Jonathan Davenport(49) and Brandon Overton will be among the pole sitters for Saturday’s heat races at Port Royal
***Saturday’s heat race lineups were determined by points earned during Friday night’s preliminary races***
***Heat Race lineups are posted below***
Drivers and teams in Saturday night’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series-sanctioned 4th annual ‘Rumble by the River’ feature race at Pennsylvania’s Port Royal Speedway will be racing for even more than the $50,000-to-win purse. At the end of the night, the UNOH Great Eight will be decided for those eight competitors who will advance further into the Chase for the Championship.
Not only will those eight stars still remain alive in terms of their championship hopes but they will also earn bonus money payouts for their efforts up to this points in the 2023 season.
Following the Saturday night main event at Port Royal, there will be six points-paying races remaining on the 2023 Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series schedule before the finale at the Dirt Track World Championship at the Eldora Speedway in Rossberg, Ohio on the weekend of October 20th & 21st.
The top-6 in the current standings are in no danger of not making the ‘Great Eight’. Ricky Thornton Jr. holds a comfortable lead of 415 points over Hudson O’Neal with Jonathan Davenport, Brandon Overton, Tim McCreadie and Devin Moran trailing. Keep in mind that the drivers making up the top-4 going into the DTWC will have their points re-set so that they will enter that season-ending event with an equal chance of claiming the title.
Realistically, those six drivers are the only ones with a shot at being among the final four grouping of drivers with championship hopes at Eldora. But there is still much for the others to race for on Saturday evening.
The battle, for now, is to make it into the top-8 so that a chance remains to earn even more money by season’s end.
Daulton Wilson currently sits seventh in the standings a mere 5 points ahead of eighth standing Tyler Erb. At the same time, Erb holds a 20-point advantage over ninth running Max Blair and a 60-point margin over Earl Pearson Jr. who resides in the tenth position.
The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series awards 200 point to feature winners then 180 to the driver finishing second, 170 for third, 160 for fourth then a 5-point drop-off per position after that.
For the sake of perspective, the winning driver of a main event earns 70 points more than the racer who ends the night in 10th place. The lowest number of points a driver who earns entry into the feature can receive is 75 points as those placing 21st-26th all receive that number. So a one-race swing of 125 total points is possible.
That said, the four drivers vying for the final two available spots in the ‘Great Eight’ will not be decided until the checkered flag waves at Port Royal.
All of this matters because there is money on the line. The points leader following Port Royal(which will be Thornton) will receive a payout of $7,500 with the other seven drivers being awarded $1,500 each for their accomplishments up to this stage of the season. Among Wilson, Erb, Blair and Pearson, two will be handed a $1,500 bonus while the other two will get no additional money other than that earned from the feature purse.
However, the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series will pay out beyond the top-8 at season’s end, The champion will earn a hefty $200,000 check with positions 2-12 being paid as follows:
2. $150,000
3. $125,000
4. $100,000
5. $75,000
6. $60,000
7. $50,000
8. $45,000
9. $40,000
10. $35,000
11. $30,000
12. $25,000
Here are the ‘Rumble by the River’ Saturday Heat Race Line-Ups:
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