PORT ROYAL, Pa. — Tim McCreadie was a bit apologetic in victory lane Thursday at Port Royal Speedway. Not for contact with another driver or a miscue of any sort, but for stinking up what was, behind his No. 39, an exciting Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series race that featured the Dirt Late Model debut of open-wheel superstar Kyle Larson.

The 46-year-old driver from Watertown, N.Y., ran virtually unchallenged in the first of Port Royal’s three Rumble by the River weekend events, taking the checkers 7.111 seconds ahead of runner-up Kyle Strickler for his third victory in his last five starts on the national tour.

“I hope I didn’t make it too bad,” the pole-starting McCreadie said in victory lane after leading 30 laps. “But it was fun.”

Strickler, the Pennsylvania native racing out of Mooresville, N.C., who was making his Port Royal debut, matched his best Lucas Oil finish of the season as a distant runner-up while series points leader and front-row starter Jimmy Owens of Newport, Tenn., was third. Chris Ferguson of Mount Holly, N.C., advanced six positions in finishing fourth.

All eyes were on the fifth-finishing Larson of Elk Grove, Calif., the former NASCAR racer and sprint car standout who started sixth and ran as high as third before losing two spots on the final lap, hitting the turn-four fence heading for the checkers.

McCreadie’s victory lane celebration included cheers from home-state supporters — “This is as close to home as I get; man, you can tell these people are excited.” — as his fellow podium finishers finally got close enough to see what his No. 39 looked like.

He led Owens by 2.147 seconds after five laps, 2.776 seconds after 10 laps and had his only scare of the race come on a lap-11 restart when he got a bit too high in turns one and two, but quickly recovered and went right back to his domination in winning his fifth Lucas Oil race of the season. He stuck with the high groove all race long.

“It’s hard to lead, too, because I had seeing my (crew) guy Phil into (turn) three as much as I’d have liked to,” McCreadie said, “so I just figured I’m going to live on this cushion, and if I get beat, no matter who it is in the top 10, because they’re all good — really the whole field is good — I’d just tip my cap.”

And he had one final warning for the competition: “We’ll try to get better tomorrow.”

Strickler, who finished second last month in the Show-Me 100 at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo., drove a refurbished race car to a runner-up finish at the half-mile Port Royal oval.

“We were on a little different tire strategy (than McCreadie). But we’ve been struggling the last couple of weeks,” Strickler said. “We got the car fixed at Longhorn (Chassis in North Carolina), and man, it’s absolutely a night-and-day difference. The car was awesome all night long. Timmy was really, really good, so it says a lot about these Longhorn cars.

“I’m really proud of my guys. Like I said before, this car was a bare chassis on Monday, and we worked our butts off all week long. To come up here, this is only an hour and a half from where I grew up in Pennsyvlania, so I know we have a lot of people watching me at home and will be here tomorrow and Saturday night.”

Owens blamed a poor decision on a restart for finishing a spot worse than he said he should have.

“We had a good car — a good second-place car, we didn’t have nothing for McCreadie tonight — but I chose the inside (lane) on that one takeoff there and thought maybe I could get a decent run, and maybe pull a slider or something going into (turn) one there,” said Owens, who lost the second spot on lap 19. “But I couldn’t keep up with (McCreadie) down the straightaway there, and fell back to third.

“I felt like I was better than the two cars in front of me (Strickler and Larson), but the high side was really hard to beat up yonder, and we got to where we could run down in the middle a little bit, and made a last-lap pass there for third.”

Larson dazzled in his full-fender debut by dominating his heat race and running among the top five all but the first four laps of the main event. He found himself in a heated, paint-swapping battle with Owens much of the final 10 laps.

“To run side-by-side with (Owens) for a few laps there after that last restart was really cool,” Larson said. “I was running as hard as I could against the wall there and I just started getting a little too loose into turn three and I couldn’t carry the speed like I needed to. He slid in front of me off of four coming to the checkers, and I was just trying to make a last-ditch effort to beat him and get on the podium but clobbered the wall up in four there. So I’m a little mad at myself for hurting the equipment, but all in all, a good debut for me. I had a lot of fun tonight.”

Two cautions slowed the action, the first on the 10th lap for a slowing Rick Eckert of York, Pa., a 2017 Lucas Oil winner at Port Royal. The second yellow appeared on lap 18 for debris.

The Rumble by the River continues Friday with a $12,000-to-win event while the tour’s three-race visit at Port Royal ends with a $15,000-to-win on Saturday.

Notes: McCreadie notched his 20th career Lucas Oil victory and third in as many weekends (the other two at Florence Speedway in Union, Ky., and Batesville Motor Speedway in Locust Grove, Ark.). … Twenty-one drivers finished on the lead lap. … Michael Norris of Sarver, Pa., earned hard charger honors with a 21st-to-11th run. ...Among drivers failing to make the feature were home-state drivers Drake Troutman and former Port Royal champ Jeff Rine, both eliminated in a first-lap pileup that included Rick Eckert in the fourth heat. The scramble was triggered exiting turn two when Troutman failed to back out of the gas when the caution was called for a bad start.

Feature lineup

Row 1: Tim McCreadie, Jimmy Owens
Row 2: Kyle Strickler, Devin Moran
Row 3: Shane Clanton, Kyle Larson
Row 4: Hudson O’Neal, Tyler Bruening
Row 5: Mason Zeigler, Chris Ferguson
Row 6: Earl Pearson Jr., Jonathan Davenport
Row 7: Billy Moyer Jr., Bobby Pierce
Row 8: Josh Richards, Brandon Sheppard
Row 9: Kyle Bronson, Trent Ivey
Row 10: Tanner English, Rick Eckert
Row 11: Michael Norris, Jason Covert
Row 12: Tyler Erb, Stormy Scott
Row 13: Andy Haus

Consolation results

(12 laps; top two transfer)

First consolation finish: Tanner English, Michael Norris, Gregg Satterlee, Dan Stone, Hayes Mattern, Ross Robinson, Andy Haus, Trever Feathers, Stormy Scott, Boom Briggs, Nick Dickson, Mike Lupfer, Austin Berry, Will Thomas, Tim Smith Jr. Scratched: Tyler Erb, Dillan Stake, Doug Drown, Roy Deese, Jr.

Second consolation finish: Rick Eckert, Jason Covert, Gary Stuhler, Tyler Bare, Matt Cosner, Colton Flinner, Brett Schadel, Jason Miller, Shaun Jones, Tim Wilson, Jon Hodgkiss, Scott Flickinger, Drake Troutman, Donald Lingo Jr. Scratched: Dylan Yoder, Jeff Rine, Andy Anderson, Kyle Lee.

Heat race results

(10 laps; top three transfer)

First heat finish: Tim McCreadie, Hudson O’Neal, Billy Moyer Jr., Gregg Satterlee, Hayes Mattern, Dan Stone, Will Thomas, Stormy Scott, Doug Drown. Scratched: Roy Deese Jr.

Second heat finish: Kyle Strickler, Mason Zeigler, Josh Richards, Tanner English, Michael Norris, Ross Robinson, Nick Dickson, Tim Smith Jr., Andy Haus.

Third heat finish: Shane Clanton, Earl Pearson Jr., Kyle Bronson, Tyler Erb, Mike Lupfer, Boom Briggs, Dillan Stake, Austin Berry, Trever Feathers.

Fourth heat finish: Jimmy Owens, Tyler Bruening, Bobby Pierce, Rick Eckert, Tyler Bare, Dylan Yoder, Jason Miller, Jeff Rine, Drake Troutman.

Fifth heat finish: Devin Moran, Chris Ferguson, Brandon Sheppard, Jason Covert, Colton Flinner, Brett Schadel, Shaun Jones, Scott Flickinger. Scatched: Andy Anderson.

Sixth heat finish: Kyle Larson, Jonathan Davenport, Trent Ivey, Gary Stuhler, Matt Cosner, Donald Lingo Jr., Tim Wilson, Jon Hodgkiss. Scratched: Kyle Lee.

Action underway

With the strongest storms missing the track and preciptiation ending by shortly after 8 p.m., surface reconditioning wasn't very lengthy. The field hot-lapped again and time trials began at approximately 9:25 p.m.

Rain delay

After the 55 entered cars completed hot laps with a severe thunderstorm watch in effect for the Port Royal area, the dark clouds looming over the mountains arrived and began to dump rain just as the first cars hit the track for time trials at 7:18 p.m. Qualifying was shut down and officials were hopeful that the rain would pass quickly or the speedway would only catch the edge of the storms.

Time trials (unofficial)

First group

1. Tim McCreadie (39), Watertown, N.Y., 18.545
2. Mason Zeigler (25z), Chalk Hill, Pa., 18.592
3. Shane Clanton (25), Zebulon, Ga., 18.701
4. Stormy Scott (2), Las Cruces, N.M., 18.710
5. Kyle Strickler (8), Mooresville, N.C., 18.732
6. Kyle Bronson (40B), Brandon, Fla., 18.756
7. Billy Moyer Jr. (21jr), Batesville, Ark., 18.788
8. Tyler Erb (1), New Waverly, Texas, 18.857
9. Josh Richards (14), Shinnston, W.Va., 18.863
10. Hudson O’Neal (71), Martinsville, Ind., 18.886
11. Tanner English (81E), Benton, Ky., 18.911
12. Earl Pearson Jr. (1), Jacksonville, Fla., 18.916
13. Gregg Satterlee (22), Indiana, Pa., 18.933
14. Michael Norris (72), Sarver, Pa., 18.940
15. Mike Lupfer (06), Shermans Dale, Pa., 18.975
16. Will Thomas (9T), Sharpsville, Pa., 19.041
17. Ross Robinson (7), Georgetown, Del., 19.089
18. Trever Feathers (20F), Winchester, Va., 19.098
19. Hayes Mattern (9H), Beaverton, Pa., 19.162
20. Andy Haus (76), Hamburg, Pa., 19.163
21. Boom Briggs (99B), Bear Lake, Pa., 19.179
22. Doug Drown (12d), Wooster, Ohio, 19.377
23. Roy Deese Jr. (05), Laurel, Md., 19.417
24. Tim Smith Jr. (39T), Long Hollow, Pa., 19.431
25. Dillan Stake (D19), Mapleton, Pa., 19.508
26. Dan Stone (2), Thompson, Pa., 19.602
27. Nick Dickson (17), Lewistown, Pa., 19.701
28. Austin Berry (86B), Nook, Pa., 19.746

Second group

1. Jimmy Owens (20), Newport, Tenn., 18.373
2. Brandon Sheppard (1), New Berlin, Ill., 18.674
3. Kyle Larson (6), Elk Grove, Calif., 18.695
4. Tyler Bruening (16), Decorah, Iowa, 18.702
5. Devin Moran (9), Dresden, Ohio, 18.711
6. Donald Lingo Jr. (55), Millsboro, Del., 18.794
7. Bobby Pierce (93), Oakwood, Ill., 18.816
8. Chris Ferguson (22), Mount Holly, N.C., 19.010
9. Jonathan Davenport (49), Blairsville, Ga., 19.067
10. Jason Miller (94), Winchester, Va., 19.112
11. Jason Covert (43), York Haven, Pa., 19.177
12. Matt Cosner (66), Ridgeley, W.Va., 19.253
13. Rick Eckert (0), York, Pa., 19.256
14. Scott Flickinger (15F), Elliottsburg, Pa., 19.395
15. Gary Stuhler (4), Greencastle, Pa., 19.397
16. Dylan Yoder (24), Selinsgrove, Pa., 19.480
17. Trent Ivey (88), Union, S.C., 19.540
18. Drake Troutman (7D), Hyndman, Pa., 19.580
19. Shaun Jones (32J), Shermans Dale, Pa., 19.583
20. Jon Hodgkiss (69), Kennedy Township, Pa., 19.585
21. Jeff Rine (2J), Danville, Pa., 19.587
22. Colton Flinner (48), Allison Park, Pa., 19.630
23. Brett Schadel (22B), Herndon, Pa., 19.686
24. Tim Wilson (3W), McClure, Pa., 19.819
25. Tyler Bare (43A), Rockbridge Baths, Va., 20.135
26. Andy Anderson (25A), Winchester, Va., 24.256
27. Kyle Lee (2T), Mercersburg, Pa., no time