2025 Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series at All-Tech Raceway

Is Garrett Alberson Transforming Into A Dirt Late Model Superstar?

Is Garrett Alberson Transforming Into A Dirt Late Model Superstar?

Garrett Alberson has wins on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series, World of Outlaws and at Eldora Speedway over the last six months.

Jan 27, 2025 by Kyle McFadden
Is Garrett Alberson Transforming Into A Dirt Late Model Superstar?

So many compelling layers form Garrett Alberson’s backstory and rise through the Dirt Late Model ranks, not even he can encapsulate every steppingstone that makes Saturday’s 50-lap World of Outlaws Late Model Series victory at Volusia Speedway Park so special.

“I just wish people knew how we started the way we did,” said Alberson, the Las Cruces, N.M., native now living in Dubuque, Iowa, where his family-oriented Roberts Motorsports team is headquartered. | Complete Speedweeks coverage

The 35-year-old has lived so many roles, he’s among the most relatable folks in the industry: from a hobby street stock racer to entry-level Dirt Late Model driver … from general mechanic to crew chief … from persisting 182 touring races before his first national-level win … to now experiencing stardom that appears to only be burgeoning, Alberson’s pretty much experienced it all.

Over his last 26 starts, since last Aug. 23’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series win at Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway, Alberson has six marquee victories, including his first at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway and Jan. 10’s Wild West Shootout triumph at Vado (N.M.) Speedway Park. Since the start of last August spanning his last 35 starts, he has 14 podiums and 27 top-10s, all statistics that rank him toward the top of the sport.

For comparison, over their last 35 starts, defending Lucas Oil champ Ricky Thornton Jr. has seven victories, 15 podiums and 24 top-10s, and Jonathan Davenport has seven victories, 17 podiums and 28 top-10s. Alberson’s victory Saturday over a field that boasted 23 of the top 25 drivers from the 2024 year-end DirtonDirt.com poll elevates his stature in the sport as a late-blooming but rising superstar.

“Garrett is a tremendous individual, a tremendous person. He’s just great. He deserved a chance,” Alberson’s car owner Ken Roberts said as he teemed with joy on the frontsretch Saturday at Volusia, multitasking between an interview with DirtonDirt.com and capturing celebratory photos of his No. 58 team on his smartphone. “My job was getting him so people can see just how good this guy really is. And we’ve done it. He belongs here, that’s something I want to really stress. He belongs here.”

How Alberson willed his way to victory Saturday is exactly what Roberts envisioned when he hired the New Mexico-based driver in 2020. For starters, Alberson didn’t even qualify for Friday’s feature, which was his first-ever race at the Volusia half-mile.

It’s Alberson’s hallmark, relentless optimism, along with Roberts’s “attitude-based” team, that powered him through the adversity to dispatch race-long leader Jimmy Owens with eight laps left and outlast a flurry of sliders from Jonathan Davenport in the final laps.

“I tell you, these guys just work so hard. Yesterday we didn’t make the race and were scratching our heads,” Roberts said. “The team never gave up. The team stayed positive and asked, ‘What can we do better?’ I’d be darn, it shows. Right there, it shows you don’t ever give up. Don’t ever give up.”

Alberson had been to the D-shaped track before as crew chief for Earl Pearson Jr. in 2018-19, but the Ronnie Stuckey-owned team only qualified for one of the 12 features those years. He left with the impression that, if he couldn’t find success with the four-time Lucas Oil champ, Volusia just might never be a track he’ll figure out.

“Coming here, I don’t know if intimidation is the right word, but I didn’t know what my expectations were because it can be such a tricky place,” Alberson said. “I saw firsthand you can race six days in a row and not gain anything if you don’t do it right.

“Yeah, there’s a lot of races I have them circled as, like, I could probably win. But this was not one of them. This was not on my radar, really. Volusia, I wanted to win, but this was going to be a learning experience for us.”

Volusia’s low banking and sandy racing surface gave Alberson the impression that it “didn’t fit” his program, but “the biggest thing is, we have the right people in our corner that pointed us in the right direction.”

First-year but zealous crew chief Zach Huston, who’s previously worked for Scott Bloomquist (2022), Bobby Pierce (2023) and Davenport (2024), along with consultant Vinny Guliani, put together a setup package that prevented Alberson from overthinking and in turn made him unstoppable Saturday.

“I think that’s one thing I’ve done wrong for a lot of years, is over-adjust and over-think the whole thing,” Alberson said. “But we didn’t touch anything from the heat race. We were either going to be right or be wrong, so we just left it alone.”

With around 20 laps to go in the feature, trailing Owens by two seconds, Alberson’s No. 58 Longhorn Chassis nearly flipped when he hopped a “giant, car-sized” rut entering turn three.

“It was like the perfect place for my car to get into three. It’d lead me into this little strip getting into four, and I could really make time on Jimmy. That’s right where I wanted to be,” Alberson said. “If I really went across it just right, I could really make some hay. I guess I didn’t go across it right this one time, I was a little too crooked or something, and all I saw was the whole bottom of the racetrack. … I thought I was toast.”

Alberson had to straighten out his helmet as he nearly lost his grip on the steering wheel. He then thought that “maybe (hopping the rut) bent something in the left-front frame rail,” but “it was kinda hunkered over and maybe a little better.”

Earlier in the feature, Alberson “had really bad wheel-spin down the back straightaway and had a bad tire shake down the whole time.

“I was like, ‘There’s no way this is going to work for the whole race against all these good guys,” Alberson said. "I’m going to get ate up or something.’ I just never lost speed.”

Alberson’s also noticed, ever since he and his wife Dani delivered their firstborn, son Weston, in late September, that his performance “hits a little bit different whenever you have a kid and I’m doing this for a living.”

“You can’t miss races, and I never used to take it this personal,” Alberson said. “I was hard on myself (Friday), nobody said a harsh word, everyone was behind me. We focus really hard, Ken has especially, of putting the team together that’s attitude-based. When you’re running up and down the road night in and night out, you have to have good attitudes that don’t get on each others’ backs. We’ve had that.”

The flurry of sliders from Davenport after the final restart with three laps left was Alberson’s final hurdle of the weekend where he never wavered. He later said, “if that was the old me, I wouldn’t have won.”

“For some reason, I’ve always been the type about myself, where once I see I can do it, then it’s solidified in my brain that I’ve seen it (and can do it),” Alberson said. “Sometimes I wish I was the type that could do it whether I see it or not. I think there’s a lot of confident people in this sport, and sometimes I wish I was as deeply confident as some of these guys are. I’ve always been a realist, too. But once I see I can do it, then I can do it.”

What’s most enduring and meaningful for Alberson is that he’s been able to do it with his family. His brother Dylan is one of his crewman, and his wife Dani “has been by my side since the get-go.”

“I wish more people knew the dynamic of my family. It’s pretty neat. Four of us kids in our family drove at some point,” said Alberson, whose first year racing Late Models in 2011 was the year he started dating his eventual wife.

Dani actually was the one who encouraged Garrett to give the fendered race cars a shot 14 years ago when they raced around the Southwest as “the epitome of nobodies who didn’t know a thing” about the discipline.

“We thought it’d be something cool to try and do,” Alberson said, “(and) never thought I’d be racing (as a professional, touring driver) at Volusia.”

Alberson’s car owners Ken and Beth Roberts have a similar rise to fame to the Albersons. For one, “they’ve poured everything they got into this team,” Alberson said, who says “Ken’s just a die-hard racer” like himself.

“He’s one you wish every car owner could be,” Alberson said. “He just loves the sport so deeply.”

Like Alberson, Ken Roberts never thought winning at Volusia versus a crown jewel-like field was ever plausible. Lessons learned from his late father Hershel, a longtime racer who died at 68 in February 2011, has given Ken the blueprint to building up his modest team into consistent contenders.

“My dad told me a long time ago, think of building a team like a big puzzle. Just put your mind to it and complete all the pieces,” Roberts said. “That’s what we’ve been doing the last couple years. In fact, there’s a lot of memories.”

Before this weekend, Roberts himself hadn’t been to Volusia since 2005, “where (me and my dad) sat up in that corner in turn one eating ice cream cones and thinking what’d it’d be like to ever be on this stage.”

Twenty years later, Roberts and his team made it happen.

“What a feeling. What a way to do it,” Roberts said. “What a race.”