BRANDON, S.D. (July 20) — Devin Moran was ecstatic, but he was also physically drained. Leading every lap of Saturday night’s 80-lap Silver Dollar Nationals at Huset’s Speedway — with Bobby Pierce and Brandon Sheppard never far behind — was no simple task for the 29-year-old winner.

“I gotta catch my breath here,” Moran said in the middle of his post-race interview after climbing out of his Double Down Motorsports Longhorn Chassis in victory lane. “That was a work out.”

Added Moran: “And I don’t care what anyone says, Late Models at Huset’s is a bad-ass thing.”

The high-banked, third-mile Huset’s oval leaves no time for a driver to relax, but Dresden, Ohio’s Moran faced the added challenge of two former Silver Dollar Nationals winners chasing him throughout the distance. Both Pierce and Sheppard took shots at the leader from second place before Moran held on to prevail by 0.816 of a second over Oakwood, Ill.’s Pierce, who fell short of sweeping the weekend after scoring wire-to-wire $10,000 triumphs in preliminary features on Thursday and Friday.

New Berlin, Ill.’s Sheppard, who won last year’s inaugural SDN at Huset’s after the event’s relocation from the closed I-80 Speedway in Greenwood, Neb., settled for a third-place finish. Tyler Erb of New Waverly, Texas, advanced from the 13th starting spot to place fourth while Tim McCreadie of Watertown, N.Y., completed the top five in the Rocket Chassis house car after slipping as far back as eighth.

Moran’s first-ever SDN win was worth $53,000, making it the richest of his career. He was well aware of that fact.

“I guess this is officially the biggest race I ever won,” Moran said, a huge smile crossing his perspiring face.

Moran earned every cent of his payoff, which topped the $50,000 he collected for capturing last year’s Show-Me 100 at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo. He was never headed after shooting off the outside pole at the initial green flag to grab the lead from the polesitting Pierce, but he had to survive six caution flags, late-race carburetor trouble and pressure from Pierce and Sheppard to ring up his fifth full-field victory of the 2024 Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series campaign.

“It was hard work,” Moran said. “I had something going on with the carburetor and it was spitting fuel like the last 25 laps so I was literally wiping (his helmet shield) every straightaway. I knew Sheppy and Bobby were ripping and I was just doing everything I could stay out front.”

Pierce was Moran’s first pursuer, running second for the race’s first 19 circuits. Sheppard snatched the spot for laps 20-32, Pierce held it for laps 33-63, Sheppard regained it for laps 64-67 and Pierce finally asserted control of the position from lap 68 to the finish.

There were points when Moran thought he might be a sitting duck for one of his rivals, but he never gave them the opening they needed.

“I saw Sheppy just kept poking, kept poking, and I tried running the bottom and I just felt so slow,” Moran said, recalling Sheppard’s bids. “But it obviously wasn’t horrible.”

Moran stayed strong to continue his run of remarkable consistency on the Lucas Oil tour, pushing his streak of consecutive top-four finishes to 14. He also moved past Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga., who finished a quiet 10th, into second in the circuit’s standings, 260 points behind 13th-place finisher Ricky Thornton Jr. of Chandler, Ariz.

The successful stretch has Moran’s confidence soaring.

“Roger Sellers just put his faith in myself and my great crew,” Moran said of his team owner. “He got us on board last year and it was a little shaky to start and we just kept working, kept working, kept working …”

Moran’s performance was simply too much for the red-hot Pierce to overcome. The 27-year-old World of Outlaws Case Late Model Series regular saw his overall six-race winning streak come to an end after he couldn’t pull off a late-race pass for the lead in his Longhorn mount.

“Devin was good, and I think we just missed a little on the right-front setup,” said Pierce, who won the SDN in 2019 and finished second in last year’s event. “It was kind of bouncing around the corner, and we scared ourselves out when we hot-lapped — we kind of had a different setup on, and the track just got a little more character than we thought.

“Going through the corner, I guess just however the car bounced is where I went. I had my hands full for a while, but it was a fun battle with Brandon and Devin, and (Moran) drove a heck of a race there at the very end. When I had a last effort chance at it, he moved up, perfect timing right when he did, because I think if he hadn’t moved up there I possibly could’ve got a run on him on turn four and it might’ve been a different story.”

Sheppard, 31, mused afterward that his restart lane choices while running second didn’t work out, but he was satisfied nonetheless with his third-place run in the Longhorn Factory Team machine.

“I’d like to think I should’ve picked the bottom on that first restart when I got to second,” Sheppard said, referring to the lap-32 restart when he lost the position to Pierce. “But then after I got second back later in the race I picked the bottom (for a lap-67) where I thought I needed to be and I didn’t take off as good. I bounced coming out of the corner. I think I got up on the berm a little bit too much and that made me bounce and let Bobby get back ahead of me.

“We had a really good car all weekend,” he added. “Just awesome balance, it was a pleasure to drive.”

Six caution flags slowed the event starting on lap 11 when Clay Harris slowed on the homestretch. The next yellow came on lap 32 when Mike Marlar and Curt Schroeder tangled in turn four on lap 32 and then Ross Robinson nosed into the turn-one wall on lap 33 and retired with extensive right-side damage.

The remaining cautions came on lap 44 when ninth-running Carson Ferguson slowed on lap 44 with a race-ending broken shock; lap 62 when home-state racer Blair Nothdurft spun in turn two on lap 62 after running in the top 10 for much of the distance; and lap 67 when Jimmy Owens stopped on the homestretch on lap 67 after pitting during the previous caution period.

Notes: Moran became the second consecutive wire-to-wire winner of the SDN, duplicating Sheppard’s performance last year at Huset’s. … Tyler Erb’s fourth-place finish was his career-best in seven SDN feature starts, topping his fifth-place run last year. … McCreadie’s fifth-place result marked his 10th top-10 finish in as many career SDN feature starts. He won the race in 2017. … Mike Marlar pitted following his involvement in the lap-32 incident and rallied to finish sixth. … Ricky Thornton Jr. ran in the top five for the race’s first 14 laps but slipped to 10th before pitting to change a time during the lap-44 caution period. He caught the wall attempting to climb back through the field and spent the final laps sticking to the inside of the track on his way to a 13th-place finish in the Koehler Motorsports Longhorn. … The feature was checkered at 10:30 p.m.

14th annual Silver Dollar Nationals
Pos. Driver (car no.), hometown, chassis, earnings
1. Devin Moran (99), Dresden, Ohio, Longhorn, $53,000
2. Bobby Pierce (32), Oakwood, Ill., Longhorn, $20,000
3. Brandon Sheppard (B5), New Berlin, Ill., Longhorn, $10,000
4. Tyler Erb (1), New Waverly, Texas, Rocket, $8,000
5. Tim McCreadie (1), Watertown, N.Y., Rocket, $7,000
6. Mike Marlar (157), Winfield, Tenn., Longhorn, $6,000
7. Hudson O'Neal (71), Martinsville, Ind., Longhorn, $4,500
8. Garrett Alberson (58), Las Cruces, N.M., Longhorn, $4,000
9. Daulton Wilson (18D), Fayetteville, N.C., Longhorn, $3,800
10. Jonathan Davenport (49), Blairsville, Ga., Longhorn, $3,600
11. Max Blair (111), Centersville, Pa., Longhorn, $3,400
12. Chad Simpson (25), Mount Vernon, Iowa, Infinity, $3,200
13. Ricky Thornton Jr. (20rt), Chandler, Ariz., Longhorn, $3,000
14. Brenden Smith (17ss), Dade City, Fla., Rocket, $2,500
15. Blair Nothdurft (76), Renner, S.D., Rocket, $2,400
16. Jimmy Owens (20), Newport, Tenn., Rocket, $2,300
17. Ben Sukup (07), Norfolk, Neb., Swartz, $2,200
18. Cory Lawler (93), Hanover, Pa., Rocket, $2,100
19. Boom Briggs (99B), Bear Lake, Pa., Rocket, $2,000
20. Drake Troutman (7), Hyndman, Pa., Longhorn, $2,000
21. Carson Ferguson (93), Lincolnton, N.C., Longhorn, $2,000
22. Ross Robinson (7), Georgetown, Del., Rocket, $2,000
23. Junior Coover (10), Norfolk, Neb., Black Diamond, $2,000
24. Curt Schroeder (15c), Newton, Iowa, MB Customs, $2,000
25. Scott Ward (37), Watertown, S.D., Longhorn, $2,000
26. Clay Harris (6), Jupiter, Fla., Rocket, $2,000
Lap leader: Moran 1-80
Consolation race winner (among 26 cars): Owens
Preliminary feature winners: Pierce (2)

Feature lineup

(53 laps)

Row 1: Bobby Pierce, Devin Moran
Row 2: Daulton Wilson, Brandon Sheppard
Row 3: Tim McCreadie, Ricky Thornton Jr.
Row 4: Hudson O’Neal, Blair Nothdurft
Row 5: Jonathan Davenport, Carson Ferguson
Row 6: Garrett Alberson, Chad Simpson
Row 7: Tyler Erb, Brenden Smith
Row 8: Drake Troutman, Max Blair
Row 9: Jimmy Owens, Mike Marlar
Row 10: Ross Robinson, Clay Harris
Row 11: Boom Briggs, Ben Sukup
Row 12: Junior Coover, Scott Ward
Row 13: Curt Schroeder, Cory Lawler

Consolation results

(12 laps; all transfer)

Finish: Jimmy Owens, Mike Marlar, Ross Robinson, Clay Harris, Boom Briggs, Ben Sukup, Junior Coover, Scott Ward, Curt Schroeder. Scratched: Cory Lawler.

Consolation lineup

Row 1: Jimmy Owens, Ross Robinson
Row 2: Mike Marlar, Clay Harris
Row 3: Boom Briggs, Cory Lawler
Row 4: Ben Sukup, Junior Cooper
Row 5: Curt Schroeder, Scott Ward

Saturday’s schedule

(All times local)
2 p.m. - Pits open
3 p.m. - Dirt Racing Outreach service
4:30 p.m. - Grandstands open
5 p.m. - Driver autographs near souvenir trailers
6 p.m. - Drivers’ meeting
7 p.m. - On-track activity
- Limited Late Model hot laps
- Super Late Model hot laps (consolation entrants)
- Limited Late Model time trials (2 laps)
Opening ceremonies

- Super Late Model consolation (12 laps)
- Limited Late Model heats (8 laps)
- Super Late Model hot laps (locked-in feature entrants)
- Limited Late Model consolation (10 laps)
- Limited Late Model feature (30 laps)
Driver introductions/track prep
- 14th annual Silver Dollar Nationals feature (80 laps)