2020 Lucas Oil schedule features big events, new venues & familiar settings

Former Lucas Oil champions Don O’Neal(5) and Jimmy Owens are likely to be regulars on the tour in 2020

As has become the custom in recent years, the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series released its schedule for the next season this past weekend at the 2019 series finale Dirt Track World Championship in Portsmouth, Ohio. As expected, the 56-race slate features some of Dirt Late Model racing’s biggest events. But at the same time, there will be traditional venues and new stops on the tour while some previously visited facilities will no longer be a part of the action in 2020.

Keeping with recent tradition, the LOLMDS tour will kick off Georgia-Florida SpeedWeeks and the 2020 season with a trip to the Golden Isles Speedway in Brunswick, GA highlighted buy a pair of $12,000 features. At that point, the tour will officially be underway. And from there teams will head to another traditional stop with a week being spent at the Winternationals in Tampa, Fla. at East Bay Raceway Park. The final two events in that seven-night run will feature by a two points-paying $12,000-to-win contests.

At the point the series will pull into its first new venue of the year. With Bubba Raceway Park in Ocala, Fla. no longer being a part of the tour, All-Tech Raceway in Lake City, Fla. will join the fray with a $10,000-to-win main event as a close for the LOLMDS portion of Georgia-Florida SpeedWeeks.

Another change within the early part of the schedule will be evident on the first weekend in April. The stars of the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series will make their second trip to the 411 Motor Speedway in Seymour, TN but will then head to Talladega Short Track in Eastabooga, AL for the first time the following evening. Both of those races will offer $12,000-to-win purses.

As has been previously documented on this site, traditional east Tennessee tour stop Tazewell Speedway has been left of the slate for the first time since the inception of the series in 2005.

Shanon Buckingham may very well have won the last Lucas Oil feature held at Tazewell Speedway

As is always the case, the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series will sanction a number of the sport’s biggest races.

Late in May the $30,000-to-win Show-me 100 at the Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo. will begin the run of major races that will play out over the course of the summer and fall of 2020.

Traditional crown jewel events such as the Silver Dollar Nationals at Nebraska’s I-80 Speedway, the North-South 100 at Kentucky’s Florence Speedway, the Topless 100 at Batesville(AR) Motor Speedway, the Hillbilly 100 at West Virginia’s Tyler County Speedway, the Knoxville Late Model Nationals at Knoxville(Iowa) Raceway and the traditional season ending Dirt Track World Championship at Portsmouth(OH) Raceway Park once again populate the series schedule with races that will allow teams to collect monster payouts.

Chris Madden won the crown jewel North/South 100 at Florence Speedway in 2019

The Dirt Million at Mansfiled(OH) Motor Speedway, which has paid out six-figure winning purses over the past two years, is no longer listed as part of the tour. However, a new major race has been added with the $50,000-to-win Dirt Track Throwback at Pennsylvania’s Port Royal Speedway making its first appearance on the schedule.

As can be seen by looking at the full schedule below, the competitors on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series will be very busy in 2020 but there will also be plenty of money on the line throughout the course of the tour.