Lucas Oil Speedway
Notes: Oberkramer posts best Lucas Oil run
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt senior writer
Mason Oberkramer (93) heads for a fifth-place finish. (heathlawsonphotos.com)
WHEATLAND, Mo. (May 22) — Mason Oberkramer climbed out of his car in the pit area after finishing fifth in Friday’s 40-lap Tribute to Don & Billie Gibson at Lucas Oil Speedway flashing a huge smile as his crew and family surrounded him.
But the 33-year-old driver from Broseley, Mo., was also a bit overwhelmed. Marching forward from the 12th starting spot to log by far his best result ever in Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series competition wasn’t quite something he expected.
“The was good, but just … not very many laps this year, you know?” Oberkramer said, shrugging his shoulders. “That’s probably 25 laps we had on the year when we went out (for the feature). This weekend is our first time out. We haven’t raced none this year. Too busy with work.”
When asked how a racer fights through rustiness upon starting a season, Oberkramer remarked that “it’s kind of like riding a bike other than being in shape.” But in turn, he admitted that making his 2026 debut in a crown jewel event like the Show-Me 100 adds a significant degree of difficulty.
“You know, these guys, they’re phenomenal what they do,” Oberkramer said of the Wheatland field packed with national touring professionals. “There is a reason they’re top tier in the nation teams, so to be able to come in and run with them, it means a lot to me. We’re just a family-owned little business and operation, but we got good people behind us and it’s a blast to run like this against these guys.”
Piloting a 2017-vintage Longhorn Chassis (“She’s got a lot of laps around here,” he said), Oberkramer failed to qualify on Thursday for the Cowboy Classic feature that was postponed by rain to the end of Friday’s program. He rebounded well with a runner-up finish to Lucas Oil Series regular Hudson O’Neal of Martinsville, Ind., in a Friday heat to claim a sixth-row starting spot in the feature.
It didn’t take long for Oberkramer to realize he had a fleet piece.
“When we took the green flag, I knew instantly,” Oberkramer said. “I passed several cars right there coming to that first caution (on lap one), and I knew right then that we had something that could at least be competitive for a while. And heck, the more we drove, the faster we kept getting, and I looked up and soon we was in fifth on the leaderboard and I was about to pass (Brandon) Overton and (Brandon Sheppard) is right there. I was like, ‘What am I doing?’
“We just tweaked on the car a little bit from yesterday. We kind of dialed ourselves out from the get-go (on Thursday) and it kind of just hindered us from the from the drop of the qualifying, but we kind of just went back to our basic deal tonight and drove.”
Oberkramer wasn’t able to overtake Sheppard and Overton, who finished third and fourth, after losing some ground late in the distance while racing with the superstar duo through lapped traffic.
“It felt like the air just kept getting dirtier and dirtier” Oberkramer said of the frenetic moments he faced battling to continue his advance. “I was trying to watch the signal guys, but there was also a lot going on. I was just chasing them two Brandons down, that’s all I know.
“It was fun,” he added. “I had a lot of fun.”
The fifth-place finish marked the first time Oberkramer had ever placed inside the top-10 in 13 career Lucas Oil Series feature starts since 2013. It also locked him into the 14th starting spot for Saturday’s $75,000-to-win Show-Me 100 finale, putting him in his home state’s biggest event for the third time in 11 tries.
There was no secret sauce to Oberkramer’s success, but he did thank veteran Midwest mechanic Tony Rogers for his assistance. Rogers, who has worked full-time for several drivers, now makes his living outside of racing but still turns wrenches occasionally and is spending the weekend with Oberkramer.
“We’ve known each other for a long time,” said Oberkramer, who plans to enter as many Midwest LateModel Association events as he can this year while running his dump truck and tire businesses and tending to his family that includes three children aged 3 to 12. “He showed up the other day at the shop and I said, ‘Man, I need some help.’ He said, ‘Well, tell me what you need,’ and he just went right to work. It’s great having here with us.”
Patched together
With bent parts and body panels strewn about his pit stall following an accident in a Thursday B-main, Neil Baggett of Columbus, Miss., was ready to throw in the towel on his Show-Me 100 weekend on Friday morning. A visit from a Rocket Chassis house car crew member changed his tune.
“Austin (Hargrove), he come down here and put the whole nosepiece and stuff on me for me,” Baggett said of the Rocket1 team’s ace tire and body guy. “I’ll be honest, if it wasn’t for him, I’d have thought about leaving it in the trailer. It’s just too much to freaking do for somebody like me who races 15 times a year, but Austin, literally he was done in probably an hour.”
Baggett, 43, had plenty of damage to repair on his Rocket XR2 Chassis after he found himself in the middle of a multicar wreck consolation wreck on Thursday. That included his entire nosepiece and front bumper and a vast assortment of suspension parts.
All the work led Baggett back into action Friday and a third-place finish in the first heat that transferred him to the feature. He did experience a scare in the prelim, though, when he felt contact to his car’s rear end from Kolby Vandenbergh of Ashland, Ill., racing down the backstretch on the opening lap.
“I tried to go (off turn two) and the rear end picked up,” Baggett said. “I was, in my mind (to Vandenbergh), like, ‘Please let off the gas,’ because if he’d let off, I could get off of him. Fortunately he did and we kept going and made it. I looked up one time (in the final laps) and all my people were making hand signals (on the backstretch) — well, that's never a good sign when you’re racing, so I’m just out there with it to the wood and I started blocking (a challenge from a charging Blair) and it just worked out.”
Baggett only managed a 23rd-place finish in the Gibson Tribute headliner, leaving him outside the top-18 in event points and forcing him into a B-main on Saturday. But it was still a satisfying performance after a rough start to the weekend.
“This is only our fourth time racing this year,” Baggett said. “We really have no business coming here, but we love this race. I love this place. I love coming up here. And it’s been a really good car since we debut it last fall at the Fall Classic (at Mississippi’s Whynot Motorsports Park). We’ve just never really got a chance to show how good the car can be. This is the third time I’ve put a whole front end on it and I just literally put a whole body on it this week — everything except the roof — so yeah, it ain’t been good.”
Missed opportunity
Max Blair has been racking up top-five finishes on the Lucas Oil Series, but he’s had to work harder than he’d like for most of them because his qualifying performance has forced him into too many starts deep in the feature field.
The 36-year-old from Centerville, Pa., had a great chance to set himself up near the front of Friday’s Gibson Tribute. He timed fourth fastest in his qualifying group to earn the outside pole for the first heat.
But Blair didn’t take the green flag from that advantageous position. His car rolled to a stop on the track during a pace lap and he needed a push to the pit area.
The problem? His machine’s throttle linkage shook free, causing his gas pedal to go limp.
“We changed a motor last night (after Thursday’s feature was postponed by rain) and we just missed tightening the linkage,” Blair said.
When Blair stopped in the hot pit, his father and crew chief, Rob Blair, made a hasty fix to get Blair back on the track before the start of the heat.
“He didn’t have a wrench to tighten it,” Blair said, “so he used pliers and tightened it as much as he could.”
Blair managed to climb all the way to fourth place from the rear, falling a spot by of transferring. He felt fortunate, though, to make the checkered flag in the heat.
“The linkage kept coming loose during the race,” Blair said. “My father said it might have lasted another half-lap.”
Blair went on to 13th in the feature after starting 19th. He placed ninth in the held-over A-main and secured the 10th starting spot for Saturday’s Show-Me 100 finale.
