Saturday night’s Dirt Track World Championship at Eldora Speedway will decide the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series championship for the 2023 season. The top-4 drivers from the series standings following the Pittsburgher event held at Pittsburgh’s Pennsylvania Motor Speedway then had their points re-set so that the highest finisher in the feature among Ricky Thornton Jr., Hudson O’Neal, Jonathan Davenport and Devin Moran will earn the top prize whether they win the feature or not.
The champion will be awarded a record amount of $200,000 with second taking $150,000 while third and fourth will earn $125,000 and $100,000 respectively.
The feature itself will pay a $100,000-to-win purse.
Who is the favorite going into the race?
According to a poll posted to my @RichardAllenIDR account on X(Twitter) respondents seem to favor Jonathan Davenport to come out ahead. And that opinion would be difficult to refute based on Davenport’s past success at Eldora having won five World 100s, two Dirt Late Model Dreams, and the Eldora Million in 2022.
Poll Results:
Who will win the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series championship on Saturday night at Eldora?
— Richard Allen/InsideDirtRacing.com (@RichardAllenIDR) October 19, 2023
However, in a Turn 2 Blog posted to this website earlier in the week, I picked Ricky Thornton Jr. after the amazing season he has had to win the title while Michael Moats chose recent World 100 victor Hudson O’Neal.
There’s more than a championship at stake
Although the vast majority of the focus in the Dirt Track World Championship will be on the four drivers racing for the championship, there are other things going on. Tim McCreadie and Brandon Overton will enter the race at Eldora tied for fifth in the standings. While a battle for fifth may not seem too exciting for two drivers who have accomplished so much over the course of their careers, there is a significant amount of money on the line.
Fifth-place in the final standings will receive a $75,000 payout while sixth will rake in $60,000. The $15,000 difference represents the value of a feature win in some events.
There is much more money available this year than in the past
To demonstrate just how much more money is now on the line than in previous seasons and how quickly those amounts have grown, Tim McCreadie received $75,000 for winning the Lucas Oil championship back in 2021.
To put that in perspective, should McCreadie finish ahead of Overton on Saturday night to earn the fifth position in the standings, he will win the same amount that that he was awarded for a championship just two short years ago.
This is not the time of year in which big Dirt Late Model races take place at Eldora
This is not the time of year in which a major Dirt Late Model race is supposed to take place. October weather is likely to be much cooler than is the case in June for the Dirt Late Model Dream and September for the World 100. It will be interesting to see how that impacts track conditions and attendance.
Not a typical Eldora format
This event won’t play out with a typical Eldora format. Rather, this race will be officiated by the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series which means no inverts for the heat races and no “Wheel of Doom”. Just like a normal LOLMDS race, the winner of the first heat will start the feature from the pole and so on.
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