwallie said, “and give them the fairest chance that they can race.”
