When the new championship format for the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series was announced at the PRI Show, everyone knew that it would lead to storylines never before seen in the world of dirt racing. That said, the possibility of Tim McCreadie and Brandon Overton both missing the final four likely wasn’t on many people’s bingo card at the start of the year.
 
While the championship will come down to a one race, highest-finisher-take-all finale at Eldora next weekend, the process of getting to that final round was the same as it has always been: score the most points throughout the year. That should have played perfectly into the hands of McCreadie, who won the last two Lucas titles by several hundred points despite not winning the most races in either of those seasons. 
 
On a similar note, when Overton announced he was joining the Lucas tour full-time, many people immediately penciled him into the championship four at Eldora. Considering the fact that he averaged 23 wins a year over the previous three seasons across the various tours, that was a fair prediction at the time. 
 
Yet somehow, it was the new combination of Devin Moran and Double Down Motorsports that punched the final ticket to Eldora, and beat two of dirt late model racing’s hottest drivers to do it. And in many ways, he beat the reigning champion at his own game. Moran has only notched two wins on the year in Lucas competition, a long way behind championship rivals Hudson O’Neal with six, Jonathan Davenport’s seven, and a ridiculous 23 trips to victory lane for Ricky Thornton Jr.
 
Looking at the statistics, we can start to uncover what allowed Moran to edge out McCreadie and Overton for the final transfer position. The three were nearly identical in terms of average finish; Moran sits at 7.58, compared to 7.55 for McCreadie and 7.75 for Overton. However, Moran led the trio in top tens with 44, which is four more than McCreadie and five more than Overton. 
 
Ultimately, the most telling factor in this battle was the number of DNF’s for each driver. Moran failed to finish twice, but both of those instances came during Florida speedweeks, where only your best performances count towards your points total. On the other hand, McCreadie was forced to retire early from the Firecracker 100 at Lernerville, while Overton suffered early exits at Smoky Mountain and Huset’s. Both McCreadie and Overton left Pittsburgh just 30 points short of Moran’s total. Had either of them salvaged just a 14th place finish rather than a DNF on one of those nights, you would be reading an entirely different story right now. 
 
When looking at Moran’s season race by race, the turning point for he and the Double Down team was undoubtedly their Show-Me 100 victory in late May. In fact, that win was his first top five on the Lucas tour since speedweeks, but since then, Moran has only had four finishes outside the top ten. The summer months included a run of six straight top fives between Lernerville and his win at Deer Creek, and a stretch of seven top fives in the last nine races to put himself in that all-important fourth spot in the standings. 
 
Even though most fans probably didn’t have Moran in their championship four predictions earlier in the season, perhaps they should have. In two seasons with O’Neal behind the wheel, Double Down Motorsports finished second and fourth in the Lucas standings with 11 series wins along the way. Moran also entered the year with a formidable resume of his own, putting up 35 wins in the Tye Twarog Racing machine between 2017 and 2022 including five with Lucas, nine with the World of Outlaws, and one with the FloRacing Night in America series. It may have taken a few months for the team and driver to start working well with each other, but a $50,000 score in a crown-jewel event can certainly do a lot to boost one’s confidence. 
 
Now that the 99 car is one race away from a Lucas championship, the question becomes whether or not Moran can seal the deal. While anything’s possible, he has to be the biggest long shot of the four drivers remaining. The final four includes this year’s Dirt Late Model Dream and World 100 winners, and the man who has won just about everything else there is to win in dirt late model racing this season. Between Moran, Thornton, O’Neal, and Davenport, Moran is the only one of the four who has never won at Eldora aside from the 2021 World 100 B-Scramble, which only featured drivers who fall into that category. A Moran championship would be something unlike anything we’ve ever seen in this sport, but then again, that’s exactly what this new format was designed to produce.