LAKE CITY, Fla. – Tim McCreadie completed a perfect night of racing on Saturday night at All-Tech Raceway. The two-time Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series National Champion set the overall fastest time in qualifying, won his heat race, and then led all 50 laps to earn the $15,000 victory in the main event.
McCreadie was able to hold off his only challenger, Daulton Wilson to become the third different winner this season. Wilson finished second with Ryan Gustin rounding out the Big River Steel Podium in third. The remainder of the top five finishers were Tyler Bruening and Clay Harris.
McCreadie bolted to the lead at the start of the race from his outside front row starting spot. Wilson, who started on the pole moved into second on the opening lap. McCreadie and Wilson pulled away from the field opening a huge margin over the rest of their competitors.
Wilson started to surge closer to McCreadie before the only caution of the race came for a slowing Mike Marlar with 26 laps complete. On the restart McCreadie set sail widening the gap between himself and Wilson, but when McCreadie caught the tail end of the field Wilson again pulled close. As the two battled through traffic, Wilson pulled within two car lengths. However, as McCreadie worked his way through traffic, Wilson fell several car lengths back in the final 10 circuits.
In Lucas Oil Victory Lane for the 37th time in his career, McCreadie was all smiles after his dominating performance. “It’s just a pleasure to be out here with these guys. You take it for granted and 20 years fly by just like that. I am just happy to get to do it and I want to thank Donald and Gena Bradsher for giving me great equipment. Scott Fegter, my crew chief, built this car at Wesley Page’s. It’s amazing to drive a car like this that does what you want it to do. It maneuvers great so hopefully it’s just the beginning, because it used to be that I just couldn’t drive much anymore and now I am feeling pretty saucy out here in the rough stuff.”
“I thought I had better not move off the cushion. It was just so sticky all night and I honestly just eased getting into one and backed my car up a little bit through the hole a little better. I always feel like somebody is always behind me the whole race. I always give 100% all of the time out there,” said the winner, as he moved into sixth place in the championship points heading to East Bay.
Wilson, who closed the gap twice on McCreadie during the race came up just short of his first ever Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series win. “I had just got to Timmy there when the caution came out and then I thought lapped traffic was going to help me out and there at the end I was with Timmy and the lapped car was racing us pretty hard. Maybe we’ll get one next week at East Bay. We just need to keep building as the night progresses. We’ve got speed early in the night and the last couple of nights we have been able to maintain and go forward.”
Gustin, who posted his best finish with the series this year, rounded out the podium in third after starting 15th. “To be honest with you I didn’t realize we were up that far until they called me to the droop check. It was elbows up style tonight, so it was usually what we run good on. I knew it was time to get up on the wheel and that’s what we did. I wish we would have seen a caution there at the end because I think we had something for them.”
Completing the top ten were Ashton Winger, Kyle Bronson, Brandon Sheppard, Dennis Erb Jr., and Devin Moran.
