DirtonDirt Dispatches

Dispatches: O'Neal rubs past Seawright at TST

March 23, 2026, 2:33 am

From series, staff, track and other reports

Hudson O'Neal takes the checkers at Talladega. (Zackary Washington)

Among the latest notes and quotes from Late Model action, including this weekend’s World of Outlaws Late Model Series action at Magnolia Motor Speedway in Columbus, Miss., and Schaeffer's Spring Nationals competition in South Carolina (look elsewhere for Northern Allstars coverage from Florence Speedway in Union, Ky.):

Tight Talladega battle

Hudson O’Neal has been so good to open the 2026 season that even his blemishes haven’t cost him.

On Saturday in World of Outlaws Late Model Series action at Magnolia Motor Speedway, the 25-year-old star of Martinsville, Ind., clipped the infield tractor tire twice, yet still charged from 19th while overcoming a midrace pit stop for the $12,000 victory.

The following night, in a tightly contested Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series points opener at Talladega Short Track in Eastaboga, Ala., amid hairy lapped traffic, O'Neal made contact with Sam Seawright while the two battled for the lead.

“He hung real bad off of four that one time, and just let me get even — front wheels to front wheels — down the front straightaway,” O’Neal said. “We got together a little bit down there. I hope it wasn’t too big of a deal. It’s just hard racing, and it gets really tight getting into one there. We were just racing hard trying to win.”

O’Neal’s go-ahead pass of Seawright on lap 29 of 50 proved decisive at Talladega, marking his ninth victory of the season — his fifth with Kevin Rumley’s K&L Rumley Enterprises team — in a triumph that came with less adversity than Saturday, but no shortage of tense moments.

Seawright led the opening 28 laps and controlled the pace while O’Neal stayed within a second of the Rainsville, Ala., driver from laps 7-28 before pouncing in heavy traffic. By stalking Seawright until just past halfway, O’Neal put himself in position to strike when the opportunity came.

“Being the leader is way more nerve-wracking. Whenever you’re running second, you have free will, so to speak, to be able to move around and try different things,” O’Neal said. “And when the leader moves out thinking he’s going to get passed, it opens the bottom. Whenever you’re running second, you really don’t have that thought.”

A caution for the lapped car of Josh Putnam — who spun after contact from Jonathan Davenport in traffic — two laps after O’Neal took the lead gave him open track to work with. Seawright didn’t welcome the yellow, but he didn’t dwell on the near-miss or the earlier contact with O’Neal.

“I got to racing really hard with those lapped cars. I left the door open and Hudson was there,” Seawright said. “We got together a little bit, but he didn’t do anything I wouldn’t have done. Man, we’re racing for $12,000. I opened the door. I wish that caution would’ve come out just a little earlier. Some of the lapped cars were trying to race me like it was for the win.” — Series and staff reports

Memorable comeback

Hudson O’Neal faded backward from the pole position in the early laps. He bent his car’s left-front bodywork from clipping an infield tire and had to pit for hasty repairs just before the halfway mark. He damaged his nosepiece in another encounter with a yuke tire late in the distance.

But somehow, someway, the 25-year-old sensation from Martinsville, Ind., still triumphed in Saturday night’s 60-lap Duel at the Mag finale at Magnolia Motor Speedway in Columbus, Miss.

O’Neal’s latest success — a rich $20,000 World of Outlaws Late Model Series score that was his fourth this season driving the K&L Rumley Enterprises No. 6 and division-leading eighth overall — left him understandably dumbfounded.

“It’s unbelievable,” said O’Neal, who jumped back in the Rumley Longhorn Chassis on an off weekend from Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series action for his SSI Motorsports team. “I would have never thought in a million years that after we pitted like that we were gonna be able to drive up through there, but man, was Magnolia on point tonight. It raced its tail off.”

And so did O’Neal, who dug deep to pull off a rally for the ages. He “wasn’t very good for the first 10-or-so laps” as he failed to lead a circuit and fell to seventh place by lap 11, and then his run-in with an infield tire hampered his efforts just as the 3/8-mile oval’s surface was beginning to come to him.

O’Neal tried to race through the initial nose damage, but he fiinally had no choice but to pit for service by his Kevin Rumley-led crew during a lap-26 caution period.

“That bottom was so tricky to run,” O’Neal said. “I hit a yuke tire early in the race and knocked the nose down and I thought I was gonna be able to make it, and then it dug in right before we went back to green (on lap 26). Thankfully it did it before we went back to green and I was able to come in and they worked on it.”

There was no elaborate fix made to O’Neal nosepiece — his crew simply raised a couple jacks under the left-front and a few team members jumped up-and-down on the nose — and he returned to the track sitting 19th with 34 circuits remaining. He managed to charge all the way back to third by lap 42 and reached second two laps later, but then he ran into more trouble.

“I hit another (yuke tire) with like 15 to go and knocked (the nose) down again and I was like, ‘Man, I’m gonna lose this race because the front bumper is in the dirt,’” O’Neal said . “I just tried my best to stay in that bottom and under caution just roll around that very inside and try and keep the load off the left-front to keep it out of the dirt.

“And then it just felt like the slicker it got, we just kept coming around a little bit. We were a little too tight early in the race and it just kept getting better and better as it went on.”

Once he settled into second behind leader Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga., with his nose bent again, O’Neal was married to the bottom of the track. It wasn’t the smoothest of rides as he bounded across the rough, but it proved to be a winning route with J.D. and Bobby Pierce of Oakwood, Ill., wheeling around the top.

“With my nose knocked off, I couldn’t hardly get up in the banking,” O’Neal said. “I tried one time and I went into three down there and it bottomed out real hard because the nose was on the ground. So truthfully, I didn’t really have a choice. If I was going to have to move out on the racetrack, you might have seen me in the fence. It would have rolled it under completely, probably.

“So yeah, I was just trying to bide my time around there, and if we were going to run third, we were gonna run third. I was trying to make sure that I finished it, and luckily them guys started moving out on the racetrack and just allowed me to kind of just find a groove down there. Thankful for no caution either there at the end too.”

O’Neal overtook Davenport for the lead on lap 50 and never relinquished the spot, though Davenport offered a final-circuit challenge.

“I thought I had a run on Hudson there the last lap coming off (turn) two,” Davenport said. “I knew if I could hit three and four just perfect … but I was going to have to give it everything. I just went in there and got a little too tight and got in the fence and let Bobby by. Anyway, wasn’t concerned with second there, we was going to try to win.”

Pierce slipped past Davenport at the finish line to place second, his ninth straight podium run on the WoO tour one night after his recorded a $12,000 victory in the weekend opener. Davenport settled for a third-place finish after leading 44 laps.

Both Pierce and Davenport acknowledged afterward that O’Neal’s bottom lane prowess proved to be the race’s deciding factor. Pierce wondered if “maybe I abandoned that bottom a little too soon when I was third behind (Ashton) Winger,” while Davenport called the inside groove “very treacherous” and analyzed that “most of the time I’d hit it wrong,” prompting him to run the high side.

O’Neal had no such problems. He tamed the unruly route around the track to win for the second time in his career at Magnolia (he captured a Lucas Oil show in 2018) and rebound from a short outing on Friday that saw him scratch after time trials due to terminal engine trouble.

“This Cornett Racing engine ran awesome tonight,” said O’Neal, whose team dropped in a fresh powerplant for Saturday’s action. “We had bad luck last night and they sure redeemed themselves.” — Staff and series reports

Home cooking

One week after experiencing a devastating crash, Brandon Overton definitely needed a pick-me-up. It came with a visit to a track that dominates his childhood memories.

The 34-year-old star’s morale rose Friday as soon as he rolled onto the property of Modoc (S.C.) Speedway, the 3/8-mile oval just 25 minutes north of his native Evans, Ga. His mood rose higher when he concluded the night standing in victory lane as the $10,004 winner of the 54-lap Ed Basey Memorial, an event co-sanctioned by Ray Cook’s Southern All Star Dirt Racing Series and Schaeffer’s Spring Nationals that brought Super Late Model action back to the track for the first time since October 2021.

Overton’s smile lit up the revitalized facility, which Appling, Ga., businessman Ronnie Powell bought four years ago and poured $2 million into rebuilding.

“I’m just so happy to be back here,” Overton said during his postrace celebration as he looked up at the crowd in the stands. “Ronnie's done a lot — a lot — of work here, and y’all don’t know how good it made me feel to pull in here today and see all y’all standing here waiting to get in line, waiting to get your armbands. It means a lot to me. I know it means a lot to Ronnie.

“Ronnie’s stepping his game up,” he added. “Everybody that’s been working hard on this place, I can’t thank them enough for giving us a place to come back to.”

Overton grew up sitting in those Modoc stands, watching drivers like the late Ed Basey — a legendary racer from his hometown of Evans — and dreaming of one day winning Dirt Late Model races himself. That fact wasn't lost on him as he relished a victory that not only pushed him past his total checkered flag output in 2025 (it was his fifth of the season) but also proved that he had rebounded from his T-boning of the spinning Dennis Erb Jr. in a wicked accident as he led the previous Saturday’s World of Outlaws Late Model Series feature at Smoky Mountain Speedway in Maryville, Tenn.

“Just a special, special race to win,” said Overton, who remained sore throughout the week from the impact of the Smoky Mountain wreck. “I always looked up to Edward (Basey). He was one of my heroes when I was growing up. I remember sitting in those same bleachers watching him pass, I think Kelly Guy or whoever, on the outside here. I thought that was the coolest thing ever. So to come back and win the first (Ed Basey Memorial) they have at Modoc is really cool.”

Overton won the A-main over his younger brother Cody Overton, who rallied from a mid-race flat tire to finish second. He couldn’t have written a better script — a 1-2 finish with his sibling at the reopening of the track closest to his home — than what transpired.

And with the new-look Modoc shining bright in its rebirth, Overton couldn’t help thinking about the track’s future.

“I go all over the country racing and I’m about the only guy who doesn’t have a racetrack in his town, you know, that has a big event,” he said, clearly thrilled to have had the opportunity to win a special show in his backyard. — Staff and series reports

Fast down south

Considering Magnolia Motor Speedway in Columbus, Miss., is 550 miles from Bobby Pierce’s home in Oakwood, Ill. — and it’s been nearly six years since he last turned laps at the 3/8-mile oval — you'd think it might not be one of his better tracks.

But these days there aren’t many places that can serve as Kryptonite to Pierce’s Superman act. He proved it Friday with a convincing victory in the 40-lap feature that opened Magnolia’s Duel at the Mag opener, a World of Outlaws Late Model Series doubleheader that marks the track’s first national touring action since it hosted the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series in June 2021.

After the 29-year-old star marched forward from the fifth starting spot to grab the lead from Drake Troutman of Hyndman, Pa., on lap 24 and then dominate the rest of the way for a $12,000 payday, it was clear that he’s comfortable at Magnolia. Some rough edges to the track physically drained him, but he enjoyed the ride. It almost seemed like he was racing back on his familiar Midwest turf.

“Man, I’m wore out from that race,” Pierce said. “The track formed those, like, dirt bike ruts, and the tires would set in it, and you never knew if it was gonna take you or not. So you got to be up on the wheel constantly.

“But fun racetrack. Really, I loved it, so thanks to these (track prep) guys (led by promoter Johnny Stokes) for getting us a good track. It had a top, middle, bottom.”

Pierce tamed the challenging surface, steering his Longhorn Chassis around it with the aplomb necessary to beat Nick Hoffman of Mooresville, N.C. — the driver shaping up as Pierce’s biggest challenger for WoO supremacy this season — by 2.660 seconds.

“We were working really hard on the car yesterday (during practice) and today, and every time we were in the pits we were making quite a bit of changes to it really to try and dial it in,” Pierce said. “It definitely got better there, but once those ruts formed, it was kind of see who could get through the ruts the best. I feel like you could easily have a lap that was five-tenths better than your lap prior if you just hit ‘em right.”

Hoffman, 33, had no answer for Pierce, who rolled to his second straight and third overall WoO triumph of the season while extending his streak of podium finishes on the circuit to eight in a row.

“He was just able to get out there and start momentuming on that top really fast, and he was just a little better than we were,” said Hoffman, who ended the night trailing Pierce by 10 points at the top of the WoO standings. “I just kind of had to work on it just a tick … my car was just OK. Not where we need to be.”

Pierce’s win came in his first appearance at Magnolia since June 2020’s Lucas Oil Series-sanctioned Clash at the Mag, a three-race weekend during which he scored a $5,000 victory in the first 25-lap preliminary feature before going on to place 10th in the second prelim and fourth in the 100-lap finale. But despite his long absence from Magnolia competition, he has more experience at the track than one might realize.

In fact, Pierce’s first trip to Magnolia came in October 2013 when he was fast-rising 16-year-old. He made an immediate impact, finishing third in the Cotton Pickin’ 100. He made four more visits to the track over the next seven years, including the Cotton Pickin’ event in ’14 (DNQ) and ’15 (finished 20th) and the Lucas Oil Series’s June Clash at the Mag in ’18 (a runner-up finish), ’19 (12th, 12th, ninth) and ’20. — Staff and series reports

Wilson’s solid start

The 2026 season signaled the start of a new chapter for both Daulton Wilson and Big Frog-Viper Motorsports.

For the 28-year-old Fayetteville, N.C., driver, it’s the next phase of his driving career after a four-year run with Kentucky-based JRR Motorsports came to an end last fall. And not only was the Ocala, Fla.-based Big Frog team taking on a new driver, they were also stepping up to full-time competition with the World of Outlaws Late Model Series after primarily running regional events the Southeast.,

With 10 WoO races in the books, the pairing has already started to click. For proof, look no further than Wilson’s first podium of the year in February at Hendry County Motorsports Park in Clewiston, Fla., or his back-to-back sixth-place runs last weekend at Volunteer Speedway in Bulls Gap, Tenn., and Smoky Mountain Speedway in Maryville, Tenn.

“We definitely knew that there were going to be some growing pains,” Wilson said. “Trying to get everything together, the group of people together, equipment, and just everything that it takes to go from not only putting a new team together, but to go from a regional deal to a national deal. We definitely knew that it was going to take some time, and I think we’re progressing like we feel like we need to.”

One thing that excited Wilson was a switch to the WoO circuit after four seasons on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. He’s competed at tracks where Wilson has a thin notebook of experience to lean on, making his recent performance gains even more impressive as the series heads to weekend action at Magnolia Motor Speedway in Columbus, Miss.

“What’s crazy is, it’s close to home geographically, I guess you could say,” Wilson said. “But Bulls Gap last weekend, I’ve only been there probably three times. Smoky Mountain, I’ve always struggled there, and then Magnolia this week, I’ve never even been to Magnolia. Then East Alabama (Motor Speedway in Phenix City), Senoia (Raceway in Georgia), I’ve only been once apiece. Even though it’s closer to home, it’s still not like it’s local racing for me. It’s still a lot of new places.

“Luckily, I’ve got a good group where they’ve been racing and they’ve had success at these places. Places that I’m new to, they’re not necessarily. Really, it’s a good fit where we all kind of complement each other pretty good.”

Maintaining a level of consistency in unfamiliar territory has been the main focus for Wilson and team, especially early in the season when several other teams throughout the pits are still acclimating themselves to changes made over the winter. Those efforts are paying off so far, as Wilson sits seventh in Series points amid a tight pack of drivers in the back half of the top 10. Wilson has amassed a triple-digit lead in the MD3 Rookie of the Year standings.

“Just continue to compete and be in that redraw, and if you’re up front every night, things are going to go your way,” Wilson said. “Right now, the consistency there is a big deal. We don’t want to run fifth one night and 20th the next night. Just trying to be consistent and continue to get our equipment where it needs to be, then I think the wins will come.” — Spence Smithback