PORTSMOUTH, Ohio – Hudson O’Neal celebrated his 20th birthday in style by winning Saturday’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series Bob Miller Memorial River Days Rumble at Portsmouth Raceway Park.
O’Neal overtook Jimmy Owens on lap 37 on his way to taking the win, his first of the season. It was also his first victory since departing the MasterSbilt team and joining PCC Motorsports.
Jonathan Davenport and Owens started on the front row with Owens taking the lead on the opening lap. Owens and Davenport ran first and second for the first 10 laps until Devin Moran moved into the second spot and started challenging Owens for the race lead.
Moran was pressuring Owens for the lead when he suffered a left rear flat tire with 32 laps scored. On the restart Tim McCreadie moved into second, but a few laps later he would lose a left rear wheel heading down the backstretch. O’Neal became the new second-place runner and on the 37th lap he made his move for the lead.
“We were fortunate enough to win at Eldora last year on my birthday. I knew I had a good race car coming into tonight,” O’Neal said. “I can’t thank Craig and Shannon Sims, my girlfriend Tessa, and Dustin Nobbe enough for their help. This has been a long seven or eight months. I didn’t think I was ever going to do it again. That one late restart helped me. I was able to capitalize. I don’t think I had the best race car, but I just think I found a line that worked for me.”
Owens was seeking his 11th series win of the season but was happy with his runner-up finish in the end.
“The cautions were good for us for a while,” Owen said. The top side was getting higher and higher. There was a lot of thrashing the cushion up there tonight. There were people knocking quarter-panels off, I was waiting for one of mine to get knocked off. Hudson just had a good car tonight, congratulations and happy birthday to him.”
Tanner English earned his first podium finish of the season in third.
“He [O’Neal] got up to the top pretty quickly,” English said. “I was racing with him side-by-side and the next thing I knew he was out in front. He had a good car. Congratulations to him. It’s been a long year for him so it’s good see him get a win. It’s been a long year for us as well, we have been up-and-down and all around and we finally got a good result tonight.”
The finish:
Hudson O’Neal, Jimmy Owens, Tanner English, Jared Hawkins, Shane Clanton, Kyle Bronson, Jonathan Davenport, Josh Richards, Kody Evans, Tyler Bruening, R.J. Conley, Robby Hensley, Stormy Scott, Earl Pearson Jr., Devin Moran, Rod Conley, Billy Moyer Jr., Tim McCreadie, Steve Casebolt, Dustin Linville, Zack Dohm, Tyler Erb, Shannon Thornsberry, Brandon Fouts.