All-Tech Raceway
Two weeks set to provide Overton measuring stick
By Kyle McFadden
DirtonDirt.com staff reporter
Brandon Overton at All-Tech Raceway. (heathlawsonphotos.com)
ELLISVILLE, Fla. (Feb. 19) — Eight races in 10 days at All-Tech Raceway and Ocala Speedway may provide the first real measure of just how formidable Brandon Overton is entering the new Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series season.
Of course, Speedweeks success isn’t a prerequisite for a prosperous year. Plenty of drivers have had pedestrian Georgia-Florida campaigns only to find rhythm once the season ramps up. Florida’s dirt is unlike anything they’ll see the rest of the season: quirky, temperamental and rarely a clear barometer of what’s ahead for a driver and team.
Still, there would be something to be said if a driver like Overton, who has never won a national tour event at All-Tech or Ocala, were to break through with maiden victories at the Sunshine State ovals he admits to having a love-hate relationship with.
“It would be big,” said Evans, Ga.’s Overton, who quickly pivoted to a low-stakes viewpoint of Speedweeks, even amid a four-win start to the season. “Yeah, like obviously we need to do good, but for me, we've done what we're supposed to do, right? Like we've already come back out, restarted, re-groomed, new team … we're fast, winning and races. You're not going to win them all.
“But we've already done better than we probably should have. So, no pressure. (Car owner) Scott (Riggs) don’t but any pressure on us. We put the pressure on ourselves. We’re just gonna do our best.”
One race into the Lucas Oil campaign, Overton is already off to a steady start. Despite surrendering the lead on lap 16 of Thursday night’s 40-lap feature and fading to fourth, the run marked his best career finish at All-Tech. In seven previous Lucas Oil starts at the half-mile, Overton had never finished better than seventh.
“The problem with this place is, when we can't turn here, it hurts, 'cause you knock the s— out of the wall, and you're going way faster here than you do at East Bay,” Overton said. “So, it is a tricky, tricky place. You can come here and everything go your way and it's fun as hell. But you can come here in your car not turn or not steer good all week, and it's miserable. So, yeah, I have a love-hate relationship with it, too.”
Three years ago Overton failed to qualify for the lone Lucas Oil feature at the tricky oval, and prior to Thursday’s top-five result carried an average feature finish of 10.6 at the track. Believing he had, at worst, a top-three car, Overton wasn’t at full strength over the second half of the feature, nursing his Riggs Motorsports machine home with a caved-in nose after midrace contact.
After a dominant heat-race victory that put him on the outside pole for Thursday’s feature, Overton was hesitant to make major adjustments, a leery approach that likely didn’t help him over the closing laps.
“I was scared to mess with (the car) after the heat, it felt really good. Just when it got slick, I couldn’t stay postured up enough to run around the bottom,” Overton said. “Here, this place is so tricky. You don’t need a really tight car. You just need something to run around the brown. We just got too flat at the end and had a s— restart, got us all bottled up getting in there … killed our momentum, knocked a big hole in the nose, and then you’re just hanging on at the end. Felt like we had a second- or third-place car. We’ll take it, first night. This is a really hard place to get around. We’ll take it.
“I would say, we were pretty competitive all night. We qualified good, heat raced good. Just have to get the feature a little better. I’m happy with it. I mean, s—, this is the best guys, you know what I mean? All week, that’s what we need to do. We’re in the top-five every time we hit the track. If we do that, the wins will come.”
Of the three Speedweeks circuits on the Lucas Oil season-opening slate — All-Tech, Ocala and Golden Isles Speedway near Brunswick, Ga. — All-Tech stands as Overton’s clear weak link. At the avocado-shaped Ocala oval last year, he finished runner-up twice and recorded four top-five finishes across five Winternationals events.
Golden Isles, meanwhile, ranks among Overton’s favorite racetracks. Located in his home state, the Brunswick-area oval accounts for five of his 19 career Speedweeks victories. Surviving and advancing through All-Tech’s trickiness is what Overton’s focused on this weekend, and it’s so far, so good, with Thursday’s fourth-place outing.
“Instead of running 15th or 16th on our bad nights, we just need to run fifth. We had a bad night, well not a bad night, but we didn’t have a great night and ran fourth,” Overton said. “Our car is fast. We just have to keep doing the right things. I feel like everyone in this trailer is motivated. As long as everyone keeps that attitude, keep working hard, we’ll be OK.”
And even when an off night crops up — like his failure to qualify for Feb. 12’s DIRTcar Nationals at Volusia Speedway Park on the World of Outlaws Late Model Series — Overton’s ready to not dwell on it, believing sheer results don’t tell the full story.
“Honestly, we had a good week in Volusia, just a lot of it goes into how you draw,” Overton said. “I mean, there's 60 cars there, you know what I mean? So just a little mistake will get you way behind. So yeah, we rolled right in here tonight. Every time we went on the track, we were, you know, fast, so at the top, if not, you know, yeah. So, yeah, we'll take it.”
Even while enjoying the best Speedweeks start of his career — already four victories deep with 11 Lucas Oil events still to run, after never winning more than three during Speedweeks in any prior season — Overton hasn’t commanded the brightest spotlight. Hudson O’Neal, who also owns four early-season wins, and Brandon Sheppard, riding a two-race surge following victories Saturday at Volusia and Thursday at All-Tech, have drawn much of the return-to-prominence attention away from Overton since the Georgian’s Feb. 9 at victory at Volusia.
“I still know all these guys are good, you know what I mean? Brandon Sheppard didn’t forget how to drive a race car,” Overton said. “To watch him be up there battling for wins doesn’t surprise me. Hudson is good, Hudson has a good team. It’s so easy to forget that you’re talking about Brandon Sheppard and Hudson O’Neal, you know what I mean? So when we don’t run good, everyone kind of writes us off.
“I never think I’m better than anybody. I’m just going to be how I am because I know you can be up here one minute, and then you can have the years that we’ve had. Just try to stay even-keeled on it. Nothing they do surprises me. They’re good race car drivers, and they have awesome teams. You have to have luck. That’s the biggest thing.”
Overton’s relished the outpouring of support and words of affirmation he’s received to start the year, either messages or comments on social media. There’s the other side of the coin to that as well — the cynical and pessimistic remarks — which he takes personally.
Let’s just say whatever is thrown Overton’s way — good, bad or indifferent — only adds fuel to his pursuit of recapturing his elite-caliber production.
“Yeah, I take it to heart. Like, I want everybody to like me, you know what I mean? So when people talk shit about me, yeah, it does bother me, I'm not gonna lie,” Overton said. “But it is what it is, you know what I mean? I don't expect everyone to like me. But, yeah, it's good. I don't really care. As long as we're winning races and doing good, and I'm having fun, that's my biggest thing. Like, this s— is so hard to do. If you're not having fun, you might as well not even do it. So that's what I'm happy about. I got a good crew. I got a good car owner. I got good people behind me. Yeah, we're all we're doing good.”
