BROWNSTOWN, Ind.— While the teams of Devin Moran, Ricky Thornton Jr. and Jonathan Davenport are seemingly firing on all cylinders entering the spring season, Hudson O’Neal is trying to take some consolation Saturday at Brownstown Speedway that he’s not far behind.

With new crew chief Jason Durham, the 24-year-old whose home track is the quarter-mile oval at Jackson County Fairgrounds displayed the speed and prowess that won him in the 2023 Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series title. Until Saturday’s blown engine, which knocked the Martinsville, Ind., driver out of third on lap 32, O’Neal was bound to finish on the podium with Moran and Thornton as he tries to chip into his early series points deficit. 

“It sucks … our tires were just coming in and you have to think, later in that race, we were only going to get better,” O’Neal said. “It’s unfortunate to put a good night together have it end like that.”

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O’Neal had been in the tire tracks of Moran, who led all 50 laps, and Davenport until his breakage. He didn’t sense the engine going awry or no indication that things could turn for the worst.

“There were no issues at all. Then I came off the back straightaway and then it just snapped me like a snap of a finger,” O’Neal said of his engine. “I knew something was up. My oil pressure was good. I shut the car down as quick as I could. They said over the radio I had a puddle of fluid following me. But first week out with Jason and everybody, it was a great weekend.”

It’ll be three weeks Monday that Durham has taken over the race-day operations as O’Neal’s crew chief and moved the Morgantown, Ind., team to his Glasgow, Ky., race shop. With Saturday’s fifth-place run at Ohio’s Atomic Speedway and Friday’s contention for a podium finish, O’Neal likes to think Durham’s addition to the SSI No. 71 team is already paying dividends.

Since Tyler Bruening’s Jan. 17 victory at Golden Isles Speedway in Brunswick, Ga., on Lucas Oil opening night, the tour’s last 10 races have been won by either Davenport, Moran or Thornton. This time last year, through 11 races, O’Neal had three victories among seven series winners.

The start of 2025 is obviously unlike last year for O’Neal, who’s mired in a Lucas Oil slump. He hasn’t won on the tour since July 16 at Shelby County Speedway in Harlan, Iowa, a stretch that spans 29 races. But O’Neal is hopeful he’s close to re-entering the conversation among the sport’s top-tier drivers, especially with how his car felt and looked under Durham’s helm.

“I feel like our race car is capable of doing it and that I’m capable of doing it. And yeah, I think we showed our speed tonight,” O’Neal said. “We haven’t really had the opportunity to work on anything yet. I think the more race, the better we get. These are two racetracks I have ran good at and Jason’s ran good at. I’m sure it’ll test us when we go to different places. But hopefully we’ll be one of the best cars and start to mix it up with them.”

Another damper on O’Neal’s promising night was a heat-race mishap with Rocket1 Racing’s Brandon Sheppard, who charged to O’Neal’s outside gunning for the lead in the final heat until the two ran out of real estate. O’Neal inadvertently closed the door on the charging Sheppard, who spun off the frontstretch and came to a stop in turn one.

“Yeah, I hadn’t seen a replay yet. It’s just one of them deals where I was searching on the racetrack,” O’Neal said. “I guess he had a good run around the top down here and I was going to the top of the straightaway, and I never seen him. And I ran him off the racetrack and flattened his left-front tire. It’s unfortunate. You never want anything like that to happen. But I just never saw him. Even when we hit, I never saw him. Until we came back around I didn’t know who I hit. I figured it was Brandon, but I didn’t know for sure. It sucks.

“It’s just a racing deal, that’s all it was. Hopefully they saw the replay and had the same grasp.”

Sheppard, who went from a top-eight starting spot to needing to take a provisional and start 23rd, understood he put himself in a difficult spot and didn’t blame O’Neal for anything that happened.

“He probably just didn’t know I was out there,” Sheppard said. “I was as far out as I could go, and we made contact. Basically bent the left-front wheel, so it was off the ground. Went over the banking and it shot me around the wrong way. It was just one of those deals.”

The upside for O’Neal and team is they have more than a month to strengthen their revamped team with Durham as head wrench ahead of Lucas Oil’s next races, the April 25-27 triple-header weekend at Georgetown (Del.) Speedway, Hagerstown (Md.) Speedway and Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway. One aspect Durham brings to the SSI team that O’Neal appreciates is while the three-time Lucas Oil Crew Chief of the Year runs a tight ship, he keeps things light-hearted as well.

In the hours leading up to their first event together Friday at Atomic, Durham quipped one of the reasons he’s returning to the national touring scene to his new driver.

“I guess it’s meant for me to come back so I can give each of my three kids a championship ring,” said Durham, the two-time Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series champion with Double L Motorsports and Jonathan Davenport in 2018-19.

Durham, of course, has broader goals for himself and the SSI team. But he’s dead serious about wanting to collect a third ring so he can gift each of his children (32-year-old Jake, 30-year-old Josh, and 28-year-old Jessica) one of his Lucas Oil title rings. O’Neal smiled and welcomed the task ahead.

“That’s the goal, right?” said O’Neal, who exits Brownstown eighth in the series standings, 145 points behind Brandon Overton for the fourth and final playoff spot. “Our goal is to win races and compete at the highest level … and we’re excited about the rest of the year.”