ROSSBURG, OH— Tim McCreadie always salutes the fans when he reaches victory lane. And in capturing a 51st annual World 100 preliminary feature Wednesday at Eldora Speedway, he feels a special kinship with the faithful at Tony Stewart's legendary half-mile oval.

"They've treated me like I'm one of their own. I spent, I know it doesn't look like it, but I spent a few years sitting in turn three watching these big 100-lappers because I wasn't fast enough to get in, so I feel like we're all about the same," McCreadie said. "They work hard for their money, they try to come here and buy our T-shirts, they do all this stuff, and I know this team here works damn hard for their money and we haven't always had it easy.

"But you just savor it even more when you win, man, because life's hard, and from 20 minutes after this race for a few hours, we'll be happy, then tomorrow we've gotta do it all over again."

The 47-year-old Watertown, N.Y., driver certainly hopes he can duplicate his Wednesday performance in Thursday's $54,000-to-win main event because he was the undoubted class of the field in the caution-free 25-lapper.

Starting ninth in the 24-car field, McCreadie was quickly in the top five, up to third by lap 14 and reeling in front-row starters and early frontrunners Shannon Babb and Darrell Lanigan. McCreadie, the 2018 World 100 winner, blew past Babb on the 18th lap and proceeded to build a four-second lead the rest of the way in cruising to victory.

Babb, the Moweaqua, Ill., driver who led the first 17 laps, settled for second with Union, Ky.'s Lanigan securing the third spot. Tenth-starting Hudson O'Neal of Martinsville, Ind., rallied to fourth and Jimmy Owens of Newport, Tenn., improved one spot to fifth in the night's second preliminary. Johnny Scott of Las Cruces, N.M., led flag-to-flag in the first 25-lapper.

McCreadie felt at home in the low groove, "right around the hub, just keep your left side in the brown," he said. "I don't know what everybody else felt, but I felt so good (down low), I thought, 'Well, don't ever leave the bottom.' "

Tim McCreadie discusses his Wednesday night World 100 prelim victory.

His Paylor Motorsports Longhorn Chassis house car team overthought how their car might work with Eldora's format of inverts in prelims — the track mixed up the format used at June's double Dream weekend — but in the end it didn't matter.

"It kind of put ourselves in a hole," McCreadie said of his fifth-row starting spot. "I didn't think we could get there, but the guys, they're so good these guys" he added in thanking his crew. "I don't know man. It was a lot of fun."

Babb felt pretty solid until McCreadie ran off and hid over the final seven laps.

"It was a good run for us tonight. You know, we had the starting spot there on the pole. That was everything we needed. We've got a little bit of work to do to it," Babb said. "Timmy, he got by us and drove away and made us look like we really needed to work on the car a little bit. But all in all, we're happy to start the weekend out here at Eldora and I can't wait to get back on the track more and see what the adjustments make. Tickled to death with this Team Zero car."

The handling of Lanigan's car wasn't quite what he needed, but the veteran looking for his first World 100 victory grabbed the final podium spot.

"It's nice to come up here and run well. That should get us a good spot for tomorrow night and we'll see if we can't do a little bit better," he said.  "We're just a little snug getting in (to the corner) and couldn't steer across the center. If we can get it freed up a little bit and still leave the corner, I think we'll be right there."