Hagerstown Speedway
Notes: Overton chipper amid Lucas Oil drought
By Kyle McFadden
DirtonDirt staff reporter
Brandon Overton smiling at Hagerstown. (Heath Lawson)
HAGERSTOWN, Md. (April 26) — For a driver who’s started six Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series features from the front row this season with nothing to show for it — he’s now mired in a 50-race winless drought on tour — Brandon Overton remains as chipper as ever.
This Friday at Circle City Raceway in Indianapolis, Ind., will mark one full year since the Evans, Ga., driver last visited Lucas Oil victory lane, but Overton doesn’t sound like someone weighed down by that reality. After all, he’s already won seven times this season — none on a national tour, but still against national-caliber fields or in marquee regional events. | RaceWire
Even after Brandon Sheppard outclassed him — and the entire field — in a nearly 6-second victory in Sunday’s Conococheague 40 at Hagerstown Speedway, Overton could do little more than tip his hat to the Rocket Chassis house car team.
“Good for them,” said Overton, who led the opening two laps before ceding the point to Sheppard. “We all need to get us some.”
Part of Overton could accept defeat knowing that, beyond Sheppard and the Rocket1 team being the class of the field, his harder tire selection didn’t do him any favors. Sheppard, meanwhile, flourished on a softer tire — a game plan Overton expected would work to his advantage.
“For about five or six laps there, once I got clear of traffic, I could start seeing him a little more,” Overton said. “I had to fend off Ricky there at the beginning, so I had to almost hurt ‘em a little bit to get going. Then I got ‘em good and hot, and I could actually steer a little bit and had a little stick in the middle of the racetrack. Kinda felt like I was coming to him.”
Overnight rainfall infused ample moisture into the racing surface, allowing Overton to earn quick-time honors with a lap of 17.427 seconds — not quite track-record pace, as Gregg Satterlee’s 17.089 still stands, but plenty fast nonetheless. The added moisture ultimately played more into Sheppard’s hands with the softer tire than Overton’s.
“Then when we caught lapped traffic there, they’re just so far on the bottom, slinging so much stuff, it kinda dirties it back up, lets the softer tires get back going,” said Overton, who then praised Rocket1 Racing’s decision-making spearheaded by Mark Richards. “That’s one thing about them: they’re always on it. They do a good job doing that. Like I said, we’ll take our second. It’s a good run for us.”
Overton can take consolation in the runner-up finish Sunday following Friday’s frustrating 15th-place result at Georgetown (Del.) Speedway.
“I’m glad I can go home after tonight and not after Georgetown, that’s for sure,” Overton said.
Zeigler’s jump
Mason Zeigler understood why he was flagged for jumping the start of the opening heat race — penalized from the outside pole back a row to fourth for launching ahead of polesitter Brandon Sheppard — but that didn’t mean the Chalk Hill, Pa., driver brushed it off easily.
When breaking down what went awry, a tinge of frustration crept into his voice.
“Coming down the back straightaway, I had (Sheppard) in my left-side eye. We were inside the flag. I think more or less he just didn’t go, and I went,” Zeigler said. “So I was trying to keep my eye on him, and I felt like he was just sort of trying to get me to take off with no intention of going. When I did eventually go, he was gonna just sort of sandbag and take off.”
Zeigler, who made his season debut Sunday after not racing since last November’s victory at Potomac Speedway in Budds Creek, Md., finished 10th after briefly cracking the top five from his ninth starting spot. He believed he had a car capable of challenging Sheppard from the front row of his heat, a scenario that could’ve altered the night’s complexion given Sheppard went on to lead every lap from the pole for the $10,000 victory.
Still, Zeigler could live with the result, encouraged by where his part-time program stands entering May. Another special-event focused season lies ahead, with Eldora Speedway’s Dream motivating him to dial things before June arrives.
“He did a good job, and I jumped,” Zeigler said. “It is what it is. But I think more or less than anything, I think he just didn’t go.”
Can Blair keep it going?
With Ricky Thornton Jr.’s slip-up in the final two laps, Max Blair snuck from sixth to fifth, thus extending his Lucas Oil Series top-five streak to an impressive eight races.
Since March 4’s Wieland Winternationals at Golden Isles Speedway near Brunswick, Ga., Blair has finished fifth, fifth, fourth, second, third, fifth, third and fifth, gaining a whopping 74 feature positions over that span.
It’s a product of a trend he’s embraced — “more laps,” Blair said Sunday when asked what he needed — as he’s become automatic at moving forward as features wear on.
“I fell back there earlier in the beginning,” said Blair, who started seventh in Hagerstown’s feature. “I probably fell back to like 10th. Just things didn’t go my way there in the beginning. I think we were definitely good enough to be on the podium though.”
Blair indeed slipped back to ninth on the initial start. He worked his way back up to seventh prior to the lap-10 stoppage for Daniel Hilsabeck. From there, he passed Brian Shirley and Thornton for position.
Can he keep the top-five streak going? With Circle City Raceway in Indianapolis, Ind., and Florence Speedway in Union, Ky., next on the tour this Friday-Saturday, it’s certainly within reach. Blair finished fourth with the World of Outlaws in his only start at Circle City in 2021 and added another fourth-place run in the 2024 North-South 100 at Florence.
He’s also bracing for a bigger challenge the following weekend at Farmer City (Ill.) Raceway and Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway on May 9-10 — two black-dirt bullrings he’s yet to fully solve. In five starts at Fairbury he owns three top-10 finishes but an average results of 12.8. At Farmer City, he’s managed just two top-10s in six starts with an average finish of 15.0.
“That’s the part I don’t know about,” Blair said of his outlook toward Illinois Speedweek. “I’ve always struggled out there. We’ll see, we’ll see, if we can survive them two Illinois tracks. I’m excited for Wheatland and Florence, and stuff. I like those places.”
Odds and ends
One noticeable absence from Sunday’s field at Hagerstown: Rick Eckert of York, Pa. The Hall of Famer’s longtime crewman, Tim Fitez, said Eckert punctured a radiator Friday at Georgetown (Del.) Speedway — a hole no bigger than the circular opening of a pen, but enough to sideline him for the night. Eckert continues to nurse a one-car operation while awaiting repairs on his backup, which has been shelved since an April 17 crash at Selinsgrove (Pa.) Speedway. … Winning the night’s seven-lap, caution-plagued Crate feature, Kyle Hardy of Stephens City, Va., was also a notable absence from Sunday’s Lucas Oil field as his Super Late Model remains sidelined following a recent wreck at Ohio Valley Speedway in Washington, W.Va. … Roberts Motorsports and Garrett Alberson of Las Cruces, N.M., had Tuesday’s World of Outlaws Late Model Series stop at Independence (Iowa) Motor Speedway firmly on their radar — until an engine failure Sunday at Hagerstown while running 15th with seven laps remaining. There’s still a chance Alberson could race at Independence — roughly 70 miles from the Roberts shop in Dubuque, Iowa — for Tuesday’s show, but the team will more than likely regroup ahead of Friday’s Lucas Oil resumption at Circle City. … Jamie Lathroum of Mechanicsville, Md., made his first feature start since October 2024 on Sunday after a sparse schedule over the past year. His only other Late Model outing came last November at Potomac Speedway with Bruce Kane Racing, a night that ended early with a mechanical failure in hot laps.
