Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series
Contenders weigh in on the playoff-style format
By Bryan Ault
Special to DirtonDirt
Parade laps at Brownstown Speedway. (heathlawsonphotos.com)
BROWNSTOWN, Ind. — Since the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series instituted the Big River Steel Chase for the Championship in 2023, the national tour has made tweaks to the playoff-style format.
The initial system had a one-race playoff, the second year extended the playoff to seven races among four tracks while 2025’s postseason set five races among three tracks, along with a new seeding of the Big Four drivers by awarding 10-point bonuses for regular-season victories.
Looking to 2026, this year’s Big Four — reigning champ Ricky Thornton Jr. of Chandler, Ariz., Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga., Devin Moran of Dresden, Ohio, and Hudson O’Neal of Martinsville, Ind. — floated ideas for potential future amendments, while for now, national tour director Rick Schwallie is laser-focused on wrapping up 2025.
“We'll just get through our season and try to have our schedule ready soon, but it'll probably be a few weeks after the season ends before we release (any changes),” Schwallie said during the tour’s Jackson 100 weekend at Brownstown Speedway, adding that the series has yet to discuss possible playoff changes. He’s satisfied with how the new seeding system worked, which sent Thornton, the tour’s winningest driver, into the playoffs with a 70-point edge on his closest competitor.
“I think it's worth rewarding the wins the guys have during the whole regular part of the season,” Schwallie said. “That makes those more valuable when they climb out of the car on those given nights that they counted toward something. I think that's been a good change.”
While the original one-race playoff was apparently a one-off, it did have its perks, said Moran, who finished second in 2023’s Dirt Track World Championship at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway that decided Hudson O’Neal’s championship.
“I think it's good that it's not just one night, but at the same time, that one night was very exciting and a lot of people were watching that race,” Moran said. “So, yeah, I like it. I think it's exciting for sure for the fans and gets everyone bunched right back up.”
O’Neal, the 24-year-old who entered this year's Chase for the Championship fourth in points, likes the playoff seeding even though the one-race playoff went his way in 2023.
“This year with the wins and everything, it's kind of staggered the start,” the 24-year-old Martinsville, Ind., driver said. “I think it's a great format. I think it adds to the hype at the end of the year. You know, it adds a little bit of maybe viewership and stuff to these last races that normally wouldn't be there.”
The 2025 playoffs include the same tracks from last year, minus the now-closed East Bay Raceway Park in Gibsonton, Fla., whose 2024 events were cancelled by weather. This season, Brownstown hosted two races, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Motor Speedway in Imperial, Pa., hosts two events during the upcoming Pittsburgher weekend, and Eldora’s Oct. 17-18 DTWC decides the title.
Brownstown’s quarter-mile layout, the sprawling half-mile of PPMS and the high banks of half-mile Eldora present drivers and teams a variety of challenges with some of the season’s biggest purses. The three tracks satisfy O’Neal, who has won at each in Lucas Oil competition.
“I love Brownstown, you know. It’s my home race track, so obviously I'm not gonna vote against that,” O’Neal said. “Eldora is, you know, obviously the best for the finale and yeah, I kind of really like everything about it. And it pays pretty good, too. So it's cool to be a part of it. I think the racetracks we go to are good. I don't think any of these are racetracks that people just absolutely hate being at, so that's a plus.”
Moran likes the playoff ovals “because they're all racy racetracks, you know? They're three crazy, different-style tracks,” the 31-year-old said. “I know Pittsburgh and Eldora are both half-miles, but they're definitely different kinds of half-miles. And Brownstown's the exact opposite of both of those, so they're all racy tracks, a lot of things could happen to any of them, and it's a lot of fun to go to all three.”
The 41-year-old Davenport, a multitime tour champion who led the opening circuits of Friday’s C.J. Rayburn Memorial at Brownstown before a flat tire ruined his outing — he ran into more trouble in Saturday’s Jackson 100 — would like to see the Chase expand to more tracks with greater diversity.
“I think they're really good tracks to keep, but I would like to see us not run two nights at the same track,” Davenport said. “I understand the path that our sport’s taking. We go to a weekend to be at one place, which is fine, and I understand that. That's better on us (financially) also, but I think for the championship, it needs to have a little bit more diverse track conditions and just tracks in general. So we could have two tracks within a weekend that was close to one another and run both of them. I think that would be even better.”
Davenport won 2015 and 2018-19 titles under the traditional points format, something he prefers to the playoff-style system.
“I'm kind of old school,” said Davenport, who along with O’Neal lost significant ground during the Brownstown weekend. “Honestly, I'd rather just race the whole year for a championship. Just like (Friday) night, I mean, me and Hudson are pretty much out of it. Just one bad night. It either needs to be the whole year or maybe if they're going to do only four or five races or make it 10 races. You know, I think it ought to be a little bit longer than what it is.”
The 35-year-old Thornton, whose Jackson 100 victory kept him firmly out front with an 80-point edge on Moran, had every reason to despise the winner-take-all format in the Chase’s inaugural season. Despite dominating the tour’s 2023 season, contact with Bobby Pierce in the opening laps on a rough-and-tumble Eldora surface virtually eliminated his title chances at Eldora on the night O’Neal grabbed the title.
Davenport sees the downside of the single-race affair.
“It's definitely better than the one night that they did the first year they'd done it,” Davenport said. “That was really unfair to Ricky, really. He was way out front, led (the points) the whole time, and then he had one bad night, and then he lost pretty much his whole year in one race. You know, there's pros and cons to everything, but I see what they're trying to do. They're trying to make it more exciting and get more clicks, more views, at the end of the year when everything veers off towards football. So, you know, we got to do what we can to stay in the limelight, to keep everybody coming and asses in the seats.”
Thornton would like to see additional tweaks, incorporating a chase-style format throughout the season and assuring unworthy drivers can’t sneak in and win the title.
“At least this year they gave bonus points, at least made the regular season a little more appealing, I guess,” Thornton said. “I kind of wish there was a way if a guy is 500 points behind you, like, I don't think realistically, they should be in the Chase at all. If you have a really good season, like me and J.D. had a super stellar season, not to take away from the other two. But, like, we're so far ahead of them pointswise. I wish there was more of a points cap to start the Chase, just for something like that.”
Thornton suggested the implementation of a monthly Chase race.
“Like, we go to Speedweeks and be like, all right, this one night at Speedweeks, this will be one of our races (that count toward the championship),” Thornton said. “And then by the time we get to the end of the year, we'd have seven or eight races. And I feel like that means the guy that that was good all year would have the best shot at winning the points, not essentially the guy that would just put five races at the very end together. You still got to be (eligible for the playoffs) or whatever it's gonna be at the end of the year. So, like, I think it just make the regular season a little crazier.”
While Thornton agreed with Davenport that he’d be fine with the classic points format that spans the entire season, he's well aware of Big River Steel’s hefty check for winning the series: a $250,000 windfall that his eyes are fixed on heading into the tour’s final three races.
“Really, I don't know what else they could do to make it more appealing on the point side,” he said. “But on the flip side of it, without the Chase, we wouldn't be racing for the money that we're racing for.”
