BRANDON, S.D. — While Hudson O’Neal and Ricky Thornton Jr. have dominated recent headlines, and Bobby Pierce dominated Silver Dollar Nationals prelim action through two nights at Huset’s Speedway, Tim McCreadie’s been quietly growing stronger in his Rocket Chassis house car.

Friday’s third-place Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series finish gave the Watertown, N.Y., veteran his 10th finish of seventh or better over the last 11 races, with four of those being top-fives and three of those being podium finishes. 

Though McCreadie knows full well “we still haven’t won, and that’s what we’re striving for” — “We’re not going to celebrate a third-place finish,” he added — he believes the Mark Richards-led team are finally balanced enough with their race cars to start winning races again.

“I feel way more comfortable with the package I’ve had on the last few nights than I’ve had all year,” the 50-year-old McCreadie said. “It’s a credit to the guys. They’re the ones doing the work. When I say, or when anybody says, they’re doing all the work, it’s because it’s true. I give them feedback, but they do the work. We’re turning the corner and hopefully we can bust through the door.

“We’ve jumped over a few cars here and there this weekend as far as where we’ve been. And now we’re trying to hopefully make small decisions instead of major changes. I’m excited. Hopefully I can do Mark justice. It’s been a road. It’s been a lot longer than we thought it’d be.”

McCreadie certainly hasn’t been bad since joining the venerated Rocket Chassis house car team in mid-March, posting 20 finishes inside the top-10 in 25 races logged. It’s just his winless ledger of six top-five finishes and five laps led isn’t where he’d like to be through two-dozen-plus races.

He has, however, risen from ninth to fifth in the Lucas Oil Series standings, so that’s statistical evidence he’s trended upward.

“I feel like if we started over, we’d be fighting for wins every night like (Rocket1 predecessor) Hudson (O’Neal),” McCreadie said. “We’re up front. Who knows, tomorrow we could fall on our face. Thursday I felt really good. (Friday) I felt like we made it a little better. Hopefully a longer race with a different right-rear tire will benefit us than some of these other guys.”

McCreadie can finally start looking forward to longer-distance races like Saturday’s 80-lap Silver Dollar Nationals finale, plus upcoming 100-lappers: July 29’s Prairie Dirt Classic at Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway, Aug. 3’s USA Nationals at Cedar Lake Speedway in New Richmond, Wis., Aug. 10’s North-South 100 at Florence Speedway in Union, Ky., and Aug. 17’s Topless 100 at Batesville Speedway in Locust Grove, Ark.

He claims “two weeks ago, if I would’ve ran a longer race, I would’ve fried the tires off it.” But now he and his Rocket1 Racing bunch have “gotten it to where it’s better on the tires.”

“We’ve gotten it to where it’s easier to drive,” McCreadie said. “Now we’re down to the small changes that win the races.”

It took O’Neal time to get acquainted with the Rocket Chassis house car ride when he took over November 2022. O’Neal wasn’t victorious with the Richards-led team until 15 races into the partnership. And that’s after he raced Rocket Chassis for Double Down Motorsports.

McCreadie never raced the modern day Rocket Chassis before March 23’s Lucas Oil Series event at Brownstown (Ind.) Speedway. But this week at Huset’s could be the turning point McCreadie’s hoped for.

“We’re happy and content. We’ve gotten the car in the direction we want it,” McCreadie said. “Now it’s down to the things these guys are really good at: The small changes that win the races. Whether it’s me or me meshing with the car, I wasn’t with it. They’ve changed it to make me better.”

In reality, 25 races since mid-March isn’t much at all, either. Bobby Pierce has logged that many races — 25 total — since June 6’s Dream XXX prelim at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway and has 11 victories over that span.

“He’s really good right now and we’re all chasing him. … We haven’t raced that much. That’s the kicker,” McCreadie said. “I know we’ve ran 23-24 times, but if you do that since Florida, that’s not many races. It’s not like we’ve been ducking races. There’s been rainouts. Until this week’s stretch, we’ve averaged one race a week. It’s hard to get good whether you practice or not. We’re closer. If we can get to where our bad runs are fifth or sixth, that’s a good thing.”

McCreadie thought he could’ve had something for Pierce early in Friday’s 40-lap feature, like the first restart on lap eight. He wished he chose the top lane over the bottom because “if you sneak him on the outside, who knows what happens.” 

“We probably faded a little at the end, I thought. But we ran really good lap times right there with Bobby,” McCreadie said. “It was fun. It was fun racing on a track like that. That’s what I would imagine everyone is hoping for the race Saturday. Something where you can move everywhere. When a guy goes high, you go low. When a guy goes low, you go high. It was a lot of fun. I hope we can carry this down the road.”

McCreadie is admittedly feeling the pressure to perform because “I know time is running short.”

“I like to believe I can race for 30 years, but I know time is running short. And I’m not old. When I get in that car, I feel like I’m 20. I’m just a more polished 20-year-old who’s not knocking the deck out of the car. 

But that pressure’s been there his whole life. He’s just in a higher-stakes position trying to meet the gold standard of the Richards-led team. 

“Mark Richards is tough. We’re all tough,” McCreadie said. “People probably think of me today a lot different than where I was 20 years ago. I was probably a little more easy going and joked around more. I was intense, but I’m probably more ornery and quick to not tolerate as much stuff as when I was 25. I think you know what it takes to do it.

“I don’t mean to get off topic, but when you race as a driver, you know what you want. You’ve done it before. You try to get that. Then the industry changes a little bit and it puts you, not off to the pastures, but off to the side.”

The 2005 season, his second year in a Late Model, comes to mind where Hoosier Racing Tire introduced “ a different tire” that so happened to play into McCreadie’s favor. He won eight WoO features that year and recalls “halfway through the year, the older guard guys were so against that tire that Hoosier went back to the older tires.”

Now, in 2024, McCreadie’s on the other end of figuring out the 2023-founded Hoosier National Late Model Tire, a tire he’s won only two full-field features with since February 2023. But rule changes and tire changes that throw drivers for loops “happen to everybody in racing.”

“When I was at my best … the stuff we do used to do in our left-rear suspension, that’s not allowed anymore,” McCreadie said. “Some of the right-rear stuff, shockwise, that’s not allowed anymore. Bodies, how we had them built back then, that’s not allowed anymore. You start losing those things … it’s why I get all ornery. You know how hard you’ve worked to get that and now it’s just easily gone.”

But McCreadie likes to think he’s found something worthwhile with his setups, so much that “f we can take one more chunk at it,” it could very well put him back in victory lane imminently.

“We’re doing things on this car I don’t think other people do,” McCreadie said. “That could put us in a different zone. The Rocket guys could be in there, but the Longhorns or anybody else aren’t doing any of the stuff we’re doing. That’s what it’s all about. Try to find your niche and get a little advantage.”