ROSSBURG, Ohio — If someone told Spencer Hughes that he’d be chasing Brandon Overton under the checkered flag to complete a second-place finish at Eldora Speedway, the Meridian, Miss., driver probably would have been thrilled. After all, Overton, the superstar driver from Evans, Ga., has won three of the last four crown jewel events held at the Tony Stewart-owned half-mile.

Had Hughes known it would be in a consolation race for a preliminary feature, his enthusiasm may have waned a bit. Even so, at worst, the runner-up finish for Hughes in Thursday’s final afternoon consolation meant he’d put his PCC Motorsports Longhorn Chassis in the 25-lap, $12,000-to-win semifeature. After a rough start in his 12-lap heat race earlier in the day, Hughes, the overall fast qualifier among his group’s 62 cars, had an uphill climb to get there.

When front-row starters John Henderson of North Augusta, S.C., and Carson Ferguson of Lincolnton, N.C., triggered a first-lap melee, Hughes and Chris Simpson of Oxford, Iowa, tangled on the homestretch and ended up collecting Overton as well. Overton rallied back to sixth in the heat, giving him a second-row starting spot in the consolation. Hughes, however, retired with a 15th-place finish in the heat, continuing his already long day.

“We went quick time lap one (in time trials) and then I got a little tight getting into (turn) one right there and smoked the fence,” Hughes said. “So before we even made it to the heat race, pretty much from the time we got back to the trailer to when we rolled out there for the heat race, we were working on the right front and fixing it where I tore the deck out of it.

“Then we go out there in this heat race and had to start fourth, which I mean, you know, everybody knows (about the inversions) when you haul up here. (On the start, Carson) Ferguson and John Henderson, I think they went a little early and both kind of realized it and kind of checked up and hit and, you know, I just tried to miss them and it didn’t work out for me. I got turned around right there and I think every car in the heat hit us on the way by. So then we worked on the whole left side of the car from then until we rolled out to the (consolation).”

The myriad of afternoon struggles ultimately set up dazzling drive through consolation race for Hughes after starting all the way back in 19th. He’ll start fifth in the second heat in Thursday’s evening program, which features six heat races, two consolation races and the 101-lap feature paying a record-high $1,002,022-to-win.

“It’s just lucky that in (the consolation) everything kind of fell my way,” Hughes said. “They had a little moisture ring around the bottom and I was able to get the last little bit out of it to get up through there, and, you know, pass a lot of cars right there. So definitely, I’m glad we were able to dig ourself out of a hole and not be so buried.”

Overton felt the exact same way. He almost didn’t return to the track following the heat race incident, but felt as though he needed to pass as many cars as possible considering heat race lineups for the Eldora Million finale are set based on points accumulated during preliminaries.

“We wasn’t gonna go back out there,” Overton said. “They told me the four-bar plates was bent, the torque arm is ramming the side of the car, and I said, ‘You at least go back out because every position counts,' you know. We just salvaged the day, finished 13th I think after starting 22nd. That’s not bad. Going out to qualify that late in the day, that’s not good and when you feel like you’ve got a chance to win $1 million, you can’t stuff it in the fence qualifying.

“That’s kinda the cards we were dealt qualifying. You either had to rip the top or you was just gonna be slow and we were slow. Now we just gotta work our way back up through there. It’s alright. Like I told (my crew), it’s 101 laps, all you gotta do is get in this thing. So, if we make it in, we got just as good a shot as anybody.” — Robert Holman

Surface satisfies

When asked if Thursday’s racing product at Eldora Speedway had been a remarkable turnaround from the season’s first two nightmarish and dangerously rough Late Model shows from an oversaturated spring, Chris Madden, Mike Marlar and Hudson O’Neal answered in practical unison.

“Absolutely, 100 percent. Those guys have done an outstanding job,” Madden said. “You can’t thank those guys enough for giving us something great to race on. I appreciate their hard work, for real, for not leaving it like it was. (Eldora owner) Tony (Stewart) made the decision to really get after it and they’ve done a great job.”

O’Neal added: “Most definitely. … They’ve done a remarkable job.”

Marlar said: “Track looks really good. You couldn’t ask for much better.”

Eldora facilities manager Rob Platfoot and speedway personnel virtually worked around the clock until early Wednesday morning to overhaul the racing surface so it could be fit for the return of Thursday’s Eldora Million.

Platfoot and crew removed half of the 300 dump-truck loads of new clay that were applied to the racing surface last fall that just couldn’t fully settle amidst a dank spring.

Eldora’s first two Late Model shows on April 26 and May 29 produced some of the most undesirable conditions in the track’s recent history. But as Thursday’s rescheduled preliminary action from Wednesday night’s rained-out program ran course, the track’s surface ran with flying colors.

“It’s awesome to see they put the racetrack back to the way it was,” O’Neal said. “A hard day, and it’s put character into it; and character isn’t a bad thing. Character makes the race good sometimes. It’ll be an awesome show. Yeah, no, they’ve been great. They’ve done a remarkable job. Hopefully it’ll be fine the rest of the day and have a great night.

“It’s definitely blackened. We don’t think it’s taken rubber yet. But they’ve done an awesome job making sure it hasn’t. No, I think it’ll be good. I mean they’re moving all over it. There’s not really much moisture in it except three and four, and it’s a little rough around the bottom.”

Marlar said the surface is “about as slow as I’ve seen it in a long time” but that’s not a bad thing, as long as the track steers clear of taking rubber.

Madden anticipates an entire reworking of the surface to make the racing product that much better, perhaps the kind capable of putting on a show to match the colossal $1,002,022 winner’s share.

“Yeah, they’ll redo it. It’ll be a little faster later when the sun goes down,” Madden said. “It’s pretty slick right now all over, a momentum deal … I think they’ll go at it (the track) pretty hard for tonight’s feature. We’ve been good today. Hopefully we can continue it and get a win.

“They’ll tear it up. But it won’t take much. When it gets dark, the racetrack will stay good. It hasn’t rubbered yet. As long as it doesn’t rubber, that’s all you can ask for in daytime racing.”

No driver has accrued more money in winnings this season than Madden, a seven-time winner this year with a ledger accentuated with three $50,000 victories at The Dirt Track at Charlotte and Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.

“I think these track conditions right here favor some different drivers,” Madden said. “But usually the cream rises to the top.” — Kyle McFadden

Extra padding for Marlar

It’s no secret that Mike Marlar is racing through considerable pain at this week’s Eldora Million, not even two weeks removed from breaking his T10-11 vertebrae while also suffering bodily bruises at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo., during Memorial Day weekend. Although the injuries are apparently bearable, Marlar hasn’t completely forgotten his brush with catastrophe.

“I’m OK … I got lucky that it wasn’t anything that was going to paralyze me,” Marlar said of his broken vertebrae. “I’m sure I’ll pay for it sometime down the road, but right now we’ll worry about today, and today’s a million bucks. So we’ll go for it.”

With the help of ButlerBuilt Racing Seats, Marlar’s full containment seat is equipped with extra padding to ease the Winfield, Tenn., veteran’s pursuit of Thursday’s coveted $1,002,022 jackpot.

So far the safety measures have served as a virtual crutch, as Marlar topped the 124-car field in qualifying with a lap of 15.584 seconds, and convincingly proceeded to win his 12-lap heat race from the fourth-starting position.

Marlar said that medical experts never demanded he ought to be sidelined from the wheel of a race car, and that he’s welcome to race as long as he can tolerate the pain. Among Marlar’s additional injuries are a bruised tailbone, ankle and the bottom side of his arms.

“Racing’s a dangerous sport, and if we don’t do the best we can with our safety equipment and the track, and the track’s holes and fences, it can be way more dangerous than it has to be,” Marlar said.

Marlar isn’t the only driver in recent weeks having suffered injuries from sketchy conditions or circumstances. On May 29 at Eldora, an errant mud clot clobbered Josh Richards’ during Johnny Appleseed competition, a hard enough blow that it cracked his helmet and left the four-time World of Outlaws champion with a shattered nose that will require surgery, along with other facial injuries.

One driver has to watch Thursday’s historic night from afar, while another has persisted to the forefront of a potential win of a lifetime.

“I definitely feel bad for Josh,” Marlar said. “His injuries are tough to come back from. All that cartilage in his nose they said, from what I heard, he won’t be coming back for a while. You just have to remember these cars have open cockpits, and when stuff is flying around on the racetrack, it can hurt somebody pretty bad.

“It’s a dangerous sport and everybody knows the consequences. We keep doing it. It’s a part of living life and doing what you love. But remembering that, you can take a lot of precautions to prevent someone from getting hurt.” — Kyle McFadden

Aussie’s summer adventure

Kye Blight was bubbling with positivity as he stood in front of his car in the pit area awaiting the start of hot laps Thursday morning.

“I’m excited,” the 28-year-old Australian said with a cheery smile.

And why shouldn’t he be? The talented racer from Down Under is back in the United States to spend the summer crewing and racing for fellow Aussie Paul Stubber — their first time on American soil since 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic shut down travel abroad for two years.

“It feels like a lifetime ago since we were here,” said Blight, who arrived in the U.S. in early May with Stubber and three other crew members after completing the paperwork and Covid-19 vaccine requirements to travel from Australia.

A non-qualifier for the World 100 in his only previous crown jewel start at Eldora, Blight finished sixth behind the wheel of Stubber’s XR1 Rocket car in May 29’s Johnny Appleseed Classic. He’s running the same machine this weekend, a car that was rebuilt after Stubber crashed it at the 2019 World 100.

Blight’s 2021-22 Dirt Late Model season in Australia — running from December through April — was curtailed to five starts by a blown engine that sidelined his own effort early in the campaign. But he did drive one of Stubber’s cars to four victories and he also filled in his schedule with some modified action.

Blight, who timed 21st fastest in Thursday’s first group but pulled out of the first heat with his car’s rear deck mangled from a smack of the wall while running seventh, and his Aussie pals are spending the next four months living and working on Stubber’s equipment at a home and shop that Stubber owns in Greencastle, Ind. He will share driving duties with Blight and said his wife and their 9-month-old son will fly over to meet him in August. — Kevin Kovac

Million returnees

Twenty-one years is a long time in Dirt Late Model racing. That fact is readily apparent when comparing the competitors in 2001’s inaugural Eldora Million to the entries in Thursday’s eagerly-anticipated follow-up.

A generation removed from the first Million, just 14 of the 235 drivers who entered the event are back to try again. Five of the returnees started 2001’s 100-lap feature — Scott Bloomquist (finished third), Billy Moyer (seventh), Jimmy Mars (14th), Darrell Lanigan (21st) and Chub Frank (24th) — while the other nine failed to qualify: Shannon Babb, Jerry Bowersock, Steve Casebolt, Rod Conley, Dennis Erb Jr., Scott James, Jay Johnson, Dale McDowell and Jeep Van Wormer.

Numerous 2001 entrants, now retired from racing, have been spotted in the pit area, including winner Donnie Moran, Bob Pierce, Terry English, Don O’Neal, Jerry Rice and Gary Stuhler.

Original Eldora Million racers who have passed since the 2001 race include Jackie Boggs, Delmas Conley, Mike Duvall, Rodney Franklin, Mike Head, Tim Hitt, Johnny Johnson and C.J. Rayburn. — Kevin Kovac

Long trip for Millwood

First trips to new racetracks are almost always memorable. A first trip to historic Eldora Speedway is dang near unforgettable. It’s unlikely Tyler Millwood will forget his visit to the Big E anytime soon. Millwood qualified 36th among the 62 drivers in Group B and finished eighth in his heat race. An eighth-place finish in the final consolation race of the day meant he’d have to watch preliminary feature action from inside the backstretch wall where his truck and trailer are parked.

That part, Millwood may chose to forget. But the trip, well, that’s a different story. Millwood, of Kingston, Ga., was lucky just to make it to Ohio after mechanical problems with his tow truck left him and his team stranded on the side of I-75 late Tuesday night.

“On the way up here, about exit 166 in Kentucky the transmission just decided to break in half. We coasted about three-quarters of a mile and come to a stop,” Millwood said. “We had a wrecker bring my buddy’s, Jason Welshan’s, truck from Knoxville and took our truck back to Knoxville.I actually slept on the pit box for about three or four hours. (We) hooked that truck up and rolled on up here, rode four deep in a single cab (truck) for about two and a half hours. But we’re here, we’re racing and we’re having a good time.”

Millwood said he wasn’t overly concerned about missing the program, but he was prepared to hustle if he arrived late.

“I knew we might be late, but I knew we had a truck coming, just what time we got here was going to be the factor,” he said. “We was gonna Scott Bloomquist-it. You know, show up last minute, unload and be ready.”

Fortunately the truck belonging to Welshan — a fellow racer who builds Savage Chassis at his Competition Race Parts business in east Tennessee — arrived in plenty of time and Millwood made it with plenty of time to spare, especially when Wednesday’s preliminary action was rained out. As for his on-track experience, Millwood hopes that improves during the program Thursday evening.

“Laps at a racetrack really help, but to me it’s just another racetrack,” Millwood said. “It’s hittin’ your marks and finding the right line and not doing anything you shouldn’t do and it should all work out. I know a lot of luck plays into it here. You gotta catch a break every now and then. It’s hard to make a field anywhere with 120 cars. You gotta catch a break. I’m ready. It’s a fun racetrack for sure.” — Robert Holman