Earl Pearson Jr put on a late race charge that brought the Lucas Dirt crowd to their feet
The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series put on a hell of a show for the Ringgold, GA dirt racing crowd. Boyd’s Speedway featured a pass for the win on the final lap. Specifically, the final corner.
With 5 laps to go, Earl Pearson Jr was running 4th. It appeared that Bloomquist was checking out, in cruise control with a destination of victory lane.
Earl Pearson Jr climbed through the top 5 in the blink of an eye. It was a perfect storm. Pearson found a new lane, while Bloomquist and Madden had worn out their tires.
Pearson dove to the bottom of Scott Bloomquist in turn 3 of the final lap, it stuck. He got to the gas quicker and won the race off turn 4 and to the line on the bottom.
How?
“You know, everything just fell my way,” Earl Pearson Jr tells RacingNews.co following his Boyd’s Speedway win.
“I got to Madden there and he could just run the middle of the race track. We was more or less married to the bottom. Even when we got to Scott, it was the same situation. They just couldn’t turn and get down to the bottom where I was at.”
“So, it definitely worked out with the lapped cars and the whole nine yards. No cautions too.”
“And we had the hard tire on the right rear. They said Scott had a 1350 which is a little bit softer than what we had. The longer we ran, the better we got.”
You came so far out of nowhere that I didn’t even see it coming. Was it that they just fell off that much? Or did you find a new groove there toward the end on top of them loosing pace? Help fill in some of the blanks for me.
“Well, I definitely found something halfway through the race. I started moving around a little bit and found a different line.”
“For the last 10 laps, I really got a lot better through the middle. Where I could stay down in the very bottom of the race track and come off in that brown.”
“It just worked out for me. Scott couldn’t stay in it and Madden couldn’t stay in it. I was the only one that could stay in there, turn and not push out. That definitely helped us out.”
That’s two in a row at Boyd’s. Is there a specific reason for that?
“I have no idea,” Pearson Jr says with a laugh.
“I went over there and shook Dale McDowell’s hand cause me and him both like to run the bottom. It worked out for me, two years in a row.”
Dale McDowell isn’t as involved in the day to day operations of Boyd’s Speedway as he was in 2017 and years past. For 2018, he McDowell is doing a bit more racing. Thus, Kathie Coulter has been put in the operating position at the track. However, McDowell is still involved with Boyd’s Speedway.
“It was a good race. Me, Hudson and Overton we run 2 and 3 wide for most of the race. Once I got by them, I could kinda move around and do what I needed to do.”
“When I got to the front two, they just couldn’t get to the bottom.”
The win at Boyd’s Speedway marked the first LOLMDS win for the new driver and team combination. Ronnie and Terri Stuckey announced the formation of the new team during the off season and they selected Earl Pearson Jr and their pilot.
More
Related: Boyd’s Speedway results
Related: Earl Pearson Jr signs with Stuckey and Black Diamond
Related: Earl Pearson Jr and Dunn-Benson Motorsports, part ways
Related: Boyd’s Speedway announces major management changes ahead of 2018
