Lernerville Speedway
Notes: Ebert survives for ‘unbelievable’ semi run
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt senior writer
Dan Ebert (60) works Lernerville's inside lane. (heathlawsonphotos.com)
SARVER, Pa. (June 26) — A wonderfully uplifting night of competition for Dan Ebert nearly turned to disaster on lap 13 of Friday’s first 25-lap Firecracker 100 semifeature at Lernerville Speedway.
As the 38-year-old Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series regular from Lake Shore, Minn., was running inside the top five and bidding to overtake Hudson O’Neal of Martinsville, Ind., off the top of turn two, contact sent him sideways on the backstretch. | RaceWire
“I mean, Hudson must not have known I was there,” Ebert said. “I felt like I had a run on the outside. Next thing you know, (coming together) must have hit the wheel just right. It knocked the (steering) wheel right out of my hands, so I lost track of where straight was.
“And then when I gathered it up, I was a bucket of mess going down the back straightaway. I was in rough shape. I was like a rookie out there.”
Until that moment, Ebert had been looking more veteran than inexperienced racer. He was the evening’s overall fastest qualifier for the first time in his season-and-a-half as a Lucas Oil regular, was the runner-up in his heat and ran as high as second twice (laps 1-3, 10) during the semifeature’s first half.
But on lap 13, when Ebert moved to the outside of O’Neal entering turn one just after the Lucas Oil points leader had slipped over the outside berm in turn four to cede the lead to eventual winner Ricky Thornton Jr. of Chandler, Ariz., a scrape sent him on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. His James Trantina III-owned Rocket Chassis was pointed directly toward the infield, narrowly avoided being clipped by the passing Carson Ferguson of Lincolnton, N.C., and didn’t start going in the right direction again until he was all the way at the bottom of the backstretch.
It was a scary episode and dropped Ebert to ninth place — the race remained under green-flag conditions — but it didn’t ruin his night. He rallied with aplomb, going from eighth to fifth on a lap-16 restart, gaining two more spots following a lap-17 caution flag and slipping underneath Brandon Overton of Evans, Ga., for second on lap 20. Ebert stuck to the inside lane around the 4/10-mile oval over the remaining circuits to nip Overton for a runner-up finish.
“I gathered it up and then just kind of got that bottom working pretty well,” Ebert said. “The cautions worked out well … I was overdriving (turn) three and I was able to kind of bring my entry up and then cut down and that made it a lot better there towards the end.”
Ebert’s sophomore season on the Lucas Oil trail has sometimes been a slog as he’s managed just three top-10 finishes, topped by a sixth on May 1 at Circle City Raceway in Indianapolis, Ind. A solid second-place finish — he even briefly appeared capable of threatening Thornton when he reached the second spot in the final laps — was a resounding morale booster.
“First fast time … and then this is the first time ever being in tech,” Ebert said, glowing as he spoke standing behind his car during postrace inspection for the podium finishers at the Lucas Oil Series trailer in the pit area. “We got fourth (last year) at Batesville (in a prelim and the Topless 100 finale), so this second, even in a split feature, is just an unbelievable accomplishment for our team. It’s just phenomenal.
“We were in contention. I’m not going to say that I was good enough (to beat Thornton). Had circumstances been a little different, and I hadn’t gotten screwed up on the back straightaway, maybe, but I’m just super happy.”
Positive debut
Dillon McCowan did some homework before making his first career start at Lernerville Speedway. It didn’t do him much good.
“I tried watching some videos, and then we go out here and it’s, like, extreme slick, you know, for qualifying, heat races and stuff,” said McCowan, a 22-year-old Lucas Oil Series rookie from Urbana, Mo. “I was expecting a little more hammer-down, get-it-on. It’s a lot different feel-wise than watching videos.”
McCowan adjusted well, though, timing third-fastest in his qualifying group, placing second in a heat and tallying a respectable sixth-place finish in Friday’s second 25-lap semifeature. He even was a bit disappointed with his ultimate outcome.
“I wish I could have watched the first feature to really get a little more of an understanding of (the track), you know, in person, but I thought we was OK,” McCowan said. “I feel like we should have finished quite a way further up than what we did. Once I finally went to the top, we made some hay.”
That lane change came a little too late, however, to gain McCowan more track position. He ran as high as second — for the race’s first five laps — and was settled in on the bottom running fourth behind Max Blair of Centerville, Pa., until Michael Norris of Sarver, Pa., and Garrett Alberson of Las Cruces, N.M., rolled the outside past him over the final seven circuits.
McCowan said his crewman “was signaling me to the top for like three laps and I’m like, ‘Man, I don’t want to go out there. I just watched a car almost flip off the top of turn four. And then when Garrett got by me, I’m like, ‘OK, I need to go to the top.’
“Had I went to the top when he told me, I think we would have ended up third,” he added. “But, you know, live and learn, I guess, first time here.”
McCowan was nevertheless “excited” with his performance, one he called “a big step in the right direction for us.” He entered the weekend with a modest five top-10 finishes on the Lucas Oil Series this season (his best: seventh on May 22 at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo.), but he’s been seeing some signs of improvement.
“We was good at Smoky Mountain,” McCowan said of his 10th-place finish in June 20’s Lucas Oil Series feature at the Tennessee track. “I think we should have should have definitely finished a little farther forward there, but a top-10 was nice to walk out of there with from where we’ve been.”
McCowan also had to overcome some mechanical gremlins Friday with his new family-owned Longhorn Chassis, which he tried to debut at Smoky Mountain before parking it with fuel problems.
“What was tough is, I lost brakes in the heat race,” McCowan said. “I was running second and I didn’t have the brakes.We broke a hard brake line. Come right off the master cylinder and broke.”
McCowan credited defending Lucas Oil Series champion Devin Moran of Dresden, Ohio, who was parked alongside him in the pit area, with his assistance rectifying the brake trouble.
“Luckily they had a hard brakeline and Devin was over here helping me put it on with (Moran’s crew chief) Chuck (Kimble) and we finally got it out there,” McCowan said. “We had to rush around. If it wouldn't have been for them I don’t even think we would have made the feature, so huge shout out to them.”
In need of laps
Mike Marlar of Winfield, Tenn., is enthused about the Rocket Chassis that he debuted last week at Smoky Mountain. He just hasn’t been able to stay out of trouble to truly start learning the XR2’s intricacies.
The 48-year-old veteran’s Smoky Mountain weekend was marred by his involvement in an opening-lap pileup in Saturday’s feature that immediately eliminated him. He experienced more frustration Friday at Lernerville with a heat-race scrape that shifted him to repair mode just to make it out for the second 25-lap semifeature.
Marlar’s heat problem came late in the qualifier as he was attempting to overtake Alex Ferree of Saxonburg, Pa., for the lead. When Marlar swept across Ferree’s rear end racing down the backstretch, he clipped the left-rear corner of Ferree’s car, crumpling Ferree’s quarterpanel but fortunately not cutting the Lernerville regular’s tire.
It also damaged the nose and left-side door of Marlar’s bright red machine, causing him to fall to a third-place finish as Ferree rolled on to his first-ever Lucas Oil Series heat victory.
While Ferree said he thought he contributed to the tangle because he “missed the bottom in one and two” and lost momentum off the second corner, Marlar felt he misjudged how quickly he was approaching Ferree.
“I haven’t been racing enough,” Marlar said. “My timing just isn’t right and caught (Ferree) when I tried to cross him on the back straightaway.”
Marlar and his crew scrambled to fix the damage in time for the second semifeature. He struggled to a 15th-place finish, noting that they didn’t have time to really work on the setup of the Rocket Chassis, a frame that Marlar said had been built for Oregon driver Thomas Hunzicker, who agreed to turn it over to Marlar so he could get on the track with the new car.
According to Marlar, Delk had originally wanted to run Rocket Chassis when they reunited late last season but they stuck with the Longhorns that Marlar had been campaigning. Marlar has run Rockets in the past, including stretches from 2011-15 and 2017-21.
Odds and ends
Ricky Thornton Jr. was the winner of a Firecracker 100 semifeature winner for the third straight year, following up victories in 2023 and ’24. Last season’s preliminary programs rained out. … Brandon Sheppard’s triumph was his 10th of the 2026 season, marking the first time he’s reached the double-figure win plateau since ’22, when he recorded 14 victories in his last season of a six-year stint driving the Rocket Chassis house car. He returned to the Rocket1 team last year and won four times (six overall including victories in his family-owned No. B5). … Chub Frank of Bear Lake, Pa., finished eighth in the first semifeature driving his cousin Boom Briggs’s Longhorn Chassis No. 99B. The 64-year-old veteran, who has started 18 of the 19 Firecracker 100 finales, said Briggs wanted him to run the car to feel out its engine. … Kyle Bronson of Brandon, Fla., was running fifth on lap five of the second semifeature when a busted oil pump belt knocked him out. He’ll race Saturday with a fresh engine bolted in his machine as he seeks his second career Firecracker 100 start; his only previous appearance in the event was in 2017 when he finished 23rd.
