Golden Isles Speedway
It's musical driver seats at Golden Isles
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt senior writer
Donald McIntosh is back with Billy Hicks Racing. (heathlawsonphotos.com)
BRUNSWICK, Ga. (March 5) — Cory Hedgecock out of the Billy Hicks Racing ride and temporarily in Bruce Kane’s car. Donald McIntosh back with Hicks. Cody Overton subbing for an ailing Tyler Bruening.
Yes, it was an eventful Thursday at Golden Isles Speedway before Round 2 of the Wieland Winternationals even began.
Three driver changes on a single night in the middle of a multiday event — whether early, middle or late in a season — is highly unusual, so it certainly grabbed the spotlight and became the talk of the pit area. Or at least until the racing started, because on this occasion all the players in the pre-race drama didn’t factor into the evening’s results on the track.
Hedgecock didn’t qualify for the 40-lap feature after struggling to adjust to Kane’s car during heat action. McIntosh retired early to save Hicks’s equipment after starting via a provisional. Overton was involved in a tangle that beat up the nose and other parts of Bruening’s Skyline Motorsports mount.
There were no storybook endings with these moves, just the details that led to them.
The Hedgecock-Hicks saga was the most significant long-term news of the day. Hicks, a former standout Dirt Late Model driver from Mount Airy, N.C., who has become a team owner, hired Loudon, Tenn.’s Hedgecock last fall to chase this year’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series schedule but the 33-year-old racer’s Rookie of the Year bid in the Billy Hicks Racing Longhorn Chassis No. 79 didn’t even make it out of Georgia-Florida Speedweeks.
“Things were just not working as smoothly as I thought it should and Cory didn't think so either,” Hicks said. “It was just time for a change. It just wasn’t gonna happen.”
Hedgecock agreed with Hicks. He took the seat hoping Hicks’s experience running the Lucas Oil Series in 2025 with Dawsonville, Ga.’s McIntosh, who earned Rookie of the Year honors, would help break him onto the national scene but the chemistry wasn’t there. Hedgecock struggled through Speedweeks with two top-10 finishes — both at All-Tech Raceway in Ellisville, Fla., where he placed eighth and ninth — in eight starts, including a DNQ on Wednesday after he spun in a heat race.
“It wasn’t working out,” said Hedgecock, who departed the team ranked 13th in the Lucas Oil points standings. “I wasn't comfortable in that car at all. I just couldn’t ever really get anything to work out to where I can make the race car feel the way I want it to, and it was just not working for both me and him. I was having zero fun.”
Hicks’s decision effectively came after Wednesday’s program. He called McIntosh that night and asked the 32-year-old driver, who has been without a ride since leaving his short-lived deal with Coltman Farms Racing in late January, if he’d like to come back.
“He was on his way down able to help Garrett Alberson (on Thursday) anyway,” Hicks said, “so I told him to throw his seat and helmet in there and let’s go.”
McIntosh was “excited” when Hicks called. He'd left the team on good terms last October to pursue an opportunity with Coltman Farms Racing to run the Lucas Oil Series this season, but his stint with the Maysville, Ga.-based operation ended abruptly after January’s World of Outlaws Late Model Series-sanctioned Sunshine Nationals at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla.
“It feels like old times,” McIntosh said of reuniting with Hicks. “We’re comfortable with each other. It was a long year last year, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t long in terms of him and I getting along. It was just tough racing against the best there is at tracks you’ve never run. We’ve always got along well and make adjustments well to what we want to do. I think we’ll have some fun.”
Hicks said he doesn’t have “a long-range plan” but is likely to continue racing with McIntosh after Golden Isles.
“We ain’t worried about the points, it’s all about racing right now,” said Hicks, who didn’t rule out continuing with the Lucas Oil Series but acknowledged that McIntosh would be handicapped in the points race.
Hedgecock landed a ride for the remaining Golden Isles events with Kane, the Maryland team owner who had his hauler in the pit area because he’s helping Cody Overton. It was Overton, who drove Kane’s No. 15K the previous two weeks at All-Tech and Ocala (Fla.) Speedway, who helped pair Hedgecock with Kane.
Making his first start in a Rocket Chassis in “seven or eight years,” Hedgecock never found a rhythm on Thursday and ultimately scratched from his B-main to look toward Friday’s program.
The future beyond Speedweeks for Hedgecock, however, is uncertain. He said he’ll enter his family-owned team, which includes Longhorn and BMF (his father’s chassis) cars, in the next Lucas Oil Series events on March 27-28 at Atomic Speedway in Alma, Ohio, and Brownstown (Ind.) Speedway, but then he’ll have to decide if trying to follow the national tour will be financially feasible.
“As far as straight, like, cash (to run the Lucas Oil Series), we probably don’t have enough,” Hedgecock said. “And I refuse to make dad go drain the checking account for me to race. We do a pretty good job about racing (regionally) and making money and at the end of the year it’s paid for itself, and I know with Lucas it will not, no matter how good I do. We’ll just have to round some stuff (backing) up there and everything if we’re going to do it.”
Evans, Ga.’s Overton, meanwhile, surprised observers with his appearance on the roster in Bruening’s No. 16. The opportunity arose for the 28-year-old through his friendship with Bruening, who decided to step out of the cockpit following Wednesday’s program because of neck pain related to his Feb. 26 heat-race crash at Ocala.
“Me and Tyler are really close, we talk a lot, and (Bruening’s crew chief) Zeb (Holkesvik) has been helping me a lot,” said Overton, who has experienced a roller-coaster Speedweeks in his first year fielding his own Super Late Model effort. “Tyler’s just not feeling good, and his dad (Greg) wanted to race tonight because they’re trying to work the new (AK Race Cars) out, and he just said, ‘Hey, look, I know it’s like tough on you right now and you’re trying to do it yourself. Do you want to just take a break? Your stuff’s finally in one piece. Come drive mine tonight, see how everything goes, and then you can get back in your car.’
“I’m like, ‘You know what? Hell, yeah.’ It’ll give me a break, save me some money. And they've all been super cool to me, so I ain’t gonna turn it down.”
Bruening, 40, was at the track collaborating with Overton throughout the night but moving gingerly because of his sore neck. He said he wanted badly to race at Golden Isles — it’s the track where last year he won his first-ever national touring series feature in the Lucas Oil Series season opener — and thought he made it through the night feeling relatively good (though he didn’t qualify), but when he awoke on Thursday morning his neck was aching and he even felt a bit light-headed. He knew it was time to take some time off and see his regular doctor for further evaluation when he gets back home to Decorah, Iowa.
Overton was glad he could fill in for Bruening. He wanted to make sure everyone realized, though, it was just a temporary arrangement.
“Everybody’s on this internet saying I got a full-time ride and this and that,” said Overton, who did talk to the Bruenings last year about becoming Tyler’s teammate before young Iowa racer Dallon Murty was hired in that role. “I’m over here telling Dallon, ‘Dude, I’m not trying to take your ride, I swear.’ I’m just trying to make Tyler and Greg, happy and Tyler’s always been there since day one when I started racing the Outlaws … he’s just kind of been the guy I always went to, so I was like, ‘Hell yeah, I’ll do it.’ ”
Overton also had to calm his wife, Ahnna, who wasn’t at the track, when she learned of his Skyline Motorsports ride.
“I didn't actually tell her because we were just talking about it, and then she saw it on Facebook and said, ‘What is that?’ I’m like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, chill. Quit looking at Facebook. We’re not moving to Iowa,’ ” Overton said with a laugh.
