Brownstown Speedway
Big Four take lumps as Lucas Oil opens playoffs
By Bryan Ault
Special to DirtonDirt
Hudson O'Neal (71) goes around on the seventh lap. (heathlawsonphotos.com)
BROWNSTOWN, Ind. (Sept. 26) — The Big River Steel Chase for the Championship began with the so-called Big Four on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series taking a few lumps.
The quartet facing off in the five-race, playoff-style dealt with tangles, flats, spins and subpar qualifying efforts in Friday’s C.J. Rayburn Memorial at Brownstown Speedway that saw series invader Nick Hoffman pocketing a $10,000 victory ahead of Saturday’s $50,000-to-win Jackson 100. | RaceWire
In the end, Devin Moran of Dresden, Ohio, made a 10th-to-third charge to finish best among the playoff entrants, with series points leader Ricky Thornton Jr. of Chandler, Ariz., fourth. Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga., led the first nine laps before a flat tire and insult-to-injury tangle left him with a 14th-place finish. Worst of all was Hudson O’Neal of Martinsville, Ind., who had a heat-race scrape with Tyler Erb, then suffered race-ending damage in the 40-lapper after contact with Thornton on an early restart.
Amid a mix of emotions in a wild race, Moran was happy to emerge unscathed in finishing third behind Mooresville, N.C.’s Hoffman and Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill., who was eight-hundredths of a second behind at the checkers.
“We survived, so that was the biggest thing,” Moran said. “I felt like our car was really good, especially at the end. I felt like I was better than Sheppy running around that bottom, but just not really anywhere to go. But out of the Big Four, we won the race of the four. We still got a lot of catching up to do for Ricky, but it's a great way to start the playoffs.”
Moran was a middling 24th overall in time trials, but managed to salvage the night.
“This place is so pill-draw dominant,” the Double Down Motorsports driver said. “You have to have a good pill draw and we were the last car to go out and then it felt like we had a good position in the heat. I let it get by, slipped through my hands, and then just had to work really hard and my guys did that and gave me a great car.
"Nick was really good up through the middle of the track, and I think tomorrow the track's going to be more that way. I really feel like we're just going to have to work on our maneuverability for our car and see what we can do.”
Chandler, who entered the playoffs with a 70-point edge, ceded some ground to Moran but feels confident ahead of Saturday’s 100-lapper.
“Lost a little bit to Devin,” Thornton said, “but as long as we can keep him right there in front of us, hopefully tomorrow we can outrun him and pull back away from him a little bit. But overall, good night for us.”
O’Neal, the hometown favorite hopeful for a big weekend at his home track in the quest for his second series title, was dejected as he leaned against his team’s pit cart and tried to digest the night’s events. The seventh-lap tangle with Thornton on in turn one caused O’Neal to spin in front of the field. He collected an onrushing Daniel Hilsabeck, causing right-front suspension damage to the SSI Motorsports machine.
Retiring in 22nd place, O’Neal's title bid took a serious blow, leaving him 165 points behind Thornton heading into Saturday’s finale.
“Just part of it, I guess. I don't know,” O’Neal said. “I don't really have much to say, but (Thornton) just didn't go on a restart and I had him at my right-rear quarterpanel getting off into (turn) one, nothing different than he or anybody else in this field would have done. Nothing really much to say, just really unfortunate. You know, you're running hard all year to get to this point and to being a running for a championship and now our championship hopes are probably over. It's a tough one to swallow.”
“It just sucks,” he added. “I feel bad for my guys. It's just part of racing, though. There’s a reason they make tomorrow.”
Thornton said the contact with O’Neal wasn’t intentional.
“I didn't get that great of a start and he got under me, and we hit getting into (turn) one, and then I slowed down and I caught the rut and got tight, and then ran into the back of him,” Thornton said. “I was trying to go to the outside of him there and I didn't think he was going to park it on the tire to exit down there, and I ran into him and turned him around. Obviously, you don't want that to happen either. Like I said, I was more trying to get back to the outside of him just because I knew I wasn't gonna be able to get off of (turn) two very good.
“These deals mean way too much to wreck a guy on purpose to take yourself out of it, so hopefully, something like that doesn’t happen tomorrow,” he added. “I think J.D. was better than all of us. Once he got clean air, it's tough to really make a big run at that guy.”
Davenport, who entered the playoffs second in points while chasing his fourth series title, appeared to be on the fast track to his best finish at Brownstown since a 2022 victory at a Castrol FloRacing Night in America event. He set fast time, led all eight laps of his heat race, then paced the first nine circuits before a flat left-rear on the ninth lap ruined his outing.
Restarting at the back of the field, Davenport three laps later made contact with a spinning Hilsabeck, making sure there’d be no miracle rally.
“He just spun out, and I didn't have nowhere to go,” Davenport said. “I've been running the bottom, and I just moved to the middle, and as soon as I moved to the middle … (Carson Ferguson) was up there, so I didn't want to go all the way in his lane, and he just run out. I mean, I'll have to watch the video, but I'm pretty sure his driver door was straight in the field, so the caution should have been on him also. But that's the way it goes. Just made our night even rougher.”
The contact with Hilsabeck caused significant suspension damage for Davenport’s machine.
Despite the rough night, Davenport put himself in position or his first Lucas Oil victory at Brownstown since 2015’s Jackson 100.
“It was just giving confidence to our guys. They’ve been really working hard and we've been thinking a lot (about) what we can do to be better here, and obviously we was,” Davenport said. “We got a good draw today, and that probably made us look a little better than we probably was. We tried to capitalize on it and just didn't work out for us.”
