Tyler Emory finally put all the pieces together in Thursday night’s round five of Appalachian Mountain Speedweek at Bedford Speedway.

Finally as in nothing kept the King George, Va., driver from legitimizing his impressive miniseries in which he’s steadily grabbed hold of the points lead though a win that previously eluded him. Emory changed that on Thursday and delivered the biggest victory of his 2-year-old Super Late Model career where he displayed the strength of his Cameron-Mann Motorsports team. | RaceWire

The 30-year-old started the night nearly two-tenths quicker than his nearest competitor in qualifying, Jeff Rine, and backed that up with the fastest lap in the dash. Overpowering polesitter Michael Norris of Sarver, Pa., to command the final 17 laps was all that remained.

“This is amazing. I figured we were going to be pretty good for the feature, but I didn’t expect that,” Emory said. “We’ve been working hard, and fortunately it shows. A lot of people work hard and struggle and don’t have anything to show for it."

On Saturday at Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway, Norris got the best of Emory — now the miniseries leader by 125 points over Kyle Hardy with three races to go — in the second-round event. It left Emory aggravated because he felt powerless chasing Norris the entire 35 laps. He has, however, not relented since that night he took the points lead. And leading the points hasn’t added nor subtracted anything to his approach.

“Everyone after Port Royal was like, ‘Oh man, you’re the point leader.’ I’m not going to tell you I don’t care, but honestly, I don’t,” Emory said. “If you get so worked up about that and you’re not working on your car and you’re not paying attention and you’re not making good choices … it doesn’t matter if you’re the points leader or not. You won’t end up with the points championship. I’m just glad to get a win so there’s not any asterisks to it in my book.”

Emory’s $4,000 victory on Thursday is the second of his Super Late Model career — the first was just over a month ago in a weekly show on May 13 at Marion Center (Pa.) Raceway — but Thursday is easily the biggest and the $4,000 payday doesn’t measure the magnitude of Emory’s breakthrough moment.

Thursday’s field could go down as the stiffest all year at Bedford, perhaps even more competitive than October’s $22,000-to-win Keystone Cup, which also drew 38 cars last year.

“This is a tough deal, man. I’m happy to be up here running with these guys,” Emory said. “I mean, the top 20 cars are no joke. You don’t get a better class of (regional) cars than what we got up here right now. This is no Bedford weekly show, I can tell you that.”

Emory’s maiden Super victory last month at Marion Center was an unforgettable one beyond it being the first. The win came on the eve of Mother’s Day and Emory intended to publicly dedicate the triumph to his late mother, LeMoyne Emory, who died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2019.

“But I never got the chance to dedicate the win to her because they didn’t have an interview,” Emory said. “(Thursday at Bedford is) my first Super win with an interview. Hell, no one came up with a microphone (at Marion Center) and the announcer stayed in the booth. We took some pictures and went back to the pits. It felt like a fast-time award. Actually, I spoke more tonight after the fast-time award.”

So, when Emory landed in victory lane Thursday with a chance at an interview, he emotionally spoke of his mom.

“This one’s for her,” he said “I really wish she could’ve been here; 2019 was a hard year for us.”

Emory’s ride at Cameron-Mann Motorsports is family-oriented above all. His fiancee, Megan Mann, is his crew chief and the granddaughter of his car owner Pete Cameron. Emory’s father, Larry, never misses a race and helps when he can.

“He’s super pumped … and everyone is,” Emory said of his father’s and team’s support.

The Chaptico, Md.-based team haven’t missed a beat this Speedweeks, seemingly making all the right adjustments when needing to produce. Emory’s kept a stockpile of Hoosier’s open tires for this week, giving himself options of varying compounds for events like Thursday when he capitalized on a harder 1450 right-rear tire.

“These open tires, they’re kind of helping me right now because it’s what we know and what we have,” Emory said. “We’re running out of them. I’m glad we got to do this Speedweek deal with the open tires because we’re not going to have a bunch of tires sitting around that are no good.”

Emory said that prior to Thursday he never raced a Hoosier tire compound harder than 1350, and he was actually “nervous” about using the tire because it was three years old and had sat in the team’s shop untouched longer than most.

“Pete and I were like, ‘Oh, we’re scared of this thing.’ But we were like, ‘Let’s grind it and put her on, and hopefully she fires,’ ” Emory said. “I was nervous. Norris got out on that start … he was definitely better at first. That tire probably helped him. Then my tire helped me late in the race.”

Emory has also stockpiled on wisdom when he raced alongside former teammate Jason Covert of York Haven, Pa., all last year. As Norris led the first half of Thursday’s feature, Emory was remembering the wise words Covert imparted to him.

“When Norris gapped me, I was like, ‘I’m just going to follow him,’ ” Emory said. “I remember Jason telling me, ‘If you put a hard tire on, don’t kill it. Just let her come in. Don’t kill it and let her come in.’ I’m like, ‘OK.’ About lap eight, the tire started to fire. I was like, ‘Alright this is pretty good.’

“Jason has spread a lot of his wisdom to me over the years, and it’s kind of funny because he tells you something is going to happen and it’s pretty much to a tee what happens. I pay attention to that.”

By the lap-16 restart, Emory was trending upward while Norris, racing a softer right-rear compound, clearly couldn’t sustain his early pace. Emory, who won by 2.5 seconds, even impressed himself with the way he commanded Thursday’s finish.

“I don’t even know what to say. This is honestly, so far, a dream come true,” Emory said. “To run top-five every night … I like to think we were going to run top-five at Path Valley, but we’ll never know on that one.”

Emory has significantly added to his points lead over the last three races, from 32 points after Hagerstown to 72 after Path Valley, and from 72 to 125 points now after Thursday at Bedford. He realizes all the champions that have come before him — Josh Richards, Tim McCreadie, Gregg Satterlee, Rick Eckert and Jeff Rine are some to name — have assembled praiseworthy careers. And he could be next in line to join the elite list of champions if all ends smoothly.

“We’re going to keep trying hard. Sometimes I think about it, but I try to push it away and keep working, and be the best we can every time I hit the track,” Emory said. “Unfortunately with this deal, all it takes is one part to break. There’s a lot of parts to break on these cars. I mean, we’re hammering these cars for eight days out of 10. It doesn’t take much to break something.

“That could happen to me tomorrow. I have to thank my lucky stars and hopefully it doesn’t happen. You try to look after everything and make sure it doesn’t happen. But you don’t know. It can be the dumbest thing that takes you out.”

No matter how the Speedweek ends, Emory has accomplished more than he thought. And he’s enjoying every step of the process, no matter how challenging or rewarding it may be.

“You can’t do this deal and not have fun,” Emory said. “I feel bad for anyone here who is not having fun. It’s miserable. Even if something bad happens and we don’t win the championship, you get a flat tire or something else, we’re still here having fun. Would that suck? Absolutely. You have to take your lumps and enjoy the ride. My dad’s told me that for a long time: enjoy the ride.”