ZANESVILLE, Ohio — Hometown driver Devin Moran thrilled the capacity crowd on Saturday night at Muskingum County Speedway.
Moran led all the way to win the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series-sanctioned Freedom 60 worth $20,000.
Moran’s win was his fourth of the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series season, but his first series win since 2013 at the track promoted by his father, Hall-of-Famer Donnie Moran, and his family.
Ricky Thornton Jr. came from fifth to finish second as he trailed Moran by 3.185 seconds at the finish.
Max Blair was third followed by Jonathan Davenport and Matt Cosner.
The stats will show that Moran led all 60 laps, but three different drivers took their best shot at him during the race with Tim McCreadie, Tyler Carpenter, and Thornton all holding the runner-up spot at some point.
McCreadie, who started alongside on the front row held the second spot for the first nine laps of the race until Carpenter got going on the top and moved past McCreadie on lap ten. Carpenter was able to keep Moran in his sights until a lap-30 restart when McCreadie and Thornton got by him.
McCreadie, looking for his first win in the Rocket1 House Car, yielded the second spot to Thornton on lap 41 as Blair joined the party and he began to put the pressure on Thornton for second.
With no caution flags in the last 25 laps, Moran had to navigate heavy traffic that allowed Thornton and Blair to close briefly, but Moran would ultimately pull away.
“Man, this is just awesome. All the glory to God and these great race fans. I love coming here,” Moran said. “We only get to come here once or twice a year. It was an awesome night and I’m glad to be back in victory lane with the Lucas Oil guys. It took a while to get around those guys in the back. Our car was so good. I just want to give my car owner, Roger Sellers, a huge shoutout as he drove all the way up from Tennessee to be here tonight. Thanks to my dad, my mom and my whole family they put on a great event tonight.”
Thornton came home in second.
“I needed to win the heat race to be able to stand where Devin is tonight. I felt like I was pretty decent there,” Thornton said. “It’s tough to start fifth and pass here. It was so top dominant there forever. I just never got myself in a good enough position and then I got a couple of lucky restarts there and I thought I could run him [Moran] down and the lapped cars were racing harder than I was for the lead. It was one of those deals, we’ll take second and head on down the road.”
For the second year in a row, at Muskingum County, Blair rounded out the podium.
“This track races like Eriez, Pa and like a lot of tracks back home,” Blair said. “I am much more familiar and comfortable with tracks like this. That was a lot of fun. I thought I was going to have Ricky there for a long time, I think we raced about 20 laps side-by-side and we never touched. This crowd was awesome tonight especially on the Fourth of July weekend, because it’s tough, there is so much racing going on everywhere so for the crowd to be this good that is pretty cool.”
The finish:
Devin Moran, Ricky Thornton Jr., Max Blair, Jonathan Davenport, Matt Cosner, Tim McCreadie, Tyler Carpenter, Spencer Hughes, Daulton Wilson, Hudson O’Neal, Colten Burdette, Todd Brennan, Carson Ferguson, Jimmy Owens, Mike Marlar, Tripp Gerrarld, Cory Lawler, Clay Harris, Brenden Smith, Nathon Loney, Garrett Alberson, Ross Robinson, Anthony Kinkade, Boom Briggs, Drake Troutman, James Dennis.