Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series
Paylor team owners love Ferguson 'like a son'
By Kyle McFadden
DirtonDirt staff reporter
Carson Ferguson at Brownstown Speedway. (heathlawsonphotos.com)
In a motorsports world full of zealous, up-and-coming drivers pushing to become the next hired gun, how does one truly stand out beyond sheer passion and the ability to wheel a race car? If you ask Dirt Late Model team owners Donald and Gina Bradsher, the blueprint is right in front of them.
Just look at Carson Ferguson.
“He’s just one of those guys — when you meet him, he has the utmost respect for people,” said Donald Bradsher, owner of Ferguson’s No. 93 Paylor Motorsports ride on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. “He’s kindhearted and he’s truly a Christian. I don’t wanna put nobody down, but in this sport, that’s hard to find. Sometimes you find people who are there to use you up. Carson’s not like that.”
It’s no secret the 26-year-old from Lincolnton, N.C., hasn’t yet fully tapped into his potential at Dirt Late Model racing’s national touring level. Through 108 series starts, Ferguson is still chasing his first Lucas Oil victory and looking to build on last year’s ninth-place points finish — currently sitting 12th through 14 races of a 60-race schedule — in the same ride that Tim McCreadie drove to back-to-back series championships in 2021 and 2022.
But beneath the surface, the Bradshers see countless reasons for their unwavering investment in Ferguson since hiring him in 2021 when he was still a budget Crate Late Model racer with his struggling family team.
“Just who he is has always impressed us, ever since we met him,” Gina Bradsher said. “We love him like a son.”
Now, the Bradshers are hoping the wider motorsports world sees what they’ve long believed when Ferguson makes his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway with Kaulig Racing.
That opportunity comes from his performance on Ram’s Race for the Seat — Fox’s eight-episode reality series featuring 15 grassroots racers competing for a full-time Truck Series ride with Kaulig Racing — where he won four of the 10 competitions.
Though Ferguson ultimately fell just short to Mini Tyrrell, he’s still earned an opportunity of a lifetime and gets to carry the mantle for Dirt Late Model racing in the NASCAR world.
Dirt fans might wonder: how did Ferguson get the nod to represent dirt-track racing over, say, Bobby Pierce or Ricky Thornton Jr. — winners of more than a combined 175 features since 2023?
“I think the way the dirt people are looking at it, well, like, you don't run up front in a national race. Why does he get a chance to do that, you know?” Ferguson said. “They think it should be Bobby (Pierce) or Ricky — and they are very deserving, you know? — but I feel like everybody is good out here.”
Ferguson’s wide-ranging resume, which spans far beyond Dirt Late Models, impressed Kaulig Racing. For instance, he’s the only driver to sweep the Dirt Nationals, Asphalt Nationals and Road Course World Finals in a legends car in a single season.
That, paired with prior exposure to Kaulig Racing CEO Chris Rice through Donald and Gina Bradsher, put him on the radar.
“Which that probably helped, but he showed his talent,” Gina Bradsher said.
“Chris reached out to us because he watched him race through us,” Donald Bradsher added. “It’s really nothing to do with us. It’s his talent that got him the opportunity to go there.”
And once given that opportunity, Ferguson validated it.
Short tracks, road courses, pavement Late Models, legend cars, go-karts, on-camera skills, fitness challenges, simulator adaptability — Ferguson showed few weaknesses, proving himself a well-rounded talent in every facet.
“I think he was a little nervous to begin with, then once he got his feeling and stuff, he went in there and showed ’em what he could do,” Donald Bradsher said, referencing Ferguson’s fourth-place result in his opening five-driver legend car group race at South Boston (Va.) Speedway.
He won four of the 10 competitions: a Late Model race at Caraway Speedway in Sophia, N.C.; a legend car feature on South Boston’s road course layout by nearly four seconds; the $50,000-to-win Late Model finale at South Boston; and even the fitness challenge.
At Virginia International Raceway’s road course, he added a pair of runner-up finishes — in a go-kart decided by a photo finish and in a Late Model to Tyrrell — all against drivers with far more pavement experience.
He also placed fourth in the on-camera challenge where all 15 drivers filmed a commercial for Ram.
“He’s a guy that you want on your team, in your camp, because he can do it on the racetrack,” Rice said during the Race for the Seat. “And we can teach him to do it off the racetrack.”
The Race for the Seat format, however, left little margin for error, with each on-track challenge split into three five-driver races and scored on a 10-8-7-6-5 scale.
Ferguson’s biggest setbacks were that fourth-place finish in the opening round and a ninth-place result in the 15-driver simulator challenge — a qualifying run around virtual Richmond (Va.) Raceway that never suited him.
“Between the motion sickness and trying to figure out feelings that were being relayed through sensors, it was very different for me,” Ferguson said.
No challenge proved more costly, though, than the final points competition, where Ferguson’s one-point lead over Mini Tyrrell evaporated when Tyrrell won his group race just before Ferguson took the track for his finale. Ferguson put himself behind in qualifying, where he started and finished fifth — dead last — when needed to win his group in response,
“It just took me a little too long to adapt in the group race,” said Ferguson, whose lone pavement Late Model start came in 2018. “Where I was driving in practice and qualifying, it wasn’t correct, so I was telling the (crew) guys things to do to the car that just wasn’t right. … At the end of the day, I was just overdriving it. I got the car too loose.”
Disappointment was evident when Ferguson realized his defeat, but Kaulig’s Chris Rice and chief business officer Ty Norris — a veteran NASCAR executive whom Dale Earnhardt hired in 1996 as a key architect in building DEI through 2004 — made it clear not all had been lost.
“This is the start of your career,” Norris told the dejected Ferguson moments after he lost the Race for the Seat.
Ferguson bounced right back aboard the Late Model in the 20-lap finale at South Boston among the show’s top four finishers, with the winner banking $50,000 and earning a Truck ride Oct. 30 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. He started second, led every lap and beat Tyrrell by a full straightaway — fending off challenges from CARS tour winners Landon Huffman and Jared Fryar on a tense, late restart.
“When you go in leading at the end, and I’m not taking nothing away from Carson, but pretty much every one of them boys had raced at that racetrack before,” Donald Bradsher said. “They had a little bit of an advantage. It took him practice and qualifying, and when they finally got to the last race, I think he finally got his feel there.”
In time, Ferguson came to terms with how it all unfolded.
“It all was meant to be, you know, the way it played out,” Ferguson said. “I'm at peace with it.”
