WHEATLAND, Mo. — Hudson O’Neal remains undefeated at Lucas Oil Speedway in 2025, having secured the win in The Tribute to Don and Billie Gibson on Friday night.
O’Neal, who started sixth, took the lead from defending multi-time track champion Justin Wells on the 23rd lap, leading the final 18 laps to claim the $10,000 victory.
Ricky Thornton Jr. would squeeze by Jonathan Davenport at the flag stand for second. Davenport was third with Brandon Overton and Devin Moran rounding out the top five drivers.
Wells sprinted to the lead at the start of the 40-lap race until the only caution flag waved with four laps completed when third-place driver Garrett Alberson went off the track and slammed into the turn two wall. Alberson checked out okay, but his car was done for the night.
On the restart, Wells maintained his lead over Davenport as the two drivers circled the top of the 3/8ths mile oval. O’Neal then got into the mix from his outside third row starting spot, moving to third and then passing Davenport on lap 17 for second.
O’Neal then pressured Wells until he cleared him for the lead on lap 23. Davenport passed Wells a lap later to take second place. O’Neal then pulled away significantly as the race remained caution-free the rest of the way, with Davenport and Thornton managing to close in during the final laps. Thornton went to the outside on the white flag, beating Davenport to the finish line, finishing 1.298 seconds behind O’Neal at the checkered flag.
“The track was quite a bit different, I felt like tonight versus last night,” O’Neal said. “Jason (Durham) came up with some good ideas right before the feature, and it helped just a little bit more. This thing was awesome to drive. I probably wasn’t as aggressive enough with lapped traffic there as I needed to be. I just got too complacent with that bottom, and I didn’t know, and I was scared to move out there. I didn’t want to give up the lead.”
Thornton cleared Davenport on the outside at the finish line, took second from the two-time Show Me 100 winner.
“I would say our confidence level is pretty high for tomorrow night. My car got better as the race went on; it was kind of backwards on how it is. I made one mistake early in the race, and it cost me and allowed Hud to get by,” Thornton said. “I could race with him after that, and I felt like if it hadn’t been for that, at least I would have had a shot to give myself a chance to win. Congrats to Hud and JD, and I want to thank JD for giving me plenty of room there on the last lap, but he could have easily just moved up and chopped my nose off. My car is really good, so we look forward to tomorrow night.”
Davenport, who ran second for 32 of the 40 laps, was edged out by Thornton at the finish line as he would round out the podium.
“I definitely gained on it from last night,” Davenport said. “I could finally steer through the center. I was afraid to tighten up the rear tonight, so I tried to free the car up more in the front. I just really moved down one or two laps too late, and I might have gotten in front of Hudson there before he got by me on the bottom. It was weird. I was just telling the guys, there was a lot of oil. The 98 (Wells) was doing a great job his tires just died, but he was throwing so much oil, I didn’t know it at the time I actually thought it was raining and so I’m like if it’s slick up here it’s going to be really slick in the black so that’s really the reason I didn’t want to move down any earlier than I did.”
The finish:
Feature – 1. 71-Hudson O’Neal[6]; 2. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[4]; 3. 49-Jonathan Davenport[3]; 4. 76-Brandon Overton[5]; 5. 99-Devin Moran[9]; 6. 1-Brandon Sheppard[7]; 7. 2T-Tyler Stevens[11]; 8. 98-Justin Wells[1]; 9. 16-Tyler Bruening[8]; 10. 32-Bobby Pierce[12]; 11. 93-Carson Ferguson[10]; 12. 22-Daniel Hilsabeck[15]; 13. 97-Cade Dillard[16]; 14. 79-Donald McIntosh[23]; 15. 6-Clay Harris[13]; 16. 18D-Daulton Wilson[14]; 17. 8-Dillon McCowan[18]; 18. 8K-Tyler Kuykendall[17]; 19. 19M-Spencer Hughes[24]; 20. 60-Dan Ebert[20]; 21. 91-Chris Jones[22]; 22. 1XM-Aaron Marrant[19]; 23. 40B-Kyle Bronson[21]; 24. 58-Garrett Alberson[2]
