Eldora Speedway
O'Neal returns to the track at Eldora
By Joshua Joiner
DirtonDirt.com staff writer
Don O'Neal's No. 71 car was back in action Thursday night at Eldora. (thesportswire.net)
ROSSBURG, Ohio (Sept. 7) — After racing for the first time since being injured in an Aug. 22 rollover wreck, Don O’Neal felt better than ever Thursday night at Eldora Speedway.
If only his MasterSbilt Race Cars house car felt so well. | Complete World 100 coverage
“I feel great; I feel a lot better than the car felt,” O’Neal of Martinsville, Ind., said after racing to a quiet eighth-place finish during the second of Thursday’s twin preliminary features that kicked off Eldora’s 43rd annual World 100 weekend. “We were just off pretty bad, and never really caught up all night.”
Even though his car wasn’t quite as fast as he would’ve liked it, O’Neal was glad to be back on the track. A regular on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series, O’Neal missed his first series race in more than four years when he sat out the tour’s Aug. 24 event at Lawrenceburg (Ind.) Speedway while recovering from neck and back injuries suffered in the tour’s race Aug. 22 at Volunteer Speedway in Bulls Gap, Tenn.
O’Neal also had to sit out the tour’s three-race Labor Day weekend, which included the $25,000-to-win Hillbilly 100. He was faced with having to miss Eldora’s crown jewel event this weekend and had to undergo extended physical therapy to rush along his recovery process. He only received medical clearance to race this weekend one day before Thursday night’s action.
“You set at home a couple weekends, and you get a little restless to get back out there,” said O’Neal, a former winner of Eldora’s Dream who’s still chasing his first World 100 victory. “I got to spend some time with my lovely girlfriend, but I’m glad to be back out here that’s for sure. I didn’t want to miss this one.”
While Thursday’s performance may not have been quite up to his usual standards, O’Neal is confident he and the MasterSbilt house car crew can improve during Friday’s second preliminary program to be ready for Saturday’s World 100 heat races and $46,000-to-win main event.
O’Neal has plenty of confidence in his race car. The yellow No. 71 machine is the same car O’Neal used to win the 2011 Dream at Eldora and to finish third in the World 100 that same year. The car is reserved specifically for Eldora races, but it’s never performed well in the rubbered-up track conditions that Eldora produced Thursday night.
“We bring the same car back every time, and it’s just never been very good in these conditions,” O’Neal said. “It just seems like we’ve always had to have something to lean against to be good in it. We were far off from having that tonight.”
While O’Neal hopes to see track conditions more to his and his car’s liking the rest of the weekend, he and the crew will work to improve the car in case the track is similar to Thursday’s conditions.
“I felt like we were a little better in the heat race than we were in the feature. The changes we made in the feature wasn’t too good,” O’Neal said. “We tried some stuff we never tried over here just to try it, but it sure wasn’t the right direction. We’ll go back the other way tomorrow night and we should be better.”
