Spencer Hughes
Quietly, Spencer Hughes has been showing more speed and posting stronger race runs as he looks to rise up the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series standings from his current 10th position. That improved performance has been demonstrated recently with the Meridian, Mississippi driver’s efforts in the Show-me 100 at Missouri’s Lucas Oil Speedway and last weekend’s Mountain Moonshine Classic at Smoky Mountain Speedway in Maryville, Tennessee.
The young driver of the PCC Motorsports No. 11 Longhorn Chassis who ended the 2022 season 9th in the final Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series standings, scored a podium finish in the prestigious Show-me 100 after earning a 5th place result in one of the preliminary races held earlier in the weekend. At Smoky Mountain, Hughes parlayed a solid result in Friday’s preliminary show to a noteworthy run in Saturday’s $50,000-to-win affair.
At the same time, there have been some struggles which have brought about finishes outside the top-10. Hughes took the time to do an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com prior to this weekend’s racing action at Smoky Mountain to describe his current season.
“It’s tough,” Hughes replied when asked about maintaining consistency. “We’ve got forty guys that rolled into this pit area that do this for a living so we’re all, I’d like to think, reasonably good at it. Several years ago if you were a tenth off you’d be fifth in Group A and now you’re fifteenth so then you’re buried in a heat race. The more advanced these cars keep getting and the more aero dependent, the more we fight for clean air. When you do get behind at the beginning of the night you really struggle. We’ve been really good at times and we’ve been really bad a times but here lately we’ve been all right. Really, Eldora is the first place we went to in a while that we didn’t qualify good. We’ve just got to keep plugging away at it.”
Qualifying and heat racing have become critical to success in modern-day Dirt Late Model competition. Hughes showed that importance at SMS by qualifying third in Group B on Friday night which led to a third place finish in the feature race. Since the top-3 from both the A & B races were permitted to run a Dash race that set the starting lineup for the big show on Saturday, Hughes was able to capitalize by earning the pole starting spot.
Those efforts then set up an 8th place finish in the Saturday 60-lapper.
“You need to hot lap good so you know what to do for qualifying,” Hughes explained. “If you struggle in qualifying, there’s some places we go to that you’d be better off to load back up it seems like. You never know, stuff can happen and fall your way, but if you qualify good every night and put yourself on the front of a heat, it makes the night a whole lot easier.”
Spencer Hughes in the PCC Motorsports No. 11 Longhorn Chassis
PCC Motorsports owners Craig and Shannon Sims chose Hughes as their driver at a very young age for someone competing on a national touring series. Further, the team allowed their pilot to surround himself with a young but hard working and energetic crew. Hughes says he and his team are gaining both experience and know-how with each passing event.
“There’s not a time when we go to the race track that we don’t learn something we did wrong or stuff we do right,” Hughes explained. “When you get out there on the road and race against the best in the country, they get better every week too. It always seems like the mouse is chasing the cat. There’s no stopping point as to how good you want to get. Everybody is working really hard to go faster each week and I guess that’s why we all love doing it. It’s a challenge.”
The Lucas Oil Series pits Hughes and his team against the likes of Tim McCreadie, Jonathan Davenport, Brandon Overton, Hudson O’Neal and Ricky Thornton Jr. on a regular basis. But the winner of the 2022 Fall Classic at Whynot(MS) Motorsports Park points out that the strength of competition is getting more formidable at every level of Dirt Late Model racing.
“You can even go to regional races and those guys can be just as tough as these when you get around their regions,” Hughes stated. “It’s tough and it gets tougher by the day. We go to all these high paying races and the cars are getting better but we’re all racing each other harder as well. Rarely is there any give anymore, it’s take all night long. Sometimes you get crashed and sometimes you crash other people. It seems to be the growing theme, it’s how hard we race each other. It comes down to how tough it is and how much money is on the line.”
Spencer Hughes and the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series will be in action this weekend for three nights at the Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, Pennsylvania culminating with the $50,000-to-win Firecracker 100 on Saturday.
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