Joseph Joiner was absolutely all smiles after Thursday’s World 100 semifeature at Eldora Speedway.

Who cares if the event’s revamped format with heat race inverts played a hand in the Milton, Fla., native leading 13 of 25 laps on his way to a fourth-place finish. Tasting Eldora Speedway victory lane and going wheel-to-wheel with reigning World 100 champion Hudson O’Neal reinvigorated what’s been an otherwise struggling but hopeful Hunt the Front team.

“We’ve been running in the back a lot lately, or running midpack,” the 30-year-old Joiner said. “We’ve been talking about it a lot. Like, man, it’s really hard to put a whole night together anywhere, like the Hunt the Front Series down south and up here. It’s hard to put a whole night together and be fast all night long. I feel like it’s tougher than it’s ever been to do that. We did that tonight. Of course, the invert helped us.”

Qualifying 14th of 53 drivers in Group B with a six-car invert put Joiner on the front row of the fifth 12-lap heat race of the night, where he then exploited the advantageous starting spot into a heat race victory. Joiner’s fortunes, as previously highlighted, didn’t stop there.

Slipping under O'Neal exiting turn four to lead the first lap of the 25-lap semifeature, Joiner rocketed into clean air aboard his brand-new Capital Race Car — a deal the Hunt the Front team announced in the days before the World 100 — that showcased the potential of his new partnership with the Georgia manufacturer now owned by Shane Clanton and Chad Smith.

“It’s been huge, obviously. We’re racing out of (Clanton’s) trailer just as much as ours, pretty much,” Joiner said. “He’s very helpful. That’s a big deal for us. We were struggling. We had help, but it wasn’t help we really needed. Shane this weekend has coached me just as much as a driver than helping the set up the car to make it go fast.

“We need a lot of help. We got to the point where we were running midpack everywhere we went. We know we’re bette than that, but it’s where we always shook out. We couldn’t find our way out of that hole. Shane and the guys made it really easy to dig out of that hole. It was kind of a no-brainer.”

Since Joiner’s last victory April 13 at All-Tech Raceway in Ellisville, Fla. — a Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series event where he denied Scott Bloomquist — he’s logged only three top-five finishes, including Thursday's result.

Finding his way back into the top-five is one thing. Doing so after the renewed partnership with Capital Race Cars is all the more gratifying for Joiner, who returns to the chassis he raced from 2019-22. From last year through this August, Joiner used Longhorn Chassis, which produced nine wins over the last 20 months.

Joiner’s conversations with Clanton about returning to Capital began after June 12’s DIRTcar Summer Nationals event at Peoria Speedway. Joiner failed to qualify for his third straight feature and Clanton, noticing those struggles, called Joiner the next day with a thought to consider.

“ ‘If you want to do something different, let’s talk about it,’ ” Joiner recalled Clanton telling him.

Joiner mulled over Clanton’s offer and finally took the Zebulon, Ga., native up on it in the days after Aug. 24’s HTF Super Dirt Series event at Lake Cumberland Speedway in Burnside, Ky.

“This deal didn’t take another step until, hell, I called Shane after Lake Cumberland a week and a half ago and made it all happen,” Joiner said. “They had a car sitting there. We left the shop middle of last week and put it all together.

“It’s happened all really quick, but I feel like we’re at home. I feel like we are where we’re supposed to be. You think about a lot of your decisions you make around here. You look around and Longhorn wins everything. And they do. But in my opinion, it’s the same ones over and over, you know what I mean?

“As much as it sucks, and I don’t want to say anything that doesn’t make anything look bad, but we weren’t getting that. And that’s OK. You can’t always get that. We were in a hole with no direction to get out of it. Shane made a call and now here we are.”

Before O’Neal zipped around amid traffic on lap 14 en route to a $12,000 victory, Joiner settled out front for 13 laps, building a two-second lead where his car “felt really sporty floating across the middle.” The inevitable dirty air toyed with Joiner’s smooth-sailing pace.

“We got to the lapped cars and once I was there, it felt like the air was pushing me back,” Joiner said. “All of a sudden, I’m crooked and my nose is flying.”

Joiner thought about switching up his groove in traffic from the middle of the racetrack to something closer to the fence. But Joiner just couldn’t envision himself running up near the fence like O’Neal, and for a few good reasons.

“I felt like as good as I was there in the middle of the racetrack, I didn’t want to change what I was doing,” said Joiner, who nearly got a timely caution that would've erased O'Neal's pass. “I knew I got hung up behind those lappers and figured they’d be coming. I thought I could get through there in enough time. It just didn’t work out. Then Chris Ferguson had the flat there (on lap 14) and we came up about 10-feet too short when the caution came out.

“I don’t know. Maybe if we would’ve had the lead and been able to run the middle with clean air, who knows, maybe we could him behind us. The top three there got to running the fence really good. I felt like I was too good in the middle of the racetrack to change anything. If I got up on that cushion that’s 6 inches thick, I’m liable to fence it and ruin my whole run I had going.”

With Bobby Pierce and Tim McCreadie getting past Joiner after a lap-18 restart, he thought his solid night might unravel. A vibration developed “where I felt like I was about to blow the right-front tire," he said.

That led to Joiner backing off his corner entries, which is “kind of concerning because it’s a 25-lap race and we’re having tire trouble needing to run 100 laps on Saturday.” But Joiner, trying not to worry about the kinks and situational issues, said “we’ll evaluate that” before adding more positive reinforcement from his evening through another smile.

“As a whole, man, our Capital car was good all night long,” Joiner said. “Once we got out there and ran how we wanted to run, it was good. I hadn’t felt that in a long time out of a race car. It felt really refreshing. I felt really good. Wish we would’ve made up there on the podium. There for a minute, I thought I could win it.

“We’re certainly blessed and proud of what we have going here,” Joiner said. “Hopefully we can keep building on it from here.”