DirtonDirt Dispatches

Dispatches: Taz win to Overton after early scare

April 4, 2026, 10:58 am

From series, staff, track and other reports

Brandon Overton with his crew (and Cody Mallory, left). (mrmracing.net)

Among the latest notes and quotes from Dirt Late Model action, including this weekend’s tripleheader on the Schaeffer's Spring Nationals and a pair of Northern Allstars Late Model Series races in Kentucky:

Help from a friend

Brandon Overton’s Easter weekend racing with the Schaeffer’s Spring Nationals already wasn’t going well. It seemed about to get even worse before he even hit the track for the first time during Saturday’s finale of the holiday tripleheader at Tazewell (Tenn.) Speedway.

While warming up his Riggs Motorsports Longhorn machine in the high-banked, third-mile oval’s pit area as support divisions had begun hot-lapping, he experienced a blown oil pump. His three-man crew was sent into full scramble mode to avoid falling behind.

The 34-year-old star from Evans, Ga., had the oil pump replaced in time for practice. An extra set of hands that pitched in helped make it possible.

Overton said Cody Mallory, the accomplished and well-traveled Dirt Late Model mechanic who has been working with ASD Motorsports and driver Ethan Dotson this season, “dove in with my crew guys” to assist with the hasty repairs. Mallory was at the event to help Chris Ferguson of Mount Holly, N.C., but (ironically enough) a locked-up oil pump along with other lingering mechanical problems from Ferguson’s DNF the previous night at Wythe Raceway in Rural Retreat, Va., had already sidelined Fergy for the night.

“He was just standing there and seen us struggling and lent a hand,” Overton said of Mallory. “He saved our ass.”

Back on schedule, Overton experienced no more serious stumbles for the remainder of the evening. He won his heat race and went on to grab the lead from Kaede Loudy of Rogersville, Tenn., on lap 23 en route to capturing the 75-lap Lil’ Bill Corum Memorial.

And Overton didn’t forget Mallory’s contribution after he earned the $21,000 first-place prize.

“I seen him standing there” during the victory lane ceremonies, Overton said, “so I told him to get in the pic for helping.”

So there was Mallory, joining Overton’s crewman Ryder Cantillo, Nick Hardie and Josh Zimpel for a post-race photo on Tazewell’s winner’s stage. It was certainly a satisfying moment for Overton, who entered the night coming off a 22nd-place finish in Thursday’s feature at I-75 Raceway in Sweetwater, Tenn. (he started on the pole but went to the rear after sliding sideways and collecting Hudson O’Neal on the opening lap) and a 12th-place run Friday at Wythe.

After securing the outside pole starting spot at Tazewell following consecutive rough outings and his early trouble on Saturday, Overton thought he might be due for better fortune. If he could just race smart and avoid taking unnecessary chances, a good result was likely.

“With all the bad luck we’ve had for the past two nights, I thought for sure, ‘All right, this is my race to lose,’” Overton told MotorsportsReport.net’s Richard Allen in a post-race interview. “That was (why) I didn’t want to get too aggressive at the beginning of the race, because when we were packing the track coming to the green, you could see all the rocks and everything out there. I was like, ‘Man, that’s probably where I’m gonna have to pass ‘em, so …”

Running in “protect mode” throughout the race, Overton bided his time to overtake Loudy for the lead on lap 23 amid lapped traffic when the race-long pacesetter “darted to the bottom in (turn) three and I just rolled him,” Overton told Allen. With the track locking down, Overton made sure he didn’t slip out of the single lane and crossed the finish line just under 1 second ahead of Rainsville, Ala.’s Sam Seawright, who was later disqualified for a post-race deck height violation that moved Loudy to the runner-up position.

“I’ve been screwing up the last two nights. This made the whole weekend worth it,” Overton, who recorded his sixth overall win of 2026, told Allen. “It’s hard to race against the Lucas (Oil Late Model Dirt Series) guys trying stuff, so we kind of used these races, the first two nights of this swing, to try stuff that we want to try on the road when it counts. We learned a lot this weekend … that was our main goal, to try some stuff, change some stuff, and win a little bit of money.” — Staff and series reports

Catching a break

Hudson O’Neal can’t win ‘em all driving for Kevin Rumley. But he can win some he maybe shouldn’t.

After the 25-year-old star from Martinsville, Ind., ran his victory total for 2026 with Rumley to six in 14 starts in Friday night’s 40-lap Schaeffer’s Spring Nationals feature at Wythe Raceway in Rural Retreat, Va., he was the first to admit that the $10,053 top prize was effectively handed to him by Chris Ferguson’s misfortune.

“It was probably going to be Chris’s race to lose,” conceded O’Neal, who led the first lap off the outside pole only to watch Mount Holly, N.C.’s Ferguson charge by to take command on the second circuit.

Ferguson, who started fourth, shot by both O’Neal and the polesitting Chris Madden of Gray Court, S.C., to quickly seize command. He had his Stinger Chassis humming around the sprawling half-mile oval and appeared in full control until suddenly slowing down the backstretch on lap 20 and limping into the pit area due to a stripped oil pump drive spud.

The second half of the race belonged to O’Neal, who was slightly subdued in triumphing by 1.594 seconds over Madden due to the circumstances of his elevation to the lead, but was nevertheless proud of his latest successful outing with Rumley’s North Carolina-based team.

“I messed up down there and let (Ferguson) get by me and I don’t know if I would’ve ever got by him in lapped traffic or anything,” said O’Neal, who has 10 top-five runs and no finish worse than 10th in his 12 feature starts this season with Rumley (he has two DNQs). “He was pretty good and balanced. He could go about, it seemed, wherever he wanted to, so it’s heartbreak for him.

“But we had to be there and we had to put ourselves in position, and we had a good number 6 K&L Rumley (Longhorn) car all night. We were good qualifying and set ourselves up good and was in the position to take advantage of some misfortune on Ferguson’s part.”

The 50-year-old Madden offered a similar synopsis of the race.

“Just that initial start right there, we didn’t get the take-off that we needed to get, and Hudson, me and him both overcharged one down there and left the bottom open and Chris was able to get by both of us,” said Madden, who in his last appearance at Wythe was victorious in last July’s Schaeffer’s Southern Nationals event. “But he had a good car tonight. I hate to see that for him. He probably would’ve won the race there and we probably would’ve run third and Hud would’ve run second.”

Ferguson called his loss a “heartbreaker” in a Facebook post following his 15th-place finish, but his best performance in six starts this season gave him a mental boost.

“We had a really fast (car),” commented Ferguson, whose best result in ’26 is a pair of seventh-place finishes. “Our crew absolutely nailed the setup and we were able to drive past some of the fastest guys in the country to take the lead … (so) that one hurts. But at the same time, it feels good to be back running where we know we belong.”

O’Neal’s triumph pushed his overall ’26 win total to 10 — including four with SSI Motorsports — and marked his fourth straight season hitting double-figures. He’s already nearly reached the 12 wins he recorded in each of the last two seasons and is closing in on his career-best Super Late Model campaign in ’23 when he captured 15 features.

The victory came in O’Neal’s first-ever start at Wythe. He had Spring Nationals races at the high-speed Virginia track on his schedule twice in 2021 — in April and May — but both races were rained out to prevent him from turning any laps. — Staff and series reports

Clear vision

Racing with one hand tied behind your back would be difficult. And Hall of Fame driver Dale McDowell of Chickamauga, Ga., found that racing, in essence, with one eye tied behind his back wasn’t much easier.

The 59-year-old underwent cataract surgery on one eye last year, and elected to complete the procedure in his second eye with another cataract surgery on Feb. 26. McDowell's sharpened vision paid off Thursday at I-75 Raceway in Sweetwater, Tenn., with a $5,053 Schaeffer's Spring Nationals victory, his first win of any kind since September.

"I need to thank my eye doctor, Dr. Reynolds out of Chattanooga there,” McDowell said in victory lane at I-75. “I can actually see where I'm going now.”

The fourth-starting McDowell, who started fourth in his brother’s Shane McDowell Racing No. 17m, made the second of back-to-back slide jobs of Hudson O’Neal stick on the 17th of 40 laps for his series-leading 19th victory.

Crediting last-minute changes by his brother and the crew, McDowell found his Team Zero Race Car performed better in the high groove of the 3/8-mile oval, which opened a three-race weekend on the Ray Cook-promoted Spring Nationals circuit.

“That’s an unusual line for me around the top and usually a young man’s line up there, but that’s just where my car was best,” McDowell said. “I think we were a little different than Huddy on tires, so I could get it to go early, I just didn’t know if we’d fade late. He jumped out there and got the lead and I was able to maneuver just a little bit.”

The 25-year-old O’Neal, whose nosepiece of his K&L Rumley Enterprises No. 6 suffered damage in a first-lap skirmish with polesitter Brandon Overton, led 16 laps but settled for second to the driver who turns 60 next month.

“Dale did a really, really good job,” Martinsville, Ind.’s O’Neal said. “Whenever he slid me and he was running that cushion really hard, I was like, ‘Yeah, go ahead and gitcha some Dale.’ It’s awesome to see him up there running hard and it’s really fun to race him. He’s somebody I look up to a lot, so to get outrun by him is no shame at all.” — Staff and series reports

Zarin's rookie bid

Two months into his first year on the road with the World of Outlaws Late Model Series, Logan Zarin is beginning to feel like he belongs.

Every newcomer to the tour expects to get kicked in the teeth on a regular basis, and Zarin was no different. The 23-year-old western Pennsylvania racer knew he was signing up for the toughest test of his career when he announced his bid for the MD3 Rookie of the Year Award, and he’s gotten exactly what he asked for.

However, the No. 1Z team has been making modest gains as of late. Zarin’s finishes have started to improve as a result, including a career-best 13th Saturday in his debut at Senoia (Ga.) Raceway.

“It’s going kind of like what we expected,” the Hookstown, Pa., driver said of the first 14 races of his rookie campaign. “We knew we were going to struggle a little bit down at these Southern tracks, but we’re finally starting to hit on something. Our results are starting to get a little better, so we’re just taking baby steps and just seeing what we can do.”

If competing against the best drivers in Late Model racing wasn’t a tall enough task, he’s been doing it in unknown territory nearly every night. The only track Zarin has raced at this year that he had been to before was Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla., but even then, the new dirt laid down last year meant his notes from 2024 only meant so much.

“I’ve been leaning on (racing consultant) Vinny Guliani a lot,” Zarin said. “He’s done this, he kind of points me in the right direction. And then just watching races on YouTube helps me a lot, just to kind of see what I need to do as the night goes on. Honestly, we just go into these races and try to qualify good, that just sets our whole rest of our night up.”

That’s a goal Zarin has been achieving more often in recent weeks compared to the opening stretch of the season. In the first nine races of the year, Zarin was relying on consolation races and provisionals almost every night, and the results yielded an average finish of 20.2 and three DNQs.

But March 14’s 14th-place finish at Smoky Mountain Speedway in Maryville, Tenn., kicked off a new chapter. Since then, he’s started every feature, improved his average finish by more than four spots to 16.0 and transferred out of his heat race last weekend at East Alabama Motor Speedway and Senoia last.

“We kind of hit on something a couple weeks ago,” Zarin said. “We’ve been fine-tuning it, and then our results are definitely starting to show. Not having to run B-mains all the time and getting decent finishes. Not what we want yet, but decent finishes in the feature is starting to help. We’ve just got to keep fine tuning on this thing and eventually we’ll be up there at the front.”

Before getting a shot at some racetracks closer to home territory in May, Zarin next heads too Farmer City (Ill.) Raceway on April 10-11 for the Illini 100 weekend.

“We don’t have nothing to prove to anybody,” Zarin said. “We’re just out here racing, having fun. Just make the features, run competitive and we’ll call that a win.” — Spence Smithback