HAGERSTOWN, Md. — Tim McCreadie became the ninth different winner of the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series this season.
He made a dramatic last-lap pass of Ricky Thornton Jr. to win the Red Nininger Tribute Race on Saturday Night at Hagerstown Speedway.
McCreadie crossed the line .424 seconds ahead of Thornton, who suffered the heartbreak of leading 49 of 50 laps only to come up short of his second LOLMDS win of the season. Jonathan Davenport, who started 16th charged the field to finish in third. Gregg Satterlee finished fourth and Tyler Erb rounded out the top five.
Thornton grabbed the lead at the start of the race with McCreadie in second. The first 26 laps of the race went caution-free. Just as the leaders were starting to race in heavy traffic, fourth place running Matt Cosner slowed on the frontstretch with smoke billowing out of his car.
Late in the race, the lead dwindled for Thornton. McCreadie dove to the inside heading into turn one on the bottom and fired better than Thrornton off of turn two for the pass, for a thrilling victory.
In Lucas Oil Victory Lane for the 23rd time in his career, McCreadie also became the 12th different winner in 13 appearances at Hagerstown.
“I had nothing to lose on that last lap and rolled the dice to go for the win,” McCreadie said. “I am sure Ricky feels terrible. He probably had a better car and he didn’t have to move that much. I had to spend a lot of the race diving into this corner and that. Another lap and it might have been all three of us reversed and JD might have won.”
Thornton finished second in his debut at the half-mile speedplant.
“I could hear him [McCreadie] more than anything. I kind of screwed up a little bit, and I got too close to Devin [Moran]. It’s just part of the growing process as a driver. Congrats to Tim! It’s tough to lose on the last lap, but we have got really good equipment. This is a three-year old car that Hudson [O’Neal] drove.”
The finish:
Feature (50 laps): 1. 39-Tim McCreadie[4]; 2. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[2]; 3. 49-Jonathan Davenport[16]; 4. 22-Gregg Satterlee[3]; 5. 1T-Tyler Erb[6]; 6. 14-Josh Richards[9]; 7. 43A-Tyler Bare[15]; 8. 22F-Chris Ferguson[13]; 9. 40B-Kyle Bronson[21]; 10. 71-Hudson O’Neal[19]; 11. 1S-Brandon Sheppard[23]; 12. 20-Jimmy Owens[5]; 13. 24-Dylan Yoder[1]; 14. 25-Shane Clanton[14]; 15. 0H-Dale Hollidge[12]; 16. 9-Devin Moran[18]; 17. 72C-Jason Covert[22]; 18. 2S-Stormy Scott[17]; 19. 157-Mike Marlar[24]; 20. 1-Earl Pearson Jr[25]; 21. 0E-Rick Eckert[8]; 22. 25Z-Mason Zeigler[10]; 23. 66C-Matt Cosner[7]; 24. 2D-Dan Stone[11]; 25. 4-Gary Stuhler[26]; 26. 72-Michael Norris[20]