WHEATLAND, Mo. (May 26) — While the most familiar of faces, Jonathan Davenport, won again Friday, it was Jeff Herzog representing Missouri during the Lucas Oil Show-Me 100 weekend as a feel-good polesitter for the second straight night at Lucas Oil Speedway. On Thursday, Urbana, Mo.‘s Dillon McCowan took that spotlight. | RaceWire

“They call it the Show-Me State for a reason: we try to go out there and show them how it’s done,” Herzog, of Festus, Mo., said. “It’s just we have some learning to do.”

The 40-lap feature didn’t go Herzog’s way, however, as he finished 20th and later claimed to have whiffed on the favorable right-rear tire selection against the talented Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series field.

“I think we went too soft,” Herzog said. “We were a little tight early on, and I think we hurt the right-rear tire. I was just hanging on from then on.”

Herzog, sixth in points with the co-sanctioning Lucas Oil Midwest Late Model Association, stayed inside the top five the opening 12 laps of Friday’s prelim. Then the three-time Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55 champion quickly fell back to ninth on lap 16, staying there through lap 29, when it dawned on him that he was “hanging on for dear life at that point.

“I could tell it wasn’t scotching up on the right-rear like it needed,” Herzog said. “No traction … just trying to salvage a good finish. You live and learn. We’re new to these big shows. It’s a big guessing game. We’re going to keep digging.”

Setting fast time and winning a heat race on a night with 57 cars in the pits are are significant accomplishments for Herzog and his modest team, something he’s proud of regardless of the night’s deflating finish.

“We try like hell to make shows like this; it’s a confidence booster,” Herzog said.

“Yeah, I’m disappointed,” he added. “Bought a new helmet blower this week, and I have two nights on it and it’s shot to crap already. Just compounded the whole issue. I don’t like going backwards; nobody does. It’s hard not to when you start up front like that. It is what it is. We made leaps and bounds (from Thursday), setup-wise. I feel like we have a pretty balanced car (Friday). It was just a bad choice on the right-rear tire that hurt us late in the night.”

Herzog failed to qualify for Thursday’s feature, but up to that point, he had qualified for all six previous MLRA shows that often draw solid regional talent, “which is huge for a little team like we have,” he said.

Friday marked his seventh feature started in eight series events this year, and he has a pair of top-10 finishes in that span.

“We don’t travel up and down the road like a lot of these guys here week in and week out,” Herzog said. “That makes everybody better. We’re kind of a low-budget team, and we try our best with what we have. It seems to be pretty good for us. It’s just what to do on the long run.”

On Saturday, Herzog will start third in the first 15-lap consolation race, needing a first- or second-place finish to make the 100-lap main event. His B-main isn’t as top-heavy as the others — Daulton Wilson being the only touring driver in the 14-car consy — but even then, he senses it won’t be easy.

“Every time you sit in one of these cars, it’s a challenge,” Herzog said. “Last night was a little different track than tonight, and that’s what makes it interesting and fun. It’s an ever-changing condition where it’s a constant guessing game. The more you race, the better you get at these things and making better adjustments like we didn’t do (Friday).

“If I had big-time sponsors like a lot of these guys, I’d do it. But for a guy with three young kids at home and full-time job, I do what I can, and the best I can. We’re happy. I beat myself up probably a little too much than I should. We can do it. It just takes the right adjustments. We’ll take our lickings, and hopefully improve on (Friday), try to put it in the show.”

T-Mac on rise?

Tim McCreadie would like to say he’s found a bit of normalcy after Friday’s runner-up finish. The two-time and reigning Lucas Oil champ is hesitant to own that claim, though, even when looking like his hallmark self that grows steadily stronger late in races during the Show-Me’s second prelim.

Challenging eventual winner Jonathan Davenport and falling two lengths short at the checkers still isn’t enough evidence that McCreadie has what he needs to fully excel.

VIDEO: Watch Friday's Show-Me 100 prelim highlights from Lucas Oil Speedway. 

“We don’t fire very good, and fell way back at the beginning,” McCreadie said in regard to Friday’s runner-up to Jonathan Davenport. “I’m just not on the racetrack until it gets completely shiny where I can do it with my foot, where I go out there and push it half throttle and keep it underneath me.”

McCreadie started fourth on Friday and dropped to ninth early as his car struggled in greasier track conditions.

“When you’re flat on the deck the first 15 laps, I’m just slipping,” said McCreadie, who then surmised the main reason he got to second is more because cars ahead of him slowed rather than him finding anything special.

“I think everybody just came to us,” McCreadie said. “We had a couple restarts, and we got up there and was fighting for it.”

McCreadie did force Davenport to drop off the cushion and protect the bottom the final three laps. If Davenport hadn’t done that, McCreadie had what it took to overtake his Longhorn Chassis teammate around the bottom. McCreadie added that his biggest challenge is finding right-rear grip, something he’s missed since the implementation of Hoosier Racing Tire’s National Late Model Tire this season.

“I would love to unload tomorrow and feel like I can roll over because my right-rear is stuck like I used to last year and the year before,” McCreadie said. “Now, I feel like I have the wrong tire on all night long. That’s what we’ve been working on since Volusia, or since Florida. It’s trying to get this harder tire back in the ground. I haven’t figured it out yet. The beauty of this is we have one more chance tomorrow.”

Odds and ends

Mason Zeigler of Chalk Hill, Pa., was driving the fastest car at one point during Friday’s 40-lapper, scurrying from 12th to third midway before he broke a part in the rear end; he’s set to start Saturday’s crown jewel in 17th: “It’s really frustrating. The car is so good. We led at Davenport, we led at 300 (Raceway in Farley, Iowa, and) we should have two top-10s this week. It’s super satisfying though to know the car is that good,” Zeigler said. … Ricky Thornton Jr. of Martinsville, Ind., said the backup car used in Friday’s 24th-to-third rally is more than 300 races old, dating back to Hudson O’Neal’s 2019 Lucas Oil Series campaign for the SSI Motorsports team. … Brandon Overton of Evans, Ga., starts seventh in his first-ever Show-Me 100 Saturday after a fourth-place finish Friday and overall better outing than Thursday’s 14th-place run: “We have a little clearer direction on what we needed to do. We sucked (Thursday), so I was like, s--- we better change it all because I was terrible in that race. … As I said, I think I have a better idea on what to do tomorrow,” Overton said Friday. … Dillon McCowan (starting sixth), Max Blair (14th) and Ricky Weiss (18th) join Overton as first-time Show-Me starters among the top 18 locked in via preliminary points. … Boom Briggs, Daulton Wilson, 2021 Show-Me winner Hudson O’Neal, ’20 Show-Me winner Payton Looney, and Ross Robinson are among those relegated to Saturday’s trio of consolation races.