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Brandon Overton's inexplicable Team Zero experiment unravels Lucas Chase bid | Daily 10-1-2023

Brandon Overton is out of the Lucas chase, and I want to talk through their very odd weekend of decisions. Plus we're talking Outlaws, BC39, and more. Let's go!

It's Sunday, October 1st, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

I want to talk about this Brandon Overton situation today, but I'm going to preface this with a few things. First, I know that if ifs and buts were candy and nuts we'd all have a Merry Christmas. I concede that point right off. Second, I know I'm the only one in America who cares about dirt late model championships. I literally sell a t-shirt in the merch shop because of it. You can buy it for $10. But what Wells Motorsports and Brandon Overton did this weekend, specifically on Friday, was a fairly sizeable, completely unforced error. It effectively led to them missing the Lucas Chase final four, and I'm surprised there isn't more talk about it today around the community. Last night at the Pittsburgher, Overton's Wells 76 suffered a power steering failure while running in the top three, and he ended up finishing 9th after a late charge back through the field. Mechanical failures can't be stopped sometimes, and he talked after the race to Kevin Kovac and FloRacing and said quote "shit happens." And you know what, he's right. I agree 100%. But what was avoidable was the inexplicable and short lived Team Zero chassis experiment on Friday night at Raceway 7. Headed into the Jackson 100 weekend at Brownstown last week, Overton had nine straight Lucas top nine finishes, including a win, and laps led in five of those races. And even with an 11th place run on Saturday, he left Brownstown with an 80 point cushion to Devin Moran for the final locked in spot with just two races left. But Friday at Raceway 7, the team rolled into the pit area and instead of their usual Longhorn chassis, they unloaded an older Team Zero car owned by Grant Pearl, that was previously an Ahnna Parkhurst ride. They weren't happy with their performance, and decided to go a different direction, and boy did they. If you don't know by the way, Team Zero is the Bloomquist chassis. And this was made all the more strange by the fact that Wells is a Longhorn Chassis dealer. Once the Friday program got going, it was a disaster from the first green flag. I don't think Overton completed a lap at speed during hot laps, as the car broke something. It was then on jackstands when it was their turn to qualify, leaving them to start at the rear of heat two. Overton was able to pass Bob Dorman for seventh, but couldn't find a way around Drake Troutman, and that seventh place heat finish left him with a 20th place feature start. I think it's important to point out that the Friday field was one of the weaker we've seen all season with Lucas. Just 24 cars signed in, and only 23 started the main event. After the absymal heat, the Wells team flipped back from the Zero to the Longhorn, and Overton went 20th to 13th in the main event. With Devin Moran finishing in second, Overton went to PPMS on Saturday with just a 15 point cushion, which then allowed for things to play out like they did. Overton has the power steering problems, Moran goes seventh to second and snags that final spot. You literally cannot make this stuff up. I know a lot of this is hypothetical, and you have no idea how it would have actually played out, but this feels like a big screwup. At an absolute minimum, it cost them $27,000 with the points payouts. And if all would have gone absolutely right, it could cost them as much as $142,000 had Overton found a way to win at Eldora. The final margin to Moran was 30 points. That means if Overton finishes just seventh on Friday night, he's in, and Moran is out. Two more spots in the heat, finishing fifth ahead of Troutman and Bump Hedman puts Overton starting 14th, instead of 20th. A seven spot charge in the feature like he did, gets him seventh. And let's not forget that Overton is tied for the most Lucas heat race wins this season at 24, and just slightly trails Davenport and RTJ for best heat race average finish. If he's in the Longhorn from the jump, he probably isn't starting DFL in that heat, which could have meant a much better feature start on a night where the field was weaker. Overton is being praised today for his interview afterwards last night, and in it he talked about how they haven't been great this year, and it wasn't going to matter anyway headed to Eldora in a few weeks. And maybe he's right. He wasn't good at Eldora for the Dream or the World, and it would have taken a big effort to turn that around. But you know what, making that final four was literally the entire reason they were full time this season. Get in for the Dirt Track World Championship, and have the shot at the title. And they were right there until they decided to experiment right at the end and open the door for a surging Devin Moran. It was a desparation move that feels like it didn't need to be made. What a completely wild turn of events. On the flip side, congrats to Moran and the Double Down team. Four straight podiums to end it, which is part of a larger 16 race top nine finish streak. They had an up and down year, but found the consistency just when they needed it, and now they go to Eldora with a shot at the championship and guaranteed themselves at least a $100K points payout. As for weekend wins, it was an RTJ sweep, so headed to the finale he's won seven of the last nine Lucas features. The historic run for the 20RT continues, and now all that's left is the big showdown at Eldora.

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At Williams Grove last night, it was Brent Marks picking up the $75,000 National Open win. I tweeted this out as well, but I have to be honest, I was rooting for Daryn Pittman to win last night. He was in the Kreitz 69K, and led a bunch of laps before Marks got around him. He eventually settled for second, which was his sixth second place finish in the National Open. It would have been an incredible win for a lot of reasons. It was a great run though regardless. Brad Sweet won the Friday night makeup feature after the big show, and he continues to look like he's on his way to a fifth title. He's going to go five straight, pocket the big money, and then slide over to High Limit full time next year. It's going to be a little strange to witness this. Just ten races are left for the Outlaws, with Port Royal on tap for this week. We've also got the Tuscarora 50 makeup on Thursday before the Outlaw weekend starts on Friday.

The BC39 wrapped up last night as well, and it was a fantastic show on the dirt at Indy. Justin Grant came out on top of an absolute slider fest that included Thomas Meseraull and Emerson Axsom. FloRacing at one point tweeted out quote "Slideyard" and I'm going to be disappointed if USAC and IMS aren't selling Slideyard t-shirts at the BC39 next year. If you didn't watch it yet, 10 outta 10 recommend going and checking out the replay today. The USAC midgets go quiet now for like six weeks, with the season winding down starting November 14th at Bakersfield.

With the World of Outlaws late models, Mike Marlar and Bobby Pierce split the weekend victories at Atomic. Pierce now has 12 Outlaw wins on the season, and he extended his championship advantage over Chris Madden with eight races left. I feel like every time I watch a feature at Atomic, I'm shocked by how fast the cars go there. It's a big boy race track for sure, and always entertaining races.

Out in California, track issues at Hanford turned the Sprint Car Challenge Tour and NARC weekend into a mess. Both nights were eventually sacked, but hat tip to Doug Lockwood and Merced Speedway for adding 360s to their Saturday show. Cole Macedo a winner over Gauge Garcia in that one.

Looking at other weekend winners, Ashton Winger and Ethan Dotson split the Talladega Hunt the Front wins. Zack Mitchell picked up a nice $12,000 check, topping Ben Watkins and Chris Ferguson to win the Mike Duvall Memorial at Cherokee. Bill Balog was an IRA winner at Plymouth, while Brenham Crouch has wrapped up the series championship and rookie of the year.

That's it for the Daily today. Hope you guys have a great Sunday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow.