Jake O’Neil
Jake O’Neil knows his way around dirt tracks. The 29-year-old driver had a very successful 2021 season in his Modified as he competed on the USMTS tour against some tough competition. Ultimately, he ended the year with a second-place finish in the final standings on that series with a total of ten feature wins to his credit. Now, the Tucson, Arizona driver hopes to parlay that effort into success in a Super Late Model machine.
As a matter of fact, O’Neil and his team were at 411 Motor Speedway on Tuesday preparing for an upcoming trip.
Beginning with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series races to be held this weekend at Florida’s All-Tech Raceway, O’Neil will join the Georgia-Florida SpeedWeeks fray as he pilots a Longhorn Chassis powered by Vic Hill Racing Engines for a newly formed team.
Wear Motorsports founder John Wear has a long history in dirt racing. He worked for Late Model teams that fielded cars for the likes of Gusty Christenberry, Chad Ogle and Scott Sexton. He even worked on Modified cars, including one driven by Mike Marlar.
The land developer in the tourist Mecca of Sevier County, Tennessee has been friends with Jimmy Owens for years and when he decided to form his own team he asked the four-time Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series champion for advice in hiring a driver which led to the connection with O’Neil. Wear wanted someone from the Modified ranks because of his prior involvement in that form of racing.
Wear Motorsports initially purchased their first Longhorn from Mason Zeigler who had acquired the car from Tim McCreadie’s team. He has since brought a second, brand new Longhorn which the team is putting the finishing touches on. Further, the 45-year-old team owner purchased some of the equipment, including a hauler, from the recently shuttered Blount Motorsports operation owned by Larry Garner. That team formerly fielded cars for drivers such as Tommy Kerr, Billy Ogle Jr., Casey Roberts and Donald McIntosh.
David Bryant, who served as the Blount Motorsports crew chief, has been enlisted to help the new organization.
O’Neil came to know Owens through Modified racing as he drove the LG2 cars built by the four-time Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series champion. He has some experience in Late Models having driven his own a few years ago. The difference from one to the other can be quite stark.
“He builds my Modifieds and he’s a good friend of mine,” O’Neil said of his relationship with Owens. “We’ve been good friends since 2013 when I started getting his cars. You drive Late Models a lot different from Modifieds. Late Models get it on pretty hard. They go better, they turn better, they stop better. The G-forces, the aerodynamics, and everything is a lot better, but they’re a lot of fun.”
O’Neil and the new team are jumping into the deep end of the pool by taking on the best Late Model drivers and teams in the country during Georgia-Florida SpeedWeeks but he looks forward to the challenge.
“Might as well get it over with, right,” the driver told InsideDirtRacing.com. “If you want to be the best, you’ve got to beat the best and you’ve got to race against them to beat them. We’re going to go down there and do the best we can do. We’ve got a lot to learn and we need a lot of seat time. The car feels pretty good but it’s hard to tell when you’re by yourself out there.”
O’Neil has never raced at All-Tech Raceway or East Bay Raceway Park where he will be competing over the next several days. As a matter of fact, he has never raced at all in the Sunshine State.
Jake O’Neil’s Longhorn
One thing the Modified ace will have in his favor is that he will be steering the hot brand of Late Model. Longhorn has won each of the five contested Lucas Oil features held so far in 2022.
“We’ve got a new one in the trailer,” O’Neil pointed out. “We just picked it up last Friday. Apparently right now they’re the right car to have. By the time I got into the deal, he(Wear) had already got this car, I think it’s Mason Zeigler’s car and it was Tim McCreadie’s before that. We moved up here January 3rd and all he had was this car, that was it, with no hauler, no tools, no nothing. We’ve been wide open trying to get things ready for this week.”
O’Neil has been living in one of Wear’s condominiums in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee along with his fiancée and his young son. While in Florida, the team will be using O’Neil’s hauler as the one purchased from Blount Motorsports is being made ready. As a travelling Modified racer, living out of such a rig is nothing new for this driver and his team.
“Since 2018, we’ve been pretty much living on the road for about six months at a time,” he explained. “Arizona is so far from just about everything. That’s what we do, we race and that’s about it. I’ve got my fiancée and my baby boy with me. My best friends work for me and it’s a pretty awesome deal.”
The move east is a welcomed one for O’Neil as he considers the next step in his racing career. Being based in east Tennessee will allow him plenty of opportunities to gain experience in this relatively new form or competition.
“You can race every weekend around here for pretty good money,” O’Neil stated. “There’s a lot of good competition around here. I’m really excited about the competition which is really tough in these cars. Everybody’s smart and got a good budget so it’s not like you’re going to out dollar anybody. There’s a lot of good, talented guys out there so we’re just going to do the best we can and see if we can’t run with them.”
As for his goals on this maiden voyage to Florida, this driver is quite clear about what he hopes to achieve.
“We don’t go anywhere without the thought of winning. Definitely making the shows, top-10s and top-5s. You’ve got to reach for the stars, right? We just want to be competitive and hope to not tear much up down there. We just want to have some fun and we want to be competitive but we’ve got a long way to go.”
Devin Moran dominates Lucas feature on Tuesday night at Bubba
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