Opening night of the 54th World 100 at Eldora Speedway Thursday night featured dominant performances from national Super Late Model stars Ryan Gustin and Hudson O’Neal as they broke through to Victory Lane on the biggest stage in all of dirt track racing.
Gustin, the World of Outlaws CASE Construction Equipment Late Model Series regular from Marshalltown, IA, led all 25 laps of the Group A Twin 25 Feature to secure his first career win at the historic half-mile oval while O’Neal, the defending World 100 winner from Martinsville, IN, took the lead on Lap 14 of the Group B Twin 25 Feature and drove away to collect his $12,000 grand prize.
A grand total of 107 DIRTcar Late Models were present in the pits areas for the night’s program which featured an all-new event format of Group Qualifying, six Shootout Races, no Last Chance races and two 25-lap Feature events. Drivers earned points for their Feature finishes (Shootout finishes for non-transfers) and will repeat the program Friday night to help set the Heat Race lineups for the finale on Saturday.
Group A Feature
Lining up for the main event beside Eldora’s most dominant Late Model driver of the past decade didn’t intimidate Ryan Gustin.
The Iowa-born racer made quick work of getting by five-time World 100 winner Jonathan Davenport at the drop of the green flag, taking the lead away from the Blairsville, GA-driver before they left Turn 2. While Davenport stayed close and tried to retake the spot in the following corners, Gustin’s high side momentum prevailed and began to open up a gap between the two.
When Davenport slipped up the track in Turn 2 on Lap 3, two-time World 100 winner Brandon Overton went by underneath to take the runner-up spot. Over the next 20 laps, the Georgia racer gave chase in hot pursuit of Gustin’s Cooney Motorsports No. 30, and nearly closed the gap completely in traffic as the race moved into the closing laps but was unable to get close enough in the end.
“I feel like we beat two of the best here in Davenport and Overton, so we definitely didn’t beat no slugs tonight,” Gustin said. “We’ve got a really good racecar right now; this Infinity Chassis is on rails. Jay Dickens engine ran awesome. All of our other partners; the crew is working extremely hard.”
Tyler Carr Photo
An Eldora win was a first for both Gustin and former World of Outlaws racer Todd Cooney and his Cooney Motorsports team. The two Iowa-born drivers joined forces at the beginning of the 2024 season and have won four races with the Outlaws this year — a new record all around — and are now one of national dirt Late Model racing’s most competitive teams.
“This Cooney Motorsports team with Tim Douglas on the wrenches and Noah (Bushman) doing the tires — everything’s been clicking,” Gustin said. “We started out, it was a little rocky at first, but it’s a brand-new team. Before the race season, we didn’t have a hauler or anything. Everything came together really fast.
“Of course, there was some really hard, trying times at first, but at the end of the day I feel like we’ve got one of the top tier teams in the country right now.”
Further back in the field was fellow World of Outlaws full-timer and current Series points leader, Brandon Sheppard. The former DIRTcar Summer Nationals champion from New Berlin, IL, saw his night turn sour in the third Shootout Race when he blew a right-rear tire and hit the outside wall, damaging his Longhorn Chassis No. B5.
Tyler Carr Photo
“I think it was going down for a few laps and it started laying on the right-rear,” Sheppard said. “It blew-out getting into (Turn) 3 and I got in the wall, and [Zack Mitchell] come in there and hit me; nowhere for him to go.”
However, armed with a provisional, Sheppard started the Feature 25th on the grid and drove up to a 17th-place finish.
“At one point when I pulled off the track, I thought, ‘Alright, we’re gonna get the backup car out and we’re gonna stick with that the rest of the weekend,’” Sheppard said. “I got out and looked at it and I thought, ‘You know what, let’s put some wheels on this thing and push it back on the lift and let’s fix it and go again,’ because this car’s treated us really well here at the Dream. And last night was decent too.”
Feature | Group A (25 Laps): 1. 30-Ryan Gustin[2]; 2. 11-Brandon Overton[4]; 3. 49-Jonathan Davenport[1]; 4. 14H-Wil Herrington[5]; 5. 74X-Ethan Dotson[16]; 6. 8S-Brian Shirley[9]; 7. 44-Chris Madden[7]; 8. 87-Ross Bailes[10]; 9. 9-Nick Hoffman[3]; 10. 58-Garrett Alberson[22]; 11. 28C-Tyler Carpenter[19]; 12. 68-Adam Stricker[6]; 13. 83-Jensen Ford[15]; 14. 19M-Spencer Hughes[11]; 15. 12W-Ashton Winger[12]; 16. 22H-Daniel Hilsabeck[8]; 17. B5-Brandon Sheppard[25]; 18. 25F-Jason Feger[14]; 19. C6-Oakley Johns[21]; 20. 18C-Chase Junghans[13]; 21. 1G-Devin Gilpin[18]; 22. 18D-Daulton Wilson[26]; 23. 114-Jordan Koehler[20]; 24. 101-Forrest Trent[24]; 25. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain[23]; 26. 89-Mike Spatola[17]
Group B Feature
Hudson O’Neal’s first globe trophy came in the event one year ago for Rocket1 Racing team owner Mark Richards, and Thursday night he returned to Victory Lane with SSI Motorsports in the Group B preliminary Feature.
Starting on the pole, O’Neal originally gave up the lead to outside polesitter Joseph Joiner but was able to battle back and retake the top spot on Lap 14. After a few restarts, O’Neal held off all challengers to bag the checkered flag, but not without some company behind him.
Defending World of Outlaws champion Bobby Pierce had made his way up to second on a Lap 19 restart after starting sixth. The 2016 World 100 winner from Oakwood, IL, put pressure on O’Neal for the remaining laps but was unable to get close enough to make a bid for the lead in the end and settled for second.
Tyler Carr Photo
“I’m not really feeling the most comfortable in this car this weekend; kind of a mixture of things we need to get a little better,” Pierce said. “We’ll just keep working at it. Tomorrow’s another test day, in a sense. We didn’t really need to come out here and win tonight. Everyone knows the better you do on the prelim nights, sometimes the worse you start in the Heats on Saturday.”
Crossing the line in seventh was the 2024 DIRTcar UMP Modified Florida Speedweeks champion, Kyle Strickler. The North Carolina racer started fifth on the grid and fell two spots in the end, but said he knows where he needs to be better going forward.
“I was getting in a pretty good rhythm around the top, especially in (Turns) 1 and 2, and we were just a little too loose and skatey in 3 and 4,” Strickler said. “All-in-all, for not being in a Late Model all year long, come back to my favorite racetrack in the country and getting a solid top-10 finish — we were really good in Qualifying, really good in the Heat Race — definitely something to build on.”
Strickler’s Late Model was adorned with a special tribute to former car owner Scott Bloomquist, who he drove for during the 2021 season, and shared some insight on his decision to honor the late Hall-of-Famer.
“I wanted to honor the personal connection that he and I had,” Strickler said. “When I drove for him, that’s exactly how my cars looked, so I wanted to do something like that.
Tyler Carr Photo
“It definitely sucks not having him here for talks on tires and making tire decisions and things like that. He’ll definitely be missed, and hopefully we can honor him with this wrap. It’d be really great to honor him with a World 100 victory Saturday night.”
Feature | Group B (25 Laps): 1. 71-Hudson O’Neal[1]; 2. 32-Bobby Pierce[6]; 3. 1-Tim McCreadie[12]; 4. 10-Joseph Joiner[2]; 5. 99-Devin Moran[7]; 6. 10S-Garrett Smith[10]; 7. 8-Kyle Strickler[5]; 8. 40B-Kyle Bronson[4]; 9. 17M-Dale McDowell[16]; 10. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[9]; 11. 17D-Zack Dohm[11]; 12. 93-Carson Ferguson[8]; 13. 23V-Cory Hedgecock[19]; 14. 1T-Tyler Erb[13]; 15. 25-Shane Clanton[20]; 16. 12-Jason Jameson[3]; 17. 79-Donald McIntosh[21]; 18. 22-Chris Ferguson[23]; 19. 15-Clayton Stuckey[14]; 20. 95-Jerry Bowersock[24]; 21. 31-Tyler Millwood[25]; 22. 88-Trent Ivey[15]; 23. C8-Timothy Culp[17]; 24. 18M-Matt Dooley[18]; 25. 103-Jason Riggs[26]; 26. 11R-Josh Rice[22]
