KNOXVILLE, Iowa — Garrett Alberson led all 19 laps of the rain-shortened Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series presented by FloRacing event on Thursday night at Knoxville Raceway.
It was the opening night of a three-race weekend for the 21st Lucas Oil Late Model Knoxville Nationals Presented by All Makes Collision Center.
Tyler Erb finished in second, followed by Daulton Wilson, Ricky Thornton Jr. and Jonathan Davenport.
In Lucas Oil Victory Lane for the fourth time in 2025 and for the first time at Knoxville, the Las Cruces, New Mexico native earned $10,000 for the win.
“This is huge, especially for Ken and Beth. They have been coming here for so long, and this is an Iowa deal,” Alberson explained. “It means a lot to get this red car into victory lane here in Knoxville. First off, I hope everybody involved in those wrecks is okay. It was a weird race; the restarts were really hard to judge. I didn’t feel like I could accelerate very well – my gearing felt a little bit off. It’s so tough to judge if you’re doing the right thing with your speed because you could be in the correct lane, but if you don’t do it just right, you lose so much speed. I was just trying to keep my speed up and hit the lanes.”
Erb, who swept two preliminaries in 2021 at Knoxville, came from the 10th starting spot to finish second to Alberson.
“By making a lot of laps here, you’re not going to pass them on the outside when the cushion is that low,” Erb said. “I had a couple of restarts that worked out once I finally got past Joiner, and then I was kind of biding my time, not trying to hurt myself there, just had two or three restarts. The one I got by Perm and Sheppy was pretty good; we made 19 of 25, and Garrett did a good job. Everything played out well.”
Wilson, in his first Lucas Oil race since Port Royal in August, rounded out the Big River Steel Podium in third.
“Running third feels good. We definitely need to work on our race cars a bit, but with the setup we have for tonight’s race, we’ll take it. The biggest thing is trying to stay out of air on those restarts; my car wouldn’t take off on those starts at all, so I know I was holding up the whole field. Like I said, we made the most of it, and luckily, we ended up here.”
The finish:
Feature (19 laps): 1. 58-Garrett Alberson (2); 2. 01-Tyler Erb (10); 3. 18D-Daulton Wilson (4); 4. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr (8); 5. 49-Jonathan Davenport (18); 6. 1XM-Aaron Marrant (6); 7. 19M-Joseph Joiner (9); 8. 99-Devin Moran (11); 9. 79-Donald McIntosh (19); 10. 60-Dan Ebert (22); 11. 76-Brandon Overton (12); 12. 32S-Chris Simpson (13); 13. 32-Bobby Pierce (14); 14. 22-Daniel Hilsabeck (17); 15. 76N-Blair Nothdurft (16); 16. 1-Brandon Sheppard (1); 17. 6-Clay Harris (24); 18. 93-Carson Ferguson (23); 19. 19R-Ryan Gustin (5); 20. 71-Hudson O’Neal (15); 21. 25-Chad Simpson (21); 22. 16-Tyler Bruening (3); 23. 3S-Brian Shirley (7); 24. 6J-Jake Neal (20).
