Monday, June 14th, 2021
Overton completes 'Dream' weekend
By Mike Ernst
ROSSBURG - For the first time in four nights of racing at Eldora Speedway, Brandon Overton looked vulnerable on Saturday night.
The Evans, Georgia, native had already banked $147,000 by sweeping the first three nights of the Dirt Late Model Dream weekend and most of the estimated crowd of 20,000 figured when he took the lead on Saturday in the second 100-lap Dream from Darrell Lanigan on lap 53 he was on his way to the bank with another $126,000.
Chris Madden had other ideas.
The Gaffney, South Carolina driver, who has been painfully close but has never won a crown jewel event at the legendary high-banked half-mile, swept around the outside of Overton on a lap 75 restart and appeared on the verge of preventing the Overton sweep.
"If he got down (lower on the track) he could have blocked me I guess," Overton said. "But I just kept my tires under me, stuck to my plan and I didn't get excited."
Overton kept his cool, followed Madden for five laps and then retook the lead on lap 81. Madden wasn't done, however. He went back around Overton exiting turn two and stayed in front for four more laps before Overton drove under Madden on lap 86 in turns one and two and retook the lead and sped away over the final 14 laps to complete the unprecedented sweep of the lucrative weekend.
"I didn't go after him right away," Overton said. "I just kept riding and kept riding and he raced me really clean, so that's cool. I really don't even remember when I passed him."
Madden, who failed to qualify for the main on Thursday night, was disappointed but satisfied with his weekend turnaround.
"We've come a long way this week. We struggled pretty much all week and finally today we hit on a couple things, and we were pretty good," Madden said. "I got a little bit tight across the center (of the corners) especially when the rubber started coming in. Brandon's race car was a lot more neutral at that time than I was. I raced him as clean as I could. I tried to keep my momentum up and keep him back there, but he's had the best car here all week, so congratulations to Brandon; that's a heck of a job."
Chris Ferguson methodically worked his way forward and finished in third place, while Jonathan Davenport and early-leader Lanigan completed the top five.
NASCAR star Kyle Larson was the only driver to beat Overton all weekend when dominated the first heat race, beating Overton by more than six seconds. Larson however was never a major factor in the main event and finished in sixth place.
Rounding out the top 10 were Shane Clanton, Tim McCreadie, Gregg Satterlee and Dale McDowell.
Other heat race winners were Ricky Thornton Jr., Davenport, Kyle Bronson, Devin Moran and Lanigan. The two B-main events were shared by Mike Marlar and McDowell, while Tyler Bruening and Spencer Hughes gained the final two starting spots in the 100-lap main event by capturing the B-scrambles.
The weekend, however, belonged to Overton, who's lucrative four-day run will go down as one of the most dominant in Eldora history.
"This is awesome, a dream come true," Overton said with a cracked voice fighting back tears as he summed up the weekend. "I always dreamed of winning a big race up here. I swore I wasn't going to get emotional, but this is (awesome) to leave here with all this money."
Next up on the Eldora schedule is the inaugural event featuring the Superstars Racing Experience (SRX) on June 26. The series, which was founded by Eldora owner Tony Stewart and veteran NASCAR crew chief Ray Evernham, features veteran drivers from different racing disciplines in equally prepared cars, similar to the former IROC series. The SRX machines will be joined by the USAC Silver Crown cars in the two-division program.
