Georgetown Speedway
Instant reaction, analysis from Georgetown visit
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt senior writer
The Double Down Motorsports team. (heathlawsonphotos.com)
GEORGETOWN, Del. (April 24) — Instant reaction and analysis from Friday’s Melvin L. Joseph Memorial at Georgetown Speedway, a $21,049-to-win Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series event won by Devin Moran (RaceWire):
BAD START, GREAT FINISH: As Devin Moran was burrowed insider the fenders of his No. 99 machine, carefully examining its engine with his crew chief Chuck Kimble after it had blown an oil line and briefly flared up at the conclusion of the first heat, he looked up at a visitor and cracked, “What a night.” It certainly already had been eventful with his scary, flaming prelim finish coming after he had swapped cars because his primary Longhorn shut off before he even hit the track for hot laps and wouldn’t refire. The Lucas Oil Series points leader was, at that point, just hoping to survive the evening without further trials, but he did much better than that. Gliding forward from the fifth starting spot to grab the lead from Hudson O’Neal on lap seven, the 31-year-old star from Dresden, Ohio, dominated the rest of the way to capture Georgetown’s Lucas Oil event for the second straight year. It was the type of never-say-die performance from Moran and his Double Down Motorsports team that shows why they’re the reigning tour champions.
STREAK ROLLS ON: Max Blair just keeps churning out top-five finishes on the Lucas Oil Series. A ninth-to-third run at Georgetown marked his seventh consecutive top-five on the tour spanning four tracks — Golden Isles, Brownstown and Atomic being the others — and moved him up one spot to fourth in the points standings. It’s a remarkable surge for the 36-year-old driver from Centerville, Pa.,who has already exceeded his top-five total from his first season as a regular on the series (five in 2023) and is nearing the number he recorded in his second (10 in ’24). Blair’s first career full-field Lucas Oil Series win (he won a semifeature in ’23 at Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, Pa.) has to be coming, right? “As long as we can keep coming out here after the races are over,” Blair said while standing alongside his car waiting for the traditional podium finishers’ photo, “we’ll get us one soon enough.”
HERE HE COMES: Is Lucas Oil Series rookie Josh Rice beginning to find his footing on the national tour? His impressive march from the 16th starting spot to a fifth-place finish in his first-ever visit to Georgetown would indicate he’s turning a corner. It was the third straight top-five finish on the series for the 27-year-old from Crittenden, Ky., but the previous two came at Atomic and Brownstown, tracks he knows well. This was Rice’s debut at Georgetown — the first time he’s ever been in the state of Delaware, in fact — and its sprawling size had him carrying modest expectations. Yet there he was looking very comfortable running around the very top of the wall-less corners, throwing up roostertails of dust as he continually slipped his right-rear tire over the lip of the track. There was no true cushion that he handles so well but rather a “man-made curb” which he said was “a lot of fun” to race on. The smile on his face as he stood in the JRR Motorsports trailer after the feature was indicative of a driver who’s picked up a giant dose of confidence by running well on foreign territory.
LOOKING GOOD: Friday marked the fourth straight year that the Lucas Oil Series has visited Georgetown, but the tour travelers didn’t find the same facility in front of them when they arrived. Track owner Ken Adams, who fields the Dirt Late Models driven by former Lucas Oil regular Ross Robinson, proudly showed off a host of improvements he oversaw since the end of the 2025 season. The changes included a slight shortening of the huge half-mile oval (the corners were pulled in 20 to 30 feet); a new scale between two concrete ramps; a newly-paved staging lane; a new pit-area concession stand with a viewing deck above; upgraded seating and new suites; a freshly graded and sodded infield; and new LED lighting. Much of the funds for the work came from a $400,000 grant that the track received from Delaware’s Sports Tourism Capital Investment Fund.
STAT OF THE NIGHT: Devin Moran’s performance record at Georgetown is pretty darn good. He owns two victories, a runner-up finish and a sixth-place performance in the four Lucas Oil Series features contested since 2023 and in World of Outlaws Late Model Series action was victorious in 2017 and placed fifth in ’18.
