Fast Talk presented by MD3 and Five Star Bodies
Fast Talk: Lauding Gustin amid busy weekend
After a busy week of six national touring racing, our weekly roundtable checks in for the feature presented by MD3 and Five Star Race Cars Bodies (edited for clarity and length):
Reflect on the week’s World of Outlaws Late Model Series competition.
Kevin Kovac, DirtonDirt senior writer: The four-race stretch began with the storyline that’s taken hold this year: Bobby Pierce winning Independence and the Mississippi Thunder opener and Nick Hoffman taking Night 2. The pair is scrawling their names all over the tour — and engaging in a lead-swapping championship battle that appears might end up being epic. But Ryan Gustin broke up the Pierce-Hoffman party with his victory in Saturday’s Dairyland Dream finale, earning his first WoO win of the season. It’s been one heck of a 2026 turnaround over the past three weeks for Gustin, who went winless in his first 29 starts overall until grabbing three straight regional touring checkered flags while the WoO circuit was silent. Gustin got his groove back: three podium runs at MTS topped by turning back Pierce’s late challenge in the finale. And how about Gustin’s last three WoO wins dating back to last August? The $100,000 USA Nationals, $50,000 at Louisiana’s Boothill and Saturday's $40,000. He’s certainly winning the right races.
Kyle McFadden, DirtonDirt staff reporter: Ryan Gustin had been overdue for a series victory, having gone 22 races since his last tour win last October. So it felt like only a matter of time before he returned to winning form on a national tour. Gustin going winless to open the WoO season didn’t alarm me as much as him finishing outside the top 10 in nine of his first 17 races. When you’re not anywhere near the front, that’s a bigger concern. Now, thanks to a third-place finish and runner-up effort at Mississippi Thunder Speedway, Gustin has a three-race podium streak on tour, something he didn’t accomplish last season. Is this the turning point for Gustin? He certainly hopes so.
Aaron Clay, DirtonDirt weekend editor: It was a highly competitive weekend of racing at Mississippi Thunder Speedway for its annual Dairyland Showdown event. To no one’s surprise, Bobby Pierce and Nick Hoffman each split the first two rounds and they have now combined to win 12 (seven for Pierce, five for Hoffman) of the first 20 World of Outlaws events completed this season. Ryan Gustin continues to flex his muscle as he nabbed his first WoO victory of the season in Saturday’s $40,000 finale and now has four wins and two other podium finishes across his last seven starts overall, dating back to April 24.
Bryan Ault, DirtonDirt contributor: After his victory at Paragon (Ind.) Speedway two weeks ago, Ryan Gustin told me he felt like his season was turning a corner. Given his speed at Paragon, and two more regional victories for a three-in-a-row stretch, I thought he would definitely compete for wins at the WoO tour stops in the upper Midwest. He proved that to be true, capturing his first WoO tour victory of the season at the Dairyland Showdown at Mississippi Thunder Speedway in Fountain City, Wis. He’s up to fifth in the points, still well behind leader Nick Hoffman but just 11 points out of third. Gustin could easily close the gap and grabbed that third spot before the season ends.
And reflect on the weekend’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series action.
McFadden: Ricky Thornton Jr. put his love on display at Circle City with a convincing drive from sixth to Friday’s victory, later lauding the track and affinity for the place with how many sprint cars he’s watched at the quarter-mile. It was good to see Circle City get a fair shake this time around after last year’s series debut battled a dire forecast and ultimately rubbered up into one-groove racing for much of the feature. I don’t know if anyone’s noticed this yet, but I’ll point out that Thornton, Hudson O’Neal, Devin Moran and Brandon Sheppard have combined to win 17 of the first 20 series events this year (with Jonathan Davenport taking the other three). My hunch is that whoever emerges with the most series victories will hoist the championship.
Clay: It was quite a weekend of competition between Hudson O’Neal, the current SSI Motorsports driver and the team’s former driver, Ricky Thornton Jr. O’Neal led the opening 40 laps Friday at Circle City Raceway in Indianapolis, Ind., before Thornton got the better of him and paced the final 10 circuits in winning the $15,000 weekend opener. But O’Neal got the last laugh in Saturday’s Ralph Latham Memorial at Kentucky’s Florence Speedway, leading all but two laps for the $25,000 payday. It will be interesting to see if those two wheelmen can continue to battle for victories on the Lucas Oil tour.
Ault: It was probably Brandon Overton’s toughest weekend so far this season. I expected a stronger finish than ninth at Circle City, the site of his last Lucas Oil tour victory, but unfortunately the Evans, Ga., driver was hampered early with carburetor issues during hot laps and struggled to find speed at the Indianapolis bullring. He was dicing it up in the top five at Florence before tapping a tire on the last restart, affecting his car’s handling in the closing laps and causing him to fade to 12th. Let’s hope he can right the ship and get back to his dominant self. It’s always nice to see the No. 76 in front and hear his colorful interviews after taking checkered flags.
Kovac: Ricky Thornton Jr.’s Circle City victory showed he’s getting back to doing RTJ things. It marked his second victory in his last four Lucas Oil starts and a third-place run at Florence vaulted him to third in the Lucas Oil points standings after entering the weekend sixth. He’s looking primed for a big surge. And then there’s Hudson O’Neal, whose Ralph Latham Memorial triumph at Florence gave him an even dozen wins in ’26, moving him within three of his single-season career high in Super Late Model action. It’s surprising that while O’Neal won three of the first seven Lucas Oil shows this season, he had gone winless in his last nine series starts. But he had four runner-up and one third-place finish in that span, so it’s pretty clear that Hud is almost always near the front this year.
What recent non-national touring story caught your eye?
Clay: I need to give a shoutout to teenager Eli Ross after his sweep of the Revival Super Dirt Series-sanctioned Dave Garmann Memorial at Thomas County Speedway in Colby, Kan. The Muskogee, Okla., hotshoe led all 55 laps contested over the two-day program, earning more than $5,000. Ross currently leads the Revival Series standings and has three straight tour victories dating back to April 17 at Kennedale (Texas) Speedway Park. It will be interesting to see if Ross continues to compete on the Revival circuit or if he's using the extra seat time to better prepare his program for MLRA or Comp Cams tour competition.
Ault: Shannon Babb’s failed tire test during the Illini 100 at Farmer City (Ill.) Raceway jumps out at me, not so much for the test itself but more so the size of the fine. As Kevin pointed out in his Take Five feature last week, Bobby Pierce was fined a straight $2,000 for his tire-test failure during Volusia’s 2024 DIRTcar Nationals, though he also lost all his prize money for the event (a total of $7,000) and 144 WoO points. Babb’s fine, however, was over four times higher than Pierce’s, amounting to $8,250 — the new “one-third of the race’s to-win payout” now in the WoO rulebook — in addition to his loss of prize money and responsibility for tire-test cost that pushed his total hit to $11,771.33. It seems like the decision he said his team made to wipe off the tire degreaser they put on a new instead of washing it off was a minor yet very costly mistake for the veteran driver.
McFadden: The 71-year-old wonder Gary Stuhler was oh-so-close to his first victory since April 2021 on Saturday at Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway, falling just short to Trever Feathers in a photo finish. I do think Stuhler will find victory lane at some point this season — whether at Port Royal, Hagerstown, Selinsgrove or wherever he chooses to race — but chances are it’ll come at one of those three half-miles. We often marvel at soon-to-be-60 Dale McDowell and Billy Moyer, 68, still winning at the highest level of the sport. While Stuhler may not travel like he once did, a Super Late Model victory in his 70s would put him in exclusive company.
Kovac: Pretty cool to see West Virginia Motor Speedway draw 41 Dirt Late Models and what looked like a pretty strong crowd for its $10,000-to-win Valvoline American Late Model Iron-Man Series event on Sunday (which was won, by the way, by a national touring driver, Drake Troutman, who made a 12-hour overnight haul from the WoO show in Wisconsin). It’s clear that the competitor and fan support is there for the facility’s smaller 3/8-mile layout that debuted last year, but it seems Sunday’s action produced discussion about whether it’s ready to host major national events (WoO next month, Lucas Oil’s season-ending DTWC) because the surface was choppy and blew some dust. But it did widen out during a show run in daylight, and WVMS owner Mike Hurley and his staff are still getting a handle on the track with only a handful of races under their belts. And I’d say anyone who’s invested the kind of money Hurley has to rebuild WVMS is committed to figuring out the racing surface to make it worthy of the big shows coming to town.
Will Prairie State drivers allow an interlopers to grab a checkered flag during Illinois Speedweek?
McFadden: Jonathan Davenport did last year — twice, actually. Considering how Hudson O’Neal, Ricky Thornton Jr. and Devin Moran have performed this season, it feels like one of them is bound to win at least once this week, right? On the flip side, it wouldn’t be surprising if Bobby Pierce, Nick Hoffman (an Illinois native racing out of North Carolina) and Brandon Sheppard shut out the rest. Outside of those three, though, no Illinois-based drivers have truly flourished this year — at least on the national tours. Ryan Unzicker could be a darkhorse, and while the results haven’t shown it yet, Jason Feger should be in the mix as well. Last year, Davenport surprised many with his first Illinois victory since the 2015 Prairie Dirt Classic. Another Southern driver, Brandon Overton, could be positioned to do the same. He’s now 52 races removed from his last Lucas Oil victory, so a breakthrough feels imminent, maybe even on a black-dirt bullring where many might overlook him.
Ault: It’ll be really tough, especially with Bobby Pierce, Nick Hoffman, and Brandon Sheppard and their familiarity with all their home-state tracks. Sheppard in particular has stood out in recent weeks with a win at Hagerstown and a fourth-place finish at Florence’s Ralph Latham Memorial on Saturday night. Pierce has dominant in recent weeks, and Hoffman is on a roll as the WoO points leader. If I could pick a non-Illinois driver to land in victory lane, I’d take Tyler Erb just given his familiarity with bullrings and racing in the Midwest.
Clay: Drivers from the Land of Lincoln will allow at least one interloper to capture victory during this week’s 2026 Illinois Speedweek; however, it may take a few days. Bobby Pierce, Brian Shirley and Brandon Sheppard are among favorites to win during the first three nights in FloRacing competition at La Salle (Tuesday), Spoon River (Wednesday) and Lincoln (Thursday). But all bets are off once we get to the weekend with the stars of the Lucas Oil Series invading Farmer City (Friday) and Fairbury (Saturday). I’m betting pilots like Hudson O’Neal, Ricky Thornton Jr. and Devin Moran, among others, will secure at least one victory this weekend.
Kovac: I’d say it will be pretty tough for Illinois drivers to shut out all the outsiders over the course of a five-race Speedweek. Just too many opportunities — and too many standout racers who will be invading the state — for the Land of Lincoln residents to dominate. Last year, in fact, just one Speedweek checkered flag stayed in Illinois (Bobby Pierce at La Salle). Jonathan Davenport, who won twice last year, doesn’t have the events on his schedule (he’s listing the Comp Cams weekend at Batesville as his action for the week), but the other victors in ’25, Devin Moran and Ricky Thornton Jr., will be back. And I can’t imagine Hudson O’Neal going winless in a five-race stretch the way he’s going right now. I’d think Ryan Gustin would want to try and keep his hot streak going as well. At least one Illinoisan will win a race, but I don’t see a sweep for them in the cards.
What’s least savory: A postrace disqualification, a lengthy intermission or a 10-division program?
Ault: None are preferable, but this one’s too easy: a 10-division night. Lengthy delays are definitely an annoyance and should be avoided, especially at major events. A DQ isn’t great by any means, and talking to a devastated and angry driver afterward would be difficult as a reporter. As bad as those two are, selfishly, I’d take either of those two (or maybe even both on the same night) rather than pulling into my driveway at 4 a.m. A four- or five-division evening can sometimes feel like a hostage situation, so I certainly can’t image the horrors of a 10-division evening.
Clay: A lengthy intermission bothers me the least, but I would avoid a 10-division program at all costs. I, like many others, prefer to feel like I'm getting my money’s worth for any live event but "too much of a good thing” isn’t uncommon in dirt racing. A 10-division card would almost assuredly be slowed by numerous cautions, likely extending the program into all hours of the night. I’d much rather a quick and concise three- to five-division event that is run smoothly and efficiently before ending at a decent hour. While a postrace disqualification is never ideal, I'd still take it over a 10-division endurance event.
Kovac: I hate winner DQs — especially ones that take a while to be determined rather than being immediate like a failed weigh-in — but at least they provide plenty of fodder for stories. A lengthy intermission is annoying, but if it’s to ensure a great track surface for the feature and the time is still early, then I can handle it. But just seeing a race-night schedule listing 10 divisions on the program would make me want to … well, be sick. A program like that just means the track isn’t looking to run a show for fans. It’s entirely driven by back-gate money. No way would I want to experience that ordeal.
McFadden: Postrace disqualifications have always left me the most disappointed. You invest an entire evening — maybe even your whole day, weekend or week depending on the event and travel — only to have the winner not be the first to cross the finish line. It’s a buzzkill. I’m all for enforcing the rulebook, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t take away from the feeling that the race you just watched is tarnished because the victor apparently didn’t win fair and square. At least with a lengthy intermission, you still have something to look forward to before the night ends. And with a 10-division program, at least we reporters can peel away and get ahead on an article or two. Still, though, neither of these three satisfy a race fan.
