Dirt Racing’s Winning Moment: Mike Marlar drove away from Jonathan Davenport on a restart with three laps to go to win the season opener for the Flo Racing Night in America at Eldora Speedway in Ohio Tuesday (April 18).
Dirt Racing’s Dramatic Moment(s): Marlar’s win, however, came thanks to heartbreak for Hudson O’Neal, who cut a tire down while leading the feature and driving away from the field.
Prior to the tire going down, O’Neal literally stole the show at Eldora, storming from to erase a multi-second lead in the blink of an eye, blasting by Marlar in a race where no other car in the field ever remotely challenged the No. 157.
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So which late model team will be the first to first to migrate back to Rocket Chassis for 2024? It was shocking to hear, as the DirtonDirt crew said prior to Tuesday’s feature, that only two Rocket cars made the field, but O’Neal was in another zip code at Eldora. O’Neal has made it abundantly clear that Mark Richards and his Rocket outfit are still capable of putting, well, rockets on a dirt track.
And on that note, before getting into some surprising shortfalls in Tuesday’s season opener for Flo Racing’s flagship property, is there anything that long green-flag runs won’t cure on a racetrack? O’Neal’s pursuit of Marlar was masterclass and even with Marlar dominant up front, there was no shortage of racing through the top 10 this Tuesday night. Two cautions in a 50-lap feature? Yes please.
If there’s a late model race at an empty Eldora, does it make a sound? Take the dates off the screen and one would be forgiven for thinking Tuesday’s program was a 2020 COVID replay. Here’s hoping the track wasn’t relying on a big gate to break even on this one.
I don’t think I can remember a Flo Racing Night in America program that felt flatter or slower than Tuesday’s program at Eldora. Having two support classes for a weeknight program with over 50 late models entered was complete overkill and sapped tons of momentum from the headliner class. Between hot laps and qualifying, heat races didn’t start until well after 8 p.m. local time. That’s absurdly late for a weeknight program with over 120 cars in the pits.
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