Eldora Speedway
Quest for perfection surrounds Eldora action
By Kyle McFadden
DirtonDirt staff reporter
Chris Ferguson at Eldora Speedway. (joshjamesartwork.com)
ROSSBURG, Ohio (June 6) — As much as every driver likes to believe they have a legitimate shot at capturing an Eldora Speedway crown jewel, the reality is that, by the end of a Dream or World 100 weekend, the contenders usually sense how the story is going to end.
Bobby Pierce's Dream XXXII victory Saturday night not only gives him six wins in his last 12 starts at Eldora — including four of the last six crown jewels there — but further reinforces a trend that has become increasingly difficult to ignore. | Complete Dream coverage
Nine of the last 10 Dream winners entered Dream week with at least five victories on the season, at least two of them coming in May, and a victory within their previous five starts.
Pierce, Jonathan Davenport and Nick Hoffman were the only drivers to meet that criteria entering this year's event — and they promptly swept the week's three marquee races. Of course, the drivers performing at the highest level entering Eldora are naturally going to have the best odds of winning. But the trend also underscores what truly matters at Eldora.
Pierce offered a glimpse into that moments after climbing from his car in victory lane Saturday. As he embraced crew chief and father Bob Pierce during the celebration, the newly crowned Dream winner thanked him for giving him a "perfect" race car.
That sentiment gets at the heart of what separates Eldora from most racetracks, especially for Chris Ferguson, one of the sport's most deliberate students of the legendary half-mile.
“I always tell everyone, in my opinion, there’s about 12 drivers that you can potentially interchange cars and they can produce the same results,” Ferguson said. “Now, maybe not so much at Bobby’s level or J.D.’s level. But I would say, I think there’s about 12 drivers that in J.D.’s car can maybe win … I mean, they’d have a good shot at winning when their car is perfect.”
For Ferguson, that's where Eldora separates itself from the prototypical racetrack.
“Now maybe Bobby is a little less (meaning, his car doesn’t have to be quite as precisely spot-on) because of the style of his driving, but having a perfect car is super important at Eldora,” Ferguson said. “Not even having a good car or a great car — having a perfect car is super important.”
Ferguson is far from alone in that belief. Few drivers understand the importance of finding the right Eldora package better than Overton, whose dominant 2021-22 stretch produced one of the most impressive runs in the track's modern history. During that span, he won six consecutive Dream features — three prelims and three Dream finales, including both 100-lap Dreams during the Double Dreams in 2021 — and added a World 100 triumph later that same season.
“I think this is such a unique track, and here is the problem. This place, it's Eldora, right? So you're gonna do what you're gonna do here,” Overton said following Friday's Dream prelim runner-up finish. “You gotta get your car feeling a certain way. You're gonna drive it a certain way. So all the other tracks all around the country don't really relate to this, right? So, if you got a good package, you just come here and you throw it in there and it might haul ass.
“If it does, you're gonna win. So that's where I feel like me and J.D., when we were winning, we knew we had our little money, funny spot.”
At the height of his Eldora success, Overton said the secret formula rarely changed.
“And we rode out there. I mean, we might change a little something here or there, but pretty much we're running this — every time I won, I had the same damn setup,” Overton said. “So I just drove it a little different or tuned the motor a little different. So I think that's a big thing. And like I said, it's hard to get good here, you know?
“That's why you only see a couple guys win. J.D.’s usually winning ,or, now, Bobby. I mean, there's only a couple guys that win. So, it makes everybody else search and that's what makes the gap so big. That's why the same guys win all the time.”
Finding that sweet spot has become increasingly difficult in recent years, though. Overton points to tire and rule changes — including the droop rule introduced in 2023 that places stricter limits on rear deck heights — as reasons why he can’t rely on the same Eldora packages that once made him so successful.
“A lot of it is the cars and the tires and the rules and all the s--- that they f------ dream up every day, you know what I mean?” Overton said. “So that's a lot of what's got me wrong, like messed up here. It obviously looks bad here because people were used to seeing me win. So then when I come and run 18th, they're like, ‘What in the hell's wrong?’
“It’s not the car necessarily being so much different, but setup-wise it's a lot different. I know it sucks, but I'm just now starting to get more comfortable with my adjustments and stuff, as bad as that sounds.”
Ferguson sees it similarly. As tires and rules have evolved, he believes the Eldora formula that once worked so well for many teams has become more elusive.
“I do agree with that, everything changed,” Ferguson said. “I remember in the 2023 World 100, I led a little bit of it, but I fell back to sixth. The tires had changed by then. And even though I led some of it, I wasn’t as good at the end like I had been in prior years. I don’t even wanna talk about 2024 — I went there both (to the Dream and World 100) with a Longhorn and watched both features” because he failed to qualify for those main events.
For Ferguson, all of it points back to the same conclusion: nowhere does a race car matter more than at Eldora.
“It’s gotta be No. 1 because of the air. Not only the air, but the line moving around,” Ferguson said when asked where Eldora ranks among tracks where the car is most important. “There’s no place that races like Eldora. It just moves and you have to be willing to do it.”
In fact, Ferguson can recall only one Eldora instance where he felt he truly had the kind of car capable of winning the 100-lapper.
“I’ve had great cars before and the only time I really had close to a perfect car is the 2021 Dream when I ran third,” Ferguson said. “It rubbered up. If you go back and take a look at it, I passed (Kyle) Larson, (Shane) Clanton, Davenport and (Darrell) Lanigan, I believe, with under 40 to go. And as soon as I got by them, it rubbered up when I got to third.
“I had actually caught (Chris) Madden (who ran second to Overton). That was probably the only year I had a perfect car. Maybe not perfect, but one I could win with … but I didn’t have the perfect weekend.”
Momentum is a sneaky component, too. Tyler Erb entered Dream week with only two victories on the season, but both had come within his previous five starts, including May 29's $100,000 victory at Mansfield (Ohio) Speedway.
That recent surge gave him confidence he could contend Saturday night — and he lurked inside the top five before pitting on lap 79.
In fact, Overton's 2022 Dream victory remains the lone exception to the trend in recent years. He is the only Dream winner since 2017 who entered the event without a victory in his previous five starts. Even then, that Dream was postponed from June to September because of rain and contested during World 100 week. Overton had gone 10 races without a victory and endured a winless August before breaking through.
Before that, Dennis Erb Jr.'s 2016 Dream triumph stands as the last true surprise. He entered that year's event with just one victory all season and no wins in his previous 16 starts.
Ferguson can attest to the value of confidence entering Eldora. In 2022 he won March 26 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway for a $50,000 payday, followed that with four straight podium finishes — all behind Eldora standouts Chris Madden, Overton or Dale McDowell — and then surprised many by winning the Show-Me 100 the weekend before the Dream.
“I went on two big runs — at Bristol, I had March Madness won (at Cherokee Speedway until blowing a tire with three laps left, enabling Madden to win), the Show-Me — so I felt good going into that race,” Ferguson said. “But I also, every time I go to Wheatland I feel like I can win. I hate to say it like that … and in a sense, I feel like, at Eldora, no matter what, I can run good there. I don’t always feel like I can win, but I have good odds of being in contention no matter what — when my car is good.”
Devin Moran wholeheartedly agrees. After starting the year on a high note — collecting five victories through April 24 at Georgetown (Del.) Speedway and taking over the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series points lead — Moran went winless throughout May. That's not a recipe for Eldora success, either statistically or mentally, and Moran knows it.
“Oh, without a doubt. You have to have a good race car,” Moran said. “Look at Max Blair. He’s a perfect example. And Nick Hoffman. The top-three have been running really, really good all year. And they ran first, second and third. This place really shows who has good cars and who doesn’t. Like I said, I felt like we had a good race car all weekend. To run top-five all three nights is a testament to my guys working really hard.”
Saturday’s runner-up Max Blair sees the same thing from the other side.
“Anytime you’re racing against these guys, for a team like us, you have to have everything play out your way,” Blair said. “We’ve been really close a couple times this year of that happening. It just hasn’t quite happened. If we can keep finishing on that podium, it will happen sooner than later.”
Blair is now one of only four drivers to finish inside the top 10 in each of the last four Dreams, joining Davenport, Pierce and McDowell. Yet despite that sterling consistency at Eldora, he hasn't won a full-field national touring feature since a World of Outlaws victory at Bloomsburg (Pa.) Fair Raceway in May 2022.
To Blair, consistency from track to track is often a telltale sign of who is truly positioned to contend at Eldora. A team can feel close one weekend and completely miss the mark the next — a reality that helps explain why only a select few drivers repeatedly find themselves in contention for crown-jewel victories.
“Yeah, I’d agree with that, for sure,” Blair said when asked if it takes a complete race car from start to finish to win at Eldora. “It just depends. Some weeks, we’re getting it figured out. Then we’ll go to Fairbury and run 17th. We think we’ll get it figured out and then go to Wheatland and run 17th. And then we’ll go to Eagle and should’ve run second.”
Blair is hopeful that if he can tap into that greater consistency, and pile up a few checkered flags at the right time, an Eldora breakthrough might eventually follow. Either way, the blueprint is abundantly clear.
“We need to figure out the consistency,” Blair said. “We definitely have speed all year. As long as we can keep doing it, we’ll pull one out here one of these days.”
