Fast Talk presented by MD3 and Five Star Bodies
Fast Talk: Speedweeks hits home stretch
After the Wieland Winternationals rolled through Ocala (Fla.) Speedway on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series, our roundtable checks in for the weekly feature presented by MD3 and Five Star Race Cars Bodies (edited for clarity and length):
Is Hudson O’Neal destined for his best-ever season?
Kevin Kovac, DirtonDirt senior writer: Without a doubt. His career-high Super Late Model win total for a season is 15, in 2023, and he’ll already be more than halfway there if he wins just once this week at Golden Isles. Plus, we’re talking about a 25-year-old driver who is, believe it or not, the most veteran competitor on this year’s Lucas Oil Series (he’s beginning his eighth full-time season on the tour) and boasts a resume with five crown jewel victories (including the World 100) and a Lucas Oil title. He’s now settled completely back in with SSI Motorsports and crew chief Jason Durham, who joined the team after Speedweeks last year, and has a fresh side ride with Kevin Rumley’s No. 6 for select events, so it almost feels like a foregone conclusion that it’s O’Neal’s time to blast past the 20-win mark — and capture several crown jewels.
Kyle McFadden, DirtonDirt staff reporter: Sure feels that way. At seven victories in his first 22 starts of 2026, Hudson O’Neal is not only off to the best start of his career, but it’s the winningest opening two-month stretch by any Dirt Late Model driver since 2020 when Brandon Sheppard piled up eight victories before March. Perhaps even more impressive, O’Neal already owns 14 podium finishes. For this to ultimately become his best season, though, it’ll likely need to surpass the 15 wins he posted in 2023, a campaign highlighted by a World 100 victory and Lucas Oil championship. With supreme confidence and a tight-knit crew led by Jason Durham, he appears well on his way.
Aaron Clay, DirtonDirt weekend editor: It’s early in the season, but it certainly seems that way. It feels like we still haven’t seen the best of Bobby Pierce or Ricky Thornton Jr. yet, but Hudson O’Neal is the clear No. 1 most weekends, especially outside of WoO competition. Even more impressive, he’s done it with two teams, winning his first three races aboard the Rumley Engineering No. 6 then the last four in his usual SSI Motorsports No. 71. There’s plenty of time left for others to catch him, but it will be interesting to see if Huddy and crew can consistently performing at this level.
Mike Ruefer, contributing DirtonDirt photographer: It sure looks like it from the start he’s had. I’ve been lucky enough to be at all the tracks he’s raced and won at up to this point. His driving consistency is impressive from when he drove the Rumley No. 6 to his SSI No. 71. Fast in time trials, winning heat races and having good winning feature results at every track. As with so many of the current top drivers who I saw in victory lane during their fathers’ reigns, they themselves are winning with their dad’s standing proudly. Hudson has already won some of the biggest and best races in his young career, but this year looks to be different and potentially dominating.
Who was the biggest surprise at Ocala?
McFadden: Not much could be more surprising than Jonathan Davenport’s first-lap wreck from the outside pole in Thursday’s feature. For a driver of his stature — one who’s usually so precise and silky smooth behind the wheel — it was uncharacteristic. What wasn’t surprising, though, was how Davenport owned the mistake, admitting he simply misjudged the opening corner while trying to beat Kyle Bronson to the cushion exiting turn two. Instead, it ended with a bent-up race car headed back to Longhorn for repairs. Don’t fret, Davenport fans, remember that during his $2 million 2022 campaign, he didn’t win his first race that season until April.
Clay: Kyle Bronson didn’t have the flashiest of finishes at Ocala — 15th and 21st the first two nights before a third and an eighth — but he had plenty of speed, which we haven’t necessarily seen out of him recently. He paced the opening six laps of Wednesday’s second round before breaking a rear end while leading, then also led the opening 13 laps of Thursday’s third round before eventually giving way to Hudson O’Neal and slipping to third. Regardless of the results, Bronson showed he has the speed to contend for top-fives at the national level (which he hasn’t done in a long while.)
Ruefer: There are races that, when they're over, I simply say ‘Wow, where did he come from?’’ I did that with Tim McCreadie on Thursday night. With a locked down track for much of the late race he was impressive from his 21st starting position to finish 5th. It was a master class in driving and dodging disaster for the veteran. When no one else could pass he did. He followed it up with a third-place finish Saturday. After all these years T-Mac can still bring it and give all the young drivers a high bar to drive up to.
Kovac: I don’t feel like anyone truly surprised me at least from a positive perspective; the drivers who ran up front seemed to be the usual suspects. I wouldn’t even call it a surprise to see Clay Harris score two top-fives to start the week considering his past success at Ocala and the speed he showed at All-Tech. So I’ll agree with Kyle — Jonathan Davenport. There was no Ocala moment more shocking to me than the first lap of Thursday’s feature when Davenport, starting second, clipped the polesitting Kyle Bronson between turns one and, slid backwards into the wall and darn near flipped. Davenport acknowledged that he misjudged his position in relation to Bronson and was at fault for the incident — a rare misstep for the superstar and one that had me rewinding the video to make sure I saw what I saw.
Dig deeper for another Ocala note.
Clay: I’m not sure we've mentioned this enough, but Clay Harris is off to the best start of his career. The Jupiter, Fla., driver registered three more top-10 finishes this past week at Ocala, including two top fives, to go along with the two top-five finishes he registered a week earlier at nearby All-Tech Raceway. Harris enjoyed some home cooking and enters Georgia’s Golden Isles Speedway with an average finish of 8.1 in the eight Super Late Model feature starts he’s made in 2026.
Ruefer: I sensed quite a bit of enthusiasm for the Ocala week. The crowds on Tuesday and Wednesday were smaller but Thursday was very good. The Friday rainout put a potential damper for the Saturday finale and the right call by Bubba and the Lucas officials to race was rewarded with a great crowd of attending fans. It was hammer down all night for the drivers. The thing that makes this week so unique is the single-division format. The efficiency of the entire show rewards everyone with a Late Model-only night and an early evening. I hear no complaints from those I know who were there and or watched at home.
Kovac: Drake Troutman continued a sneaky-steady Speedweeks. The 20-year-old Pennsylvanian hasn’t really been in contention for a win all the way to the end of a race, but he’s qualified in all 17 of his starts, has five top-five and 11 top-10 finishes and just one result worse than 14th. He was actually one of only three drivers to finish among the top-10 in all four Ocala features, joining Hudson O’Neal and Devin Moran. The consistency that G.R. Smith’s young driver is showing warrants praise. It’s soon going to start turning into victories.
McFadden: I led with this in my Saturday After the Checkers piece, but let’s applaud the effort behind the scenes from Ocala Speedway officials, namely owner Bubba Clem, to ensure Saturday’s finale was completed. People are quick to criticize but slow to acknowledge the good. After Friday’s rainout dumped more than 1.5 inches of precipitation overnight, Clem and his crew worked the track all day, massaging the surface so fans and racers wouldn’t go home empty-handed. Sure, a few ruts popped up and gave some drivers fits, but it was nothing worth sounding the alarms over considering the circumstances. The track wasn’t dealt an easy hand and they made the most of it.
Dissect recent news, a happening or the prospects of driver who has yet to compete stateside in 2026.
Ruefer: The Midwest racing season is now just around the corner with April set for regional stars to knock off the rust and get back to racing. Jason Feger has become a veteran superstar who gets to kick it back up a notch after his trip Down Under and begins defense of his MARS title in the Nippy 50 at Maquoketa (Iowa) Speedway. With the hint of warm weather and the rumble of motors, I expect to see him do what he does best. He’s become one of the best regional drivers in the country who can compete with anyone. After spending the month of April in Iowa warming up he’ll have another great year in the Land of Lincoln.
Clay: Four of five races were successfully completed last week at Ocala amid several rainouts. The Schaeffer’s Spring Nationals opening weekend was cancelled and has yet to be rescheduled — currently slated to open its season March 20 at Modoc (S.C.) Speedway — while the Crate Racin’ USA Winter Shootout Series finale at Cochran (Ga.) Motor Speedway washed out (Deisel Jones was crowned champ). Action continues to heat up in the South as Lucas Oil competitors prepare for four nights of action (March 4-7) at Golden Isles, with the Revival Super Dirt Series and Southern All Stars adding to this weekend's scheduled Super Late Model action.
McFadden: The status of Tyler Bruening is one storyline worth monitoring. Bruening sat out Ocala’s finale following a hard heat-race crash that left him with minor neck soft-tissue damage and muscle tears discovered after a precautionary CT scan at a nearby hospital. The 40-year-old hopes to return Wednesday at Golden Isles Speedway, but the crash marked his second significant impact in five months, including a brutal hit at last September’s Knoxville Late Model Nationals. As Bruening explained in a recent story I wrote, balancing racing with family and responsibilities away from the track is increasingly important at this stage of his career. I found his deep reflection on the ordeal enlightening.
Kovac: Saturday’s announcement by Eldora Speedway that this year’s World 100 winner’s prize will rise to six-figure territory at $100,000 — and the total weekend purse of $680,200 will top the Dream’s payout for the first time — was very notable. There are some people out there who object to the first-place increase because it was an Earl Baltes tradition to raise the winner’s check by $1,000 each year, but come on, it was time to go beyond that with Dirt Late Model racing’s most prestigious race. A thousand bucks a year wasn’t keeping up with the recent increases in so many other crown jewel events, so now the World 100 is back on par with those races and the reward to its victor is commiserate with its significance.
We’ve throughly discussed the new-look Speedweeks. Pitch an it-will-never-happen Speedweeks slate that exists only in your dreams.
McFadden: How about we talk Garrett Mitchell — aka Cleetus McFarland — into throwing dirt down on his Freedom Factory oval, which I believe measures about 3/8-mile, in Bradenton, Fla.? For those unfamiliar, Mitchell is the YouTuber-turned-motorsports sensation who’s turned the former DeSoto Speedway into a viral motorsports playground. With next year’s Daytona 500 scheduled for Feb. 21, there’s likely an extra week to fill on the Speedweeks calendar anyway. So why not start a new tradition: a week-long Dirt Late Model jamboree at the Freedom Factory? You’d be in the beautiful Bradenton-Sarasota, at a unique venue charged by Cleetus’s mega personality, likely a gigantic crowd given his following, and the novelty of seeing the sport’s best Late Model teams invade the well-known motorsports property. Someone get Cleetus on the phone and let’s make it happen.
Ruefer: My dream doesn’t include East Bay Raceway, as many might have. I love the memories, but I won’t dwell in the past. If the current schedule takes root, it will become the new normal. My dream would be Late Model week at Volusia. What if it was a World of Outlaws vs. Lucas Oil showdown? The first three days under Lucas Oil sanction, the next three days WoO sanction. This is a dream, right? It would take a tremendous amount of cooperation and ego check. Fans are yearning for things like this. The hype leading into the event could be like something we’ve never seen before. Who gets the Big Gator? A Lucas driver or WoO driver? The bragging rights that follow could set the stage for years to come. Now wake me up.
Clay: I will remain selfishly focused on my take as someone who works in the industry; therefore, I would propose that there are no January Speedweeks races. Also, I miss when we didn’t have overlapping events so early in the year, so I propose no conflicting Super Late Model events in that area as both national tours get their seasons started. My dream Speedweeks would start in February and end in early March, while evenly disbursing Late Model races over five or six weeks. Ideally, each facility would get the spotlight for their event, then essentially pass the torch to a nearby venue.
Kovac: My dreams will always feature the classic Speedweeks schedule based on a week at East Bay — in my dream, the Mosaic Co. that bought the track won’t get permission to use the property as they planned and a racing savior comes in and reopens the Clay by the Bay — and a week at Volusia, plus an opening weekend at Golden Isles. Speedweeks is back to being nice and compact, a true can’t-miss stretch that gets everybody’s attention rather than dragging on for a month-and-a-half and feeling more like the regular season.
