From the looks of it, Garrett Alberson appeared so hungry — almost desperately hungry — for that breakthrough touring victory on Friday with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series at All-Tech Raceway, he was going to do whatever it took for that to come to fruition.

Even if he had to go for broke and square up with the half-mile’s sinister two-turn retaining wall just so he knows he exhausted every effort imaginable tracking down the indomitable Ricky Thornton Jr.

But that perception and eventual futile result — a podium run dissolving into a 21st-place finish — wasn’t the tradeoff he had in mind.

“I needed to have a good run so bad,” Alberson said. “Once I got to second, I really was not trying to force the issue. I just wanted the race to play out and finish out so I can get us a nice finish. Yeah, I didn’t want to see that yellow at all (for Chris Madden with 16 laps to go) because I had a little good thing going. My tire, we made a good decision on the tire. The tire was happy out there in the rubber.

“Yeah, I don’t know. I didn’t do a great job leaving four. It allowed Devin (Moran) to get in there next to me through one and two. I think I was so focused on not letting him in to the rubber lane I was in that I was watching him too much and just let myself run out of real estate. That’s all she wrote.”

Did Alberson think he’d be mixing it up with Thornton for the win by the end of the 50-lap feature starting from ninth? He did gamble on a harder right-rear tire (an NLMT-3 compound compared to Thornton’s softer NLMT-2; which most of the field ran on Friday), so either he was going to leverage a longer run or have that selection hinder him.

Even then, Alberson wasn’t banking on situational developments for his way to the front. He made monumental gains on the Roberts Motorsports No. 58 Longhorn Chassis during Thursday’s practice sessions at the tricky half-mile, posting top-two lap times in four of the eight sessions he’d partaken in.

Last year at this time, Alberson said he was a second off the pace and had been utterly lost across the board, from a setup and driver standpoint.


“I was really happy that our speed and drivability carried over from last night,” Alberson said. “I felt like we made pretty good decisions before that feature there. I think I was one of the first in line with a harder tire and it actually ended up being a decent call there once both lanes rubbered. Yeah, I don’t know.

“I didn’t feel like I was trying too hard. I was so focused on not giving up the spot I had. I think I just lost focus on what I was doing in that one little space I was in. I just have to do a little better job next time.”

Turn two could very well be the toughest space or corner to navigate in Dirt Late Model racing. One thing’s certain, and that it proved menacing on Friday, specifically to Alberson and Max Blair, whose backend kicked out on lap 13 while rolling the high side of turn two, thus breaking his J-bar.

The same demise happened to Alberson, who blasted from fourth to second in a two-lap span — from lap 37 to 39 — and had logged comparable lap times to Thornton by then. Alberson said turn two requires a drivers’ utmost attention and any bobble, lapse or the slightest misjudgment would send that driver to the exile.

“It’s not a normal shape by any means,” Alberson said. “When you think it’s still turning, it’s actually going straight for a second. I swear, it’s like a muscle memory, where you’re used to running the shape of a normal track. Like, if you’re trying to go off that, it won’t work. It’s not shaped right. Under green, I had it all sorted out. I was doing just fine. I guess I just lost focus there a little too much. It’s a tough place.

“If you under drive, you’ll crash just as easily. It’s definitely a fine line. If you under drive, you’re going to crash anyways. You have to drive it hard. I just misjudged it there. It’s not forgiving.”

Alberson, however, is hardly rattled by his wrongdoing. It’s an honest mistake to have made when Thornton, winner of 26 of the last 54 features on the Lucas Oil Series, is setting a rip-roaring pace. He did catch a glimpse of just how swift a pace Thornton established on Friday when he entered into podium positioning four laps prior to his eventual exit.

“I was incredibly surprised with how hard he could run in the rubber with the tire that he had,” Alberson said. “I thought, once he got to second, when it was rubbering so hard up there, I thought I was going to run him down. But he was running a crazy pace for the tire he had. They’re just on another level right there. Yeah, he’s just so confident. He can put that thing wherever he wants. He was really good. I was just happy to be up in the mix with these guys.”

All told, Alberson can live with Friday’s result though it cost him 105 points (it’d be 180 for second as opposed to 75 for 21st) and a chance to sit pretty at sixth in the standings in the very young 2024 season. Now he’s 12th, behind a logjam in the ever-shuffling, too-early-to-monitor standings with Tim McCreadie, Brian Shirley, Mike Marlar, Daulton Wilson, Tyler Erb and Kyle Bronson all within a 65-point reach.

Alberson’s only logged one top-10 finish in Georgia-Florida Speedweeks — seventh on Tuesday at Ocala (Fla.) Speedway — but finishes of 11th and 13th at Golden Isles Speedway’s Super Bowl of Racing in Brunswick, Ga., are the nitty-gritty performances that often go unnoticed but pay dividends in the year-end standings.

It’s also good to note he placed on the podium three times in six races at Vado (N.M.) Speedway Park’s Wild West Shootout. So, Alberson’s realistically been in the winning conversation in four of 10 races to start the season. When asked that shows what his team is capable of, he said, “I think it does,” but not without adding “the not getting results stings really bad.”

The bigger picture is filling out rather pleasantly, though, and that’s where the conversation ought to end for Alberson on Friday.

“As I said, it shows what this team is capable of,” Alberson said. “We’re not flailing around anymore. I think we’re actually going to be in the mix. Hopefully it’s not a one night where we’re in the mix with these guys. But I think we can. We’ll see if we can do it again.”