LOCUST GROVE, Ark. (Aug. 19) — Following Saturday’s Comp Cams Topless 100 at Batesville Motor Speedway, the consensus from drivers who made the starting field for the 31st annual event was disappointment in that the 3/8-mile track took rubber early on and the track allowed for little passing after lap 30.

Few drivers were as openly critical of the surface as Evans, Ga.’s Brandon Overton, however. The oft-colorful and always straightforward driver didn’t mince words when trying to describe the challenge he faced in moving from his 17th starting position up to his ninth-place finishing spot.

“You would just think, like, I’ve never … have you ever seen this many people at Batesville? All these people were here to come watch this race and like, we knew it was going to rubber up before we ever mashed the gas,” Overton said. “I mean, for 50 grand and then like these (Lucas Oil Series) points, this is a lot of why I hate doing this s--- . Like it’s stupid really.

“Somebody should have made the call and said, ‘We need to at least go make an attempt (to work on the track).’ We don’t have to go out there and flood it. You don’t got to do that. Just when you know that when we drop the green we’re going to race for 15 laps and you can’t pass for s--- on that anyway, that it’s going to rubber. That sucks.”

It didn’t help that Overton started deep in the pack despite having a fast car all weekend. He was the fourth fastest qualifier overall — third in his group — and won his Friday heat race with ease. But a flat tire while running sixth in the 30-lap preliminary feature (he’d ran fourth for 23 laps) sent him reeling to a 23rd-place finish. Rather than be locked into the feature through Friday’s preliminary action, Overton had to run a consolation on Saturday, which he easily won from the pole. Starting 17th is way different than starting sixth or better.

“That’s big, yeah, especially like when they don’t do s--- to the track,” said Overton. “Then you got a format that … it’s not the format, but you have a bad night and you get buried and then like I said, the track you can’t pass on the track, so kind of take it how it is.”

Like most drivers, Overton quickly realized that if he was to gain ground, he needed to make it happen in a hurry.

“As soon as soon as we had the first restart (on lap 27) I think I passed like four cars on one restart and then I passed maybe three in the rubber and two had flat tires,” Overton said. “So I knew pretty much when everybody’s chopping each other off trying to get in the bottom, it’s over. I got behind Earl (Pearson Jr.) and I just wasn’t gonna pressure it. I mean, you know what was gonna happen. I wasn’t gonna pass him, so I just stayed my distance and rode around. Finish, make sure I finished, that was a big thing. I seen (Tim) McCreadie a couple of cars up and that’s pretty much the car I have to race to make everything worth it. It sucks, but it is what it is.”

Moran’s plan

Fourth-finishing Devin Moran of Dresden, Ohio, had a gameplan ready in case the surface at Batesville Motor Speedway became one-laned. Unfortunately for Moran — and luckily for other drivers — the plan never materialize.

“Lap 30 I looked at the board and it was over,” Moran said. “Once that happened, my strategy was to just ride around there and hope the front guys blew out (a tire). They said I had actually a little better tires than they did, but no one blew out and just … one of them deals. It’s Batesville. I felt like we had a really, really good car and I could maneuver and I got myself to fourth, but just nothing you could do.”

Moran said had he not been locked into a fierce battle with Batesville’s Jared Landers, he may have been able to pick up a couple more positions.

“I raced with Jared pretty hard, for a couple laps and I probably should have just tried to go in there and slide him and I could have maybe got up through there, but I mean it happened so fast. When you only have 25 laps to make something happen it makes it tough because you’re trying to pace yourself and then next thing you know the race is pretty much over.”

Moran then put a positive spin on the weekend.

“They had they had a great crowd and a lot of cars and it was a really fun event to be at, just wish tonight’s racetrack would have been a little better,” he said. “I had a really good car all weekend. I felt like we had a top-three car all weekend, just didn’t capitalize. But is was a good points night and a good weekend, two top-five runs and not really being here a whole lot it’s good momentum. Hopefully we can do that next weekend as well.”

Scott’s discovery

Despite difficult track conditions, Las Cruces, N.M.’s Stormy Scott was relatively pleased with Saturday’s seventh-place effort. Not only was it a decent finish, but Scott and his team managed to stumble upon an adjustment to help with his car’s balance during long-distant features.

“We’ve been struggling on longer races when we got to fill the fuel cell up and we tried something a lot different in hot laps tonight and it felt way better,” Scott said. “Then we tried it tonight (in the feature) and it was continuously better. Usually we’ve had issues when we fill our fuel cell up that we just drop like a rock. Just our balance gets way off.

“I think we figured out the direction we needed to go to keep our balance good for the longer races so I’m happy with it. We probably should have ran sixth but I made a mistake and that was on me, so we fell back to seventh, but no, I mean I’m happy with the performance of the car. We’ll continue to see if we can get us a big one before the year’s up with.”

Scott was pleased with the overall consistency he found.

“I feel like we’re finally starting to show some consistency. (That’s) what we’ve been looking for and I feel like the speed’s there,” Scott said. “We’re just one or two little adjustments away from being great. I guess right now I feel like we’re good. We’re just like two adjustments away from being great, so I’m happy with it.”

Alberson’s error

Garrett Alberson sat perched on the edge of his car following Saturday’s century grind at Batesville Motor Speedway. Water bottle in hand, the Las Cruces, N.M., driver stared straight ahead, a look of exhaustion on his face. Instead of being tired on the sticky August evening, Alberson was disgusted in his 19th-place finish and the decision that got him there.

“I thought we had a decent balance in the hot-lap session there, but we were lacking a little traction, and we moved one thing 1 inch, and the car just completely died,” said Alberson, who started 11th. “And (the track) it was starting to rubber about lap 25 laps and I was even getting passed in a rubber. I was so bad I was getting passed in the rubber.”

Alberson found little solace in knowing the chassis tuning mistake provided a lesson on what not to do.

“It’s an expensive way to screw up, but it is what it is, I guess.”