Hall of Fame racer Billy Moyer’s long-predicted retirement was almost a thing late in the 2021 season and the early months of 2022. Then Moyer connected with veteran Illinois racer Tim Lance of Brimfield, Ill., making his first start in Lance’s equipment 363 days ago.

Suddenly, the now 65-year-old driver from Batesville, Ark., who co-owns and operates an RV and boat dealership in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., was back in action regularly at an age when most drivers have long hung up the helmet. Moyer wasn’t quite competing at the clip of his heyday, when an 80-race season was no big deal, but he’s made nearly 50 starts over the last year.

What was missing? A victory in Lance’s equipment. Moyer finally took care of that Friday at Farmer City (Ill.) Raceway, overtaking Bob Gardner on a lap-six restart and leading the rest of the 40-lap feature on the MARS Championship Series. His 849th career feature victory — among the highest totals in the history of Dirt Late Model racing — paid $5,000 as he won on the MARS circuit for the 24th time and first since 2018.

It was a satisfying victory for a team that endured a scary transporter fire last season and had finished better than fourth just once (a runner-up finish on March 11 at Boothill Speedway in Greenwood, La., on the Comp Cams Super Dirt Series) in 12 feature starts this season.

Moyer did nab a $3,000 victory driving a Don-Shaw-owned car in January’s Ernie Mincy Early Thaw at Central Arizona Raceway in Casa Grande, Ariz., but winning for Lance added yet another car owner Moyer’s won for in a career where the lion’s share of his victories came in his self-owned No. 21.

“It’s been a heck of a year for us. We’ve just kept our heads down and kept plugging away and we finally got the car underneath us, kind of what we’ve been looking for finally,” said Moyer, who had three of his 100 career DIRTcar Summer Nationals triumphs at Farmer City. “So just hats off to Tim that owns this stuff. And (longtime crew chief) Steve (Norris) and we’ve got a new kid helping me that just started this week. We’ve just been doing it by ourselves — Steve and myself and (girlfriend) Carla (Rayburn) — so we’ve got one more helper, and that’s helped trying to get the car prepared better this week.”

When Moyer was reeling off his sponsors — a list that includes Lance’s Digital Copy Systems, Karl Chevrolet Auto Group, Mesilla Valley Transportation, AccuForce, Sunoco Race Fuels, Eibach Springs, Carquest and Jack’s Auto Parts — he stumbled a few times trying to recall what decals were on his Clements-powered Longhorn Chassis.

“I know I’m forgetting somebody on here — I ain’t done this for a while,” he said with a laugh.

Moyer’s night didn’t start out very strong as just the ninth-quickest qualifier in his group with 32 cars in the pits. But he benefitted from a McKay Wenger-Mike Spatola scramble in his heat race to get the sixth starting spot in the main event.

Once he got past Gardner early in the feature, passing was at a premium on the track. Feature runner-up Wenger pressured the leader before Moyer settled into his winning groove, taking the checkers with the cushion of a couple of lapped cars.

“I was kind of licking my chops in second (and) I was trying to get a run on him before he caught it, and he just got to the rubber first,” said Wenger, a former Farmer City track champ. “But we had a really good race car. I think we started 10th or something and drove up through there.”

Moyer allowed that the track “got a little one-grooved there, but I think we had a good hot rod, no matter how it was, you know?” he said. “I passed some guys early in the race and it was still real racy. Anyway, I just couldn’t be happier.” — Series and staff reports

2023 MARS Late Models Results From Farmer City (May 26, 2023)