Inside Dirt Late Model Racing
Column: Moran reaches pinnacle with Lucas crown
Devin Moran was ready to drive his car onto the Eldora Speedway winner’s stage after his fourth-place finish in last Saturday’s 45th Dirt Track World Championship clinched his first-ever Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series title.
“I wanted to go right up there and celebrate,” Moran said later while standing in street clothes in the Rossburg, Ohio, track’s emptying pit area.
Alas, Moran had to wait. There was still the Burlile Ohio Valley Late Model Dirt Series feature and non-qualifiers’ race that officials were pushing to complete with rain threatening, so the championship coronation for 31-year-old driver from Dresden, Ohio, was delayed until those events ended. Moran parked his machine in the pit area just behind and to the side of the stage in the interim.
Which, actually, wasn’t so bad. When Moran climbed out of the cockpit, he was swarmed by a mass of humanity that seemed to grow larger by the minute. The excitement wasn’t dulled by the slight wait. It was, in fact, accentuated as Moran hugged family, friends and team members and posed for pictures with his many fans holding pit passes.
“It was awesome,” Moran said. “There was just people everywhere. I have such an amazing fan base and such an amazing support group of family, friends, sponsors and partners, and everybody was hanging out and loving it — and I’m right there in the middle of all of them.”
The emotion in Moran was evident as he moved from person to person, accepting congratulations for his career milestone. This was a moment that was a long time coming for a racer who began competing at the age of 14 and has been honing his skills on a national level for nearly a decade, but only one that was seemingly inevitable considering he was born into Dirt Late Model racing as the son of a Hall of Famer driver and has always been in love with it.
“When he was a little kid he sat in the grandstands to watch anything go around the racetrack,” said Donnie Moran, Devin’s 63-year-old father who’s a six-time crown jewel winner at Eldora. “He started racing quarter-midgets at almost 5 years old. At 13 we put him in a Late Model and let him practice. He started racing when he was 14, and he just kept getting better. And he had the desire to do it.”
There was never much doubt that piloting a Dirt Late Model for a living was in Moran’s future. He didn’t have his sights set on anything else. He wanted to be a race car driver and he put all his focus on making his dream come true.
Moran’s first taste of national touring came in 2015 — two years after he captured his first Lucas Oil Series event on July 3, 2013, at his family’s Muskingum County Speedway in Zanesville, Ohio — when he chased the Lucas Oil circuit in family-owned equipment. Since then he’s been a national tour regular every year but 2016, 2021 and ’22, running the World of Outlaws Real American Late Model Series in 2017-18 for fellow Ohioan Tye Twarog (finished fourth both years) and the Lucas Oil Series in ’19 for Dunn Benson Racing (finished sixth), ’20 for Twarog (eighth) and the last three years for Roger Sellers-backed Double Down Motorsports.
With consecutive runner-up finishes in the Lucas Oil standings before breaking through this season, it’s clear he’s been on a steady path to the promised land. He is the first to say, though, that there have been plenty of trials and tribulations along the way.
“I was talking to Drake Troutman earlier this week,” Moran said, referring to the 20-year-old WoO regular from Hyndman, Pa. “I think he’s a really, really good racer, and he’s young, he’s only 20. I told him he’s better than I was when I was 20, but it’s just a learning curve. Coming out here and doing what we’re doing is not easy, you know? Bobby Pierce, Ricky Thornton, they kind of defy those odds, but everybody else kind of goes through ‘em. Even J.D. (three-time Lucas Oil Series champion Jonathan Davenport) went through those years with (team owner Clint) Bowyer and struggling with other people, and then he became one of, if not the best, Late Model racer ever.
“It’s one of them deals, it just takes time, it takes experience. You got to learn your car, you got to learn the track, you got to learn everything inside of the sport. So it’s really hard and it takes a lot of time, but I’m getting to the point that I’m slowly starting to figure it out. Yeah, everything’s clicking.
“I’m not the youngest guy in the pits anymore. It’s just crazy, because I always felt like I was so young starting at 14, but I think this is my 17th year racing. I’ve definitely been around a little while and it's showing. I feel like I’ve learned so much. And I’ve had so many great mentors. Obviously, my dad is an amazing teacher and coach. Guys like (former Ohio racer and current technical consultant) Keith Berner — I can’t say nothing about Keith. And (engineer) Vinny Guliani, he’s amazing as well.
“I have all these people helping me, coaching me, teaching me,” he continued. “I just take everybody’s knowledge and try to figure out what’s the best and what I don’t want to know and go from there.”
Moran’s career was super-charged with his hiring by Sellers, the former RV dealer from Sevierville, Tenn., who found himself in the market for a driver after Hudson O’Neal of Martinsville, Ind., accepted the Rocket Chassis house car ride for 2023 late in the ’22 season. While Moran was tight with Twarog when Sellers offered his team’s seat, he saw an opportunity to further himself with Sellers’s resources and he hasn’t regretted his decision.
“He called me at Brownstown, Ind., during the Jackson (100) in (September) ’22 and started talking to me,” Moran recalled. “Me and Tye Twarog were really close and we still are. I mean, I talk to Tye all the time. It was really, really hard for me to leave Tye, but Roger’s such an amazing person, his family's amazing, and he’s a great car owner. So it was a choice I had to make, and (winning the Lucas Oil title) was our goal from the start and we made it happen.”
Sellers, 67, admitted that he “thought about quitting when Hudson left,” but he said his daughter, Casey Moses, convinced him to keep going. He’s glad she gave him the pep talk because he’s thoroughly enjoyed himself since bringing Moran on board.
“She said, ‘Dad, you love it. You don’t want to give it up. It’s what you live for. Do that,’ ” Sellers said, looking back at his crossroads in September 2022 as he wore a 2025 Lucas Oil Series Champion sweatshirt amid the rollicking postrace scene near his team’s trailer after the DTWC. “And she was right. I got a lot of things going on (including his ownership of Smoky Mountain Speedway in Maryville, Tenn.) so I can’t be at every race, but I am probably at 80 percent of ‘em because I enjoy it that much. Whether I get in there and help them or do anything at all, I think it’s good just for the morale of the team for me to be there, you know, because we’re all so close and we just cut up and have a good time.”
Moran believes he hit the jackpot with Moran, who checks all the boxes he wants in a driver.
“Like I’ve told a lot of people, I don’t have a whole lot of demands,” Sellers said. “But I do tell (the team) … I said, ‘Guys, I don’t want to ever hear you talking foul language around children or women. You can do what you want with you and the boys in the truck, but I don’t like it in front of people. I don’t want to ever hear you use the good Lord's name in vain, and I don’t want you to abuse alcohol — drugs are completely out of the picture.’ And I said, ‘For you, Devin, I want you to stand out there till the last picture’s taken and the last autograph’s signed.’
“That’s all it is for me. It’s simple enough. And they’ve stuck with it and worked hard.”
Moran feels he meshes perfectly with Sellers.
“He doesn’t say that just to put on a front. He’s sincere about it,” Moran said of the requirements. “That’s why me and Roger get along so well. I feel like our morals align very, very well, and we’ve talked about that and that’s what we want in our crew as well. So we find everybody that aligns with each other and we have the same goals, same accomplishments, and the same morals in life.”
And Moran has no problem adhering to Sellers’s wish that he interact with the fans until every last one that stops by the trailer after a race is obliged.
“He definitely loves that,” Moran said. “I have to get on my crew guys sometimes because they’re ready to load up, but I love keeping the car out and hanging out with people. When it’s not raining or nothing and we have the time, it’s perfect. We can hang out and have a good time.”
Sellers trusts Moran so completely that he’s provided him the ultimate stamp of approval: putting all of his equipment in Moran’s hands. From the start of their relationship Moran has maintained the team’s Longhorn Chassis at his family shop in Dresden, Ohio.
“I wouldn’t do that probably just for anybody,” said Sellers, who still has his own shop in Morristown, Tenn., that Moran uses when he’s in the area. “But when Devin asked me that, I knew that would probably be the case because he was up there with his family, he’s got his shop up there and everything like that. And it worked out good for him, and a lot of that’s trust, too. And I do trust everyone. I don’t have no problem with that. And honestly, it’s given me more time to be able to do some of the things that I’m involved with back home because I don’t go up the shop every day.
“I’ve seen it not work out more than it does, but it does work for us. That’s a good thing. I have no problem with it. I’m glad to be able to do that and keep the family together that way.”
Sellers has also assembled a formidable racing program that, even as it stands as a champion, still has plenty of room to grow. Crew chief Chuck Kimble is just 26 years old but has been with Moran for three years and “is indispensable,” Sellers said, noting that Kimble has “built his own (Punisher) chassis” and is a “tireless” worker.” Crewman Dillon Klein and Nick “Two-Tone” Smith are young and energetic as well, and Sellers said he’s planning to add another full-timer in Houston Null, a University of Northwest Ohio student who has helped the team periodically this season (including at Eldora) and will graduate in December.
“I guess it’s the seventh year that we’ve run the Lucas Oil Series,” said Sellers, who preceded Moran with two years on tour with Shanon Buckingham of Morristown, Tenn. (2019-20) and O’Neal (2021-22). “We just gradually built it, but I try to surround myself with good people, the driver, the team, whatever it may be, and it all works out. And I really feel like, honestly, we have the best team there is the country now. Everybody’s on the same page.”
There were some hiccups for Moran and Co. this season en route to the $250,000 championship. A strong start on the Lucas Oil tour saw Moran win five times by the end of April, but a mid-summer lull seemed to put him behind Thornton and Davenport as a title contender. He rallied, though, down the stretch, securing one of the four spots in the Big River Steel Chase for the Championship while finishing outside the top five just once in the last 12 races of the regular season. Then he was virtually flawless in the five-race Chase, winning once and adding a second, two thirds and a fourth to beat Thornton by a healthy 85 points.
“My whole motto was always, ‘Ride the wave.’ Don’t ever get too high, and never get too low, you know?” Donnie Moran said. “And he had a rough, rough time this summer. They was down and out for a while and things wasn’t going right, and he just kept digging. I said, ‘Just wait, Devin. Just keep working.’ ”
Donnie Moran witnessed first hand how Devin and his crew kept grinding through the struggles to rise up for the title. He sees them regularly in the shop and they “work their butts off and do what needs to be done.”
“I’m not saying they deserve it more than anybody else, but they definitely deserve it,” Donnie said. “They worked hard, you know, to put themselves in position to be in the top four, that’s an accomplishment in itself. And this time Devin grabbed it and took it.”
Moran won nine Lucas Oil races, an increase from his seven victories in 2024 and two in ’23, when he lost the title to O’Neal on the last lap of the DTWC under the one-race, winner-take-all format of the first Chase season. His time — and Sellers’s — finally came this season.
“I just say God has a plan for everything, and this was his plan this year and that (second-place finishes) was his plan then,” Moran said. “So lord in the Lord, and he always knows what’s best, so we just keep doing what He says.”
Sellers relished the gold strike as well.
“They’re not easy to come by,” Sellers said. “We’ve been so close. Going back to Hudson’s days, we were leading it for a while there (in 2021) and then got second, then fourth (in ’22). Then go back to Devin, finishes second, second, lost the one on the last lap — that was a heartbreaker, but I was still glad to see Hudson be able to get it because he worked hard for it, too.
“But yeah, we finally got it. It’s good to see everybody here, too. We’ve got a huge following with all the Moran family, the Hedman family (Devin’s wife Lakia’s parents), all our sponsors and fans. It was a great time for it to all come together. We’re in their old stomping grounds in Ohio, so you got all the Morans and everybody else here.”
Moran’s entire family was at Eldora on Saturday, including his father Donnie and mother Brenda and all his siblings — brothers Brodie, Tristin and Wylie and sister Savanna, who is an Eldora trophy presenter — and their significant others and kids. Lakia’s parents — her father Bump Hedman is a veteran western Pennsylvania Dirt Late Model racer — were on hand as well. They were all watching for the hillside in turn one and then joined the pit area party afterward.
“We are going to savor this for the rest of the night,” Devin said. “We’re going to have a couple of beers and hang out with my friends and family and enjoy this first championship.”
And guess who the last driver left in the pit area was nearly three hours after the checkered flag? Moran, of course.
Ten things worth mentioning
1. Moran isn’t packing it in for 2025 after clinching the Lucas Oil Series title. He has four more race weekends on his schedule, starting with his late decision to enter this weekend’s Valvoline American Late Model Iron-Man Series doubleheader at Atomic Speedway in Alma, Ohio, that includes $5,000- and $15,000-to-win events. He’ll close out his ’25 action with Nov. 5-8’s WoO World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte in Concord, N.C., Nov. 14-15’s FloRacing Night in America-sanctioned Peach State Classic at Senoia (Ga.) Raceway and Dec. 4-6’s Gateway Dirt Nationals at The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis, Mo.
2. Moran’s pursuit of the championship at Eldora produced a rare racetrack appearance by his younger brother Wylie, who worked as a crew member alongside his sibling until deciding to back away from racing a couple years ago and build his car detailing business. The 28-year-old who now sports a slick mustache attended Saturday’s action with his wife Jordan. When I saw him in the pit area after the DTWC, he expressed happiness not only with his brother’s achievement but also the fact that the race ended at 6:45 p.m. because officials started earlier with rain threatening. “I can be home by midnight now,” said Wylie, who lives three hours from Eldora. “I like that. I go to bed early now.”
3. As the crowd at Moran’s pit stall was dying down a few hours after the DTWC’s checkered flag, his buddy Bobby Pierce, the $100,000 race winner, walked over from his nearby loaded-up trailer to chat. Pierce was wearing a Chicago Bears sweatshirt, which sparked a back-and-forth with Moran, a Cleveland Browns fan. I then was a witness to a wager between the two that will be settled later this year. “The Bears are winning a playoff game,” Pierce told Moran, confident in his NFL team’s resurgence this year. Moran responded by saying, “They ain’t making the playoffs! What do you wanna bet?” Pierce suggested $100, and the two pals shook hands on it. “You all saw that,” Moran said, before telling Pierce, “That’s a horrible bet for you.” Moran, of course, made no such reciprocal bet that his Browns will make the playoffs, let alone win a game.
4. After settling for a runner-up finish in the 2025 Lucas Oil Series standings, Ricky Thornton Jr. is heading back to his home state of Arizona this weekend to tackle a different racing discipline. He has a wingless sprint car ride with Petty Performance Racing for the 58th annual Western World Championships at Central Arizona Raceway in Casa Grande, the track that in January will host the six-night Wild West Shootout for Super Late Models.
5. Thornton’s sprint car racing will continue in two weeks. He’s already entered to drive the Indy Racing Products 410 sprinter in the NOS Energy World of Outlaws Sprint Car portion of Nov. 5-8’s World Finals, where he’ll pull double-duty with his Koehler Motorsports Dirt Late Model. Could there be a Northeast big-block modified team out there who can give RTJ a ride for the Super DIRTcar Series action as well so he can run all three divisions?
6. While Jonathan Davenport was chasing glory at Eldora last weekend, his soon-to-be 13-year-old son, Blane, was busy back home in South Carolina competing in a pair of fishing tournaments as a member of his school’s fishing team. Blane, who attends Palmetto Middle School and fishes with the junior division of his high school’s team, joined his teammates in finishing 11th out of 47 entered boats in the South Carolina Bass Nation tournament and winning the TBF Federation tournament.
7. Rachel Davenport, J.D.’s wife and Blane’s mom, related that Blane loves fishing — J.D., of course, is an angler himself — said “he’s sure dedicated because it’s a lot of work, really early mornings and long days, but he gets up easier to go fishing than he does school.” Rachel added that it wouldn’t surprise her if Blane pursued being a professional Bass Master-style fisherman because he’s so into the sport. “I’ve always said I love the passion Jonathan has for racing, and lo and behold if I don’t see the same with Blane and fishing,” Rachel said. “The apple ain’t falling far with them.”
8. Jonathan Davenport took a late-morning flight to Eldora on Friday so he could see Blane off to his tournament weekend before heading to the DTWC. That later departure caused him to miss Friday afternoon’s Lucas Oil Series press conference for the four Chase drivers, which learned about too late to attend because he wasn’t unable to arrive at the track until 3 p.m.
9. Saturday’s high temperature at Eldora reached the low 80s, unseasonably warm for late October in western Ohio. It was still short-sleeves conditions well into the evening, in fact. Unfortunately, there was no cooling off during the afternoon with an ice cream at the nearby Dairy Dream in St. Henry, which was already closed for the season. Hoosier Tire rep and Dairy Dream fan Shanon Rush and I both mourned the missed opportunity.
10. And talking about Eldora, DTWC promoter Carl Short and the Lucas Oil Series being fortunate that Sunday’s weather didn’t arrive one day — or actually about 12 hours — earlier. Heavy rain began to pelt the area during Saturday’s overnight hours, and when I awoke in Celina, Ohio, to head home Sunday morning it was still rainy, dreary and raw with the temperature in the 50s.
