Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series
Alberson hoping for up-tick in Iowa, Missouri
By Kyle McFadden
DirtonDirt staff reporter
Garrett Alberson (heathlawsonphotos.com)
Two very different memories define Garrett Alberson's most recent visits to 34 Raceway in West Burlington, Iowa, and Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo.
Last July, he produced one of the season's most dramatic victories at 34 Raceway, throwing his Roberts Motorsports machine around the outside of Brandon Overton and Hudson O'Neal in the closing laps to claim his second career Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series triumph worth $15,000. Earlier this May at Wheatland, he walked away from one of the most violent rollover crashes in recent Dirt Late Model memory.
After a season in which little has gone his way, the Las Cruces, N.M., driver hopes this weekend's three-race Lucas Oil swing — Thursday at 34 Raceway before Friday and Saturday at Lucas Oil Speedway — brings more of the former than the latter.
"When our program is hitting hard, we usually run good there," Alberson said Saturday before Lucas Oil action at Muskingum County Speedway in Zanesville, Ohio. "I hope that's a good sign.”
Sitting seventh in the Lucas Oil standings — one spot lower than his 2025 finish, and effectively two places off when accounting for third-place finisher Jonathan Davenport no longer touring full time — Alberson's season hasn't matched expectations.
He enters the weekend mired in a 40-feature winless streak dating to his dominant 5.5-second victory Jan. 17 at Central Arizona Raceway's Wild West Shootout. It's his longest drought since snapping a 106-race skid with last June's DIRTcar Summer Nationals victory at Farmer City (Ill.) Raceway.
If there's reason for optimism, it's that this same weekend one year ago sparked his turnaround. His breathtaking last-lap victory at 34 Raceway ended a 37-feature drought that stretched back to his February World of Outlaws victory at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla.
It's no surprise 34 Raceway ranks among Alberson's favorite stops on the Lucas Oil circuit. So does Lucas Oil Speedway, even if his recent trips to Wheatland have produced equal parts heartbreak and promise.
During the 2025 Show-Me 100 weekend, a cut right-front tire in a preliminary feature launched him into the turn-one wall in what he later told DirtonDirt's Kevin Kovac was among the five hardest crashes of his career. This May, he rebounded to finish second to Josh Rice in the makeup Cowboy Classic after leading laps 33-39 before charging from ninth to fourth in the Show-Me 100 aboard a backup car. He also recorded fourth- and fifth-place finishes in last year's Diamond Nationals.
"I don't know what it is about Burlington and Wheatland, the shape and the size, it's like my style, I guess," Alberson said. "Those two tracks are about as similar of tracks as you could get, I feel like. There's not a lot of tracks like Wheatland that race like Burlington, and not a lot of tracks that race like Burlington except for Wheatland."
One constant throughout Alberson's career has been his team's ability to persevere, and he believes he and crew chief Zach Huston are beginning to uncover the small details needed to reverse their fortunes.
The results haven't fully reflected it — fifth in a Firecracker 100 prelim, ninth in the 100-lap finale at Lernerville Speedway and a 17th-to-ninth charge Saturday at Muskingum County Speedway — but he feels they're moving in the right direction.
"We definitely didn't have the Lernerville we kinda hoped for," Alberson said. "We had some really good signs of speed. Lernerville has been a really good track for us in the past — I was really looking forward to it. We just never hit the ground running once it seemed like. We never had a single session I thought we would. We went through this whole thing really, really good over the week.
“I felt like we found just some little tiny things and some setup trends we’ve noticed some previous weeks — some of the areas where we’ve been good that are small, but they add up. We’re hoping it heads us in the right direction. Start of Mansfield was a real positive sign.”
Alberson never got the chance to capitalize on his speed last Friday at Mansfield Speedway. He was set to start from the pole of the fourth heat race before a torrential rainstorm washed out the rest of the Lucas Oil program. While he missed the setup in qualifying a night later at Muskingum, Mansfield reaffirmed that his team is moving in the right direction.
"It was back to the way the car has felt when we've been good in the previous months," Alberson said. "We've had some strong qualifying in the previous month and then Lernerville, it never showed up at all — our qualifying. It felt like we got our car back to where it has been in the part where it's been good."
That makes this upcoming six-race stretch in 10 days especially important. Alberson enters the swing seventh in series points, 155 behind sixth-place Ricky Thornton Jr. and 105 ahead of eighth-place Brian Shirley, with races this weekend at 34 Raceway and Lucas Oil Speedway followed by Tuesday's stop at Adams County Speedway in Corning, Iowa, and next week's Silver Dollar Nationals at Shelby County Speedway in Harlan, Iowa.
"It would be a good time for where you need to be, as far as the balance of the car and your speed," Alberson said. "We'll have a lot of racing to do this next little bit."
After the Silver Dollar Nationals, Alberson's Roberts Motorsports team plans to remain idle until the Aug. 6-8 North-South 100 at Florence Speedway in Union, Ky.
In the meantime, he'll keep racing in a guest appearance role aboard the Doug Curless-owned No. 99 during Prairie Dirt Classic week, competing in the July 21 FloRacing event at Lincoln (Ill.) Speedway, July 22's FloRacing Night in America race at Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway and the July 24-25 Prairie Dirt Classic. He'll then take a family vacation during USA Nationals week at Cedar Lake Speedway.
"I guess the Curless team parted ways with Caden (McWhorter) and they were looking for someone to drive it for the PDC,” Alberson said. “So their shop is like five minutes from ours (in Dubuque, Iowa). We talk to those guys all the time ... I'm really looking forward to that."
