IMPERIAL, Pa. (Oct. 4) — Pressure? What pressure?

After Devin Moran completed a flag-to-flag victory worth $10,000 in Friday’s 30-lap Pittsburgher 100 preliminary feature at Pittsburgh’s Pennsylvania Motor Speedway, the 30-year-old standout from Dresden, Ohio, brushed off any suggestion that the Big River Steel Chase for the Championship opener had placed an extra mental burden on him.

“Not really, because I feel like we’ve been really so consistent all year, we didn’t want to change our mindset,” Moran said, addressing the now three-track, five-race playoff among himself and three other drivers that will determine the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series champion. “So really, I didn’t feel anything different.

“For me it’s kind of the same as last year, because I had to be really good the last two races before Eldora (Speedway’s season-ending Dirt Track World Championship) to get into it (the inaugural Big Four format that featured a single, best-finisher-wins race). So last year I had three races I had major pressure on. This year we have five, so for me it don’t feel a whole lot different. We’ve been through it, so we just gotta keep working hard and hopefully nothing happens.”

Moran’s postrace demeanor illustrated the ease with which he’s approaching his battle for the national circuit’s title with Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga., Ricky Thornton Jr. of Chandler, Ariz., and Tim McCreadie of Watertown, N.Y. He spoke while sitting calmly on a four-wheeler parked alongside his Double Down Motorsports Longhorn Chassis during technical inspection near the Lucas Oil Series operations trailer outside the half-mile oval’s backstretch, no sign of stress visible as he smiled and chatted with crew members, officials and other well-wishers.

“One down, four to go,” Moran said with a smile after jumping on top of the points standings that had reset to even status among the Big Four participants.

While Moran conceded that “when we were lining up for qualifying, it was like, ‘Boys, it’s game on,’ and butterflies start flowing a little bit,” that was more of a natural competitive reaction to the significance of the moment. He was by no means overwhelmed, which he demonstrated by promptly clicking off the fastest lap of his time-trial group to begin what would be a sweep of the night’s program (quick time, heat win, feature triumph from the pole position).

Moran’s qualifying lap carried extra importance because the Lucas Oil provides a 10-point bonus to each group fast-timer. It gave him the type of extra boost that could prove critical over the small sample size of a five-race championship chase where all the combatants are expected to be closely-packed in the finishing order every night.

VIDEO: Watch highlights from Friday night's Pittsburgher preliminary night. 

Like, of course, they were at PPMS. Davenport finished second, Thornton was third and McCreadie placed eighth, which left Moran atop the standings by 30 points over Davenport and Thornton (RTJ also earned a 10-point fast-time bonus) and 70 points over McCreadie.

“We gotta try to get quick time every night, start up front and run top-threes every night,” Moran said of the clearest path to the $200,000 Lucas Oil crown.

That game plan fits right into how Moran has operated all season with his Roger Sellers-owned team. He’s been remarkably consistent, accumulating 30 top-two finishes — 13 victories and 17 runner-up placings — among his 55 top-five and 67 top-10 runs in 75 overall starts. He also totaled the most points among the Big Four drivers since Thornton moved from SSI Motorsports to Koehler Motorsports in mid-July.

What’s more, consider Moran’s performance record on the Lucas Oil Series since he finished 17th in a semifeature during June 20’s Firecracker 100 opener at Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, Pa.: over the last 20 tour races, he’s finished outside the top four just twice (seventh- and 10th-place runs during August’s Topless 100 weekend at Batesville Motor Speedway in Locust Grove, Ark.) while tallying five of his seven series wins and six second-place finishes.

Moran always seems to be near the front. His challenge would thus seem to be to stay ahead of his three rivals — a task he accomplished Friday.

Davenport, 40, drew close to Moran late in the distance after grabbing second from Thornton on lap 16, but he fell short by 0.186 of as second at the finish line. Moran made the correct moves to stay ahead despite not being fully satisfied with his car over the longer stretches of a race slowed by just a single caution flag on lap 14.

“I didn’t feel great towards the end,” Moran said. “Like, three or four laps in a run I’d be fine, but once we got going 10 or 12 laps, I couldn’t get going that. We just gotta work on our balance.”

Moran preserved his front-running status by hustling through lapped traffic, including one notably aggressive move to overtake Cody Overton of Evans, Ga., that might have looked devil-may-care to some observers.

“I just threw a slider. I don’t think it was that close, was it?” Moran said when asked about passing Overton. “I was just trying to get through (the slower traffic) as fast as I could. I knew J.D. was right on my ass. I never saw him, but I knew he was right there watching (crew chief) Chuck (Kimble signaling from the infield).”

Moran didn’t hear Davenport close to him either, but that was typical for him.

“I can never hear people,” Moran said. “I got a Racing Electronics ear thing (for his Raceceiver radio) and a Simpson helmet, and they do a good job (blocking noise) so I never hear anybody. Either that, or my hearing is that bad, one or the other.”

Davenport found himself unable to make a series bid to overtake Moran until the final lap with an outside charge exiting turn four — and after settling for second, he looked back on time trials.

“We probably lost that race by three-hundredths of a second, where Ricky beat us in qualifying,” said Davenport, who is seeking his fourth career Lucas Oil title. “If we could’ve started on the outside front row (rather than fourth) I might could’ve worked (Moran) a little more there.

“He did an awesome job, moved around when he needed to. I was just trying to go where he wasn’t, so I was trying to run a little bit below him or a little bit above him and I just didn’t really have the right racetrack. It seemed like it got really, really black in the middle towards the bottom there and it got dirty around the top, so once we caught the lapped cars I couldn’t really move out. It was pretty dusty up there.”

Moran said PPMS officials “gave us a really good racetrack,” one that was “smooth as can be all the way around it.” He called it “a very unique track and it’s fun to race on.”

“I’ll tell ya, this and Knoxville (Iowa) are a lot alike when Knoxville’s dead-slick across the whole thing,” Moran said. “This right here is like a Scott Bloomquist perfect style racetrack — big and wide and slick and fast and just very technical. It’s really cool to come here and win. I know this doesn’t count as a Pittsburgher win, but to win on Pittsburgher weekend is pretty cool.”

The victory was Moran’s first-ever at PPMS, a track where he doesn’t have extensive experience (he’s making his sixth career Pittsburgher appearance since 2015) but he’s certainly visited quite often. While growing up he accompanied his Hall of Fame father Donnie to many events at the sprawling speedway, which was very good to the elder Moran over the years. Donnie’s Pittsburgher resume includes three victories (1986, 1991, 2005) and four seconds among nine top-five finishes in his 17 feature starts from 1986-2007.

Devin is hopeful of adding his name to the Pittsburgher winner’s list in Saturday’s 70-lap finale, which boasts an event-record $50,000 top prize. He’s come close before, finishing second last year and in ’20 leading a race-high 62 laps before finishing ninth.

Another strong run would send Moran into the final three events of Lucas Oil's playoffs in fine position to erase memories of his last-lap championship loss to Hudson O’Neal of Martinsville, Ind., in last year’s DTWC. He admitted the cancellation of Oct. 10-12’s scheduled $50,000-to-win Grand Finale at East Bay Raceway Park in Gibsonton, Fla., because of saturated grounds from Hurricane Helene and a forecast of more rain left him disappointed, but he’s pleased to see it replaced by the rained-out Jackson 100 weekend at Brownstown (Ind.) Speedway.

“I’m sad,” Moran said when asked about East Bay, the track he loves so much but will never race on again because of its imminent closure. “I didn’t think I really had an advantage there compared to J.D. and especially Timmy — I feel like Timmy was gonna be the best car there — but it just sucks not being able to go there. We wanted one final swing at it.

“But we get to go to another one of my favorite tracks in Brownstown, so we’re sad for that East Bay but glad we can at least go race that weekend.”

And when asked if running two races at Brownstown might be better for him, Moran agreed.

“Probably a little bit,” he said. “I have a pretty good track record at Brownstown. I would’ve liked (to run at) Atomic (Speedway) too (Oct. 1’s playoff race at the Ohio track was washed out), but if we keep rolling like we did tonight, it don’t matter where we go.”