By Mike Ernst | June 7, 2024 | Photos: Tyler Carr
ROSSBURG, OH – The Eldora Moran Curse is over.
In June of 2001 Donnie Moran pocketed the first Eldora Million.
Since that magical night 23 years ago, try as they might, Donnie nor his son Devin have been able to win a race at Eldora Speedway; well until Friday night.
Devin drove a near perfect race, dominating the 50-lap Dirt Late Model Dream preliminary feature to capture his first career win at the high-banked, one-half mile oval worth $25,000.
“It’s about damn time,” the 29-year old Moran hollered following his flag-to-flag win. “I always figured it would happen someday but sure feels a hell of a lot better to get it done sooner, rather than later.”
Moran, of Dresden, Ohio, started on the pole of the feature event and quickly took the lead. Lurking behind, starting in the sixth-spot was two-time Dream winner and the winner of the 2022 Eldora Million, Jonathan Davenport.
Davenport split Tyler Erb and Dale McDowell on the second lap and began his chase of Moran. Moran was maintaining a comfortable advantage until he reached lapped traffic on lap 15 and then Davenport began to eat into his 20-car length advantage and had nearly caught Moran when the only caution flag of the event flew on lap 21 when Ryan Gustin slowed to a stop with damage to his car and flat tire.
On the ensuing double-file restart, Moran got the jump on Davenport into turns one and two and then slid up the track exiting turn two and pinched Davenport into the outside wall. The duo made slight contact, but Moran held the lead.
“I got a good restart and I knew J.D. was going to go up top and I knew I had to get up there and block that move,” Moran said. “I knew whoever got in front was going to be tough to pass in clean air with the way the track was tonight.”
After the restart, Moran began to pull away from Davenport, leaving a Davenport stuck in an entertaining three-car battle with Dale McDowell and Brandon Sheppard for the runner-up spot.
On lap 36 McDowell and Sheppard both passed Davenport and then battled it out for the second spot. Eventually the 58-year old McDowell, the 2014 Dream winner, won out and finished in second-place just over two seconds behind Moran.
“Hats off to Devin and those guys, they were really good tonight,” McDowell said. “Me and Brandon had a fun battle there for second-place. We had a good night though. Qualified good and ran a good heat race. It’s just a delicate battle to get your car balanced.”
Sheppard, who edged McDowell by a car length to win the 2019 Dream, was happy with third-place.
“We had a really good car until I about knocked the deck out of it with about 10 to go,” Sheppard said. “We have something to work with for tomorrow night and will just see how the invert turns out and where we have to start our heat race.”
Davenport finished in fourth-place and Nick Hoffman completed the top five.
Ricky Weiss, Stormy Scott, Garrett Smith, Jimmy Owens, who started 23rd and Tyler Erb, driving for St. Marys-based Best Performance Motorsports, completed the top ten.
McDowell was the fastest of the 51 entrants turning a lap of 15.060 seconds, which was the fastest qualifying lap of the two preliminary nights.
Heat races were won by Erb, Trent Ivey, Davenport and Mike Marlar. Spencer Hughes and Jason Feger captured the two B-Mains.
The 30th annual Dirt Late Model Dream concludes tonight with the traditional six heat, races, consolation feature events and the 100-lap, $100,030-to-win main event.
A-Feature – (50)Laps
1. 99-Devin Moran[1]; 2. 17M-Dale McDowell[3]; 3. B5-Brandon Sheppard[7]; 4. 49-Jonathan Davenport[6]; 5. 9-Nick Hoffman[11]; 6. 7-Ricky Weiss[13]; 7. 2S-Stormy Scott[9]; 8. 10S-Garrett Smith[4]; 9. 20-Jimmy Owens[23]; 10. 1G-Devin Gilpin[18]; 11. 1T-Tyler Erb[2]; 12. 58-Garrett Alberson[14]; 13. 12W-Ashton Winger[12]; 14. 97C-Cody Overton[20]; 15. 21-Billy Moyer[15]; 16. G4-Trent Ivey[5]; 17. 19M-Spencer Hughes[21]; 18. 11-Austin Smith[17]; 19. 25F-Jason Feger[22]; 20. 3S-Brian Shirley[16]; 21. 12R-Ryan Payne[19]; 22. 12-Jason Jameson[24]; 23. 157-Mike Marlar[8]; 24. 19R-Ryan Gustin[10]
Mike Ernst | Photos: Tyler Carr
