Donald McIntosh raised some eyebrows Thursday at All-Tech Raceway on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series when he qualified fastest in his group and won his heat race over Tim McCreadie, Max Blair, Hudson O’Neal, Brandon Sheppard and Ryan Gustin.

The 31-year-old native of Dawsonville, Ga., then held his own in the 40-lap, $10,000-to-win feature, running inside the top-three for the opening 29 laps before a late-race restart shuffled him back to a seventh-place finish.

After that promising run, which part of the night is McIntosh most proud of? His answer is pretty simple.

“I’m proud of this run for the start of Speedweeks, to turn it around,” said McIntosh, who struggled to a 26th-place finish in Jan. 17’s Lucas Oil opener at Georgia’s Golden Isles Speedway. “To end the night in seventh with no damage, with the car caliber that is here, I’m tickled.”

For those who noticed at Golden Isles two weekends ago, McIntosh received one of Lucas Oil’s emergency provisionals, tagging the rear to start from the outside of the 14th and final row that night. Emergency series provisionals are reserved for drivers who submitted Lucas Oil’s loyalty deposit for new teams desiring to join the tour.

It’s a $3,500 fee, and should a driver have perfect attendance through the Show-Me 100 weekend at Missouri’s Lucas Oil Speedway, they’ll be fully refunded of that loyalty deposit. That said, McIntosh isn’t shy making his intentions known this Georgia-Florida Speedweeks as the third-year Billy Hicks Racing driver indeed wants to follow the tour this season.

“That’s what we’d like to do. We have to race smart,” McIntosh said. “Our budget is not what we’re up against here. If we end up tearing up a bunch of stuff, if we don’t have good luck, it’s just not in the cards really for us to continue. But if we can continue having good luck and not tear up a bunch of stuff, we’re going to try. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Something that Billy wants to do.

“We’re doing it out of the love we have for the sport, not that we financially should probably do it. We’re not on the level the top teams are. But like I said, we’re not going to let that slow us down. We’re here to have fun and do the best we can. I feel like, on our good nights, we can be as competitive as they can. But I feel like, the difference in that, is we’re going to have nights we’re where just lost. That’s just the deficit we’re on.

“We’re having fun, having the best we can. We have a real good crew, a really good team that’s been together for a while. I’m looking forward to seeing how we can do.”

McIntosh is no slouch nor flash-in-the-pan racer. He won last year’s Schaffer’s Spring Nationals, the popular FloRacing-streamed Southeast miniseries. He also finished 15th in last September’s World 100 at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway and was the fifth-highest non-touring driver in the sport’s most prestigious race of the year; Cory Hedgecock, Shane Clanton, Tanner English, and Josh Rice were the only non-touring drivers who performed better that McIntosh in last year’s World 100.

McIntosh, who prospectively joins Dan Ebert in the Lucas Oil tour’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Rookie of the Year race, knows he can pull his weight versus the sport’s best.

The key is he’ll need to make his two engines and two race-ready Double Nickel Chassis cars last seven more races in Lucas Oil’s portion of Speedweeks: This Friday and Saturday at All-Tech and Feb. 4-8 at Ocala (Fla.) Speedway. Hicks has a third engine being rebuilt at Clement’s Racing Engines, so McIntosh has that to look forward should he come out of Speedweeks unscathed.

“Yeah, we’re going to do what we can,” McIntosh said. “Again, if our budget is on par, then absolutely. (The $25,000 Rookie of the Year bonus) is nice, but this is an expensive deal to run. If we can have some good luck and don’t tear up a bunch of stuff, that is our plan.”

McIntosh really didn’t want the caution with 11 laps to go Thursday. He was running confidently in third behind Devin Moran and Shane Clanton and thought he’d finish off his stellar night with a podium finish. But on the final restart, eventual winner Ricky Thornton Jr., Max Blair, Daulton Wilson, Tyler Erb and Jonathan Davenport freight-trained him to seventh.

Going with a softer compound on his right-rear tire, McIntosh’s tire “sealed up” and “never would go after that.”

“I wish that caution wouldn’t have come out at the end, I would’ve had a top-three,” McIntosh said. “We gambled a little soft on tires with them doing the track prep. We went too soft. Yeah, overall, I’m really pleased with the night. After my first night at Golden Isles, to come out and qualify really good, and start up front and show them that we’re here, we’re pleased with that.”

After Thursday, McIntosh is 11th in the series standings, 25 points behind Brandon Overton for 10th. But he isn’t stressed about his points standing post-Speedweeks as much as he is making his equipment last, insisting that “it’s not even really how we run (during Speedweeks). If we don’t tear up a bunch of stuff, and don’t use up our budget, then we’re going to (follow Lucas to March 21-22’s doubleheader at Ohio’s Atomic Speedway and Indiana’s Brownstown Speedway).”

“We’re set to do it. But if we tear up a motor and/or destroy a car, we’re done,” McIntosh added. “That’s where we were last year. We started last year in this deal pretty good, and we broke an oil pump belt at Bubba. The next time we destroyed a race car.”

This isn’t the first time either McIntosh has attempted to follow the Lucas Oil tour. He tried in 2018, but engine woes on the second night of the Winternationals at Florida’s East Bay Raceway Park killed his hopes.

McIntosh does have a capable race-day crew of longtime mechanic Aaron Latham and first-time general mechanic Danny Treaster who “popped his first pop rivet two weeks ago and he’s doing a great job.”

He’s hoping he can look back upon his 2025 at December’s Lucas Oil banquet in Indianapolis, Ind., having made it all work.

“I hope to. That’s a dream of mine for a long time,” said McIntosh, who has two top-five finishes in 43 career Lucas Oil Series starts (his best run is a second on April 5, 2019, at Tennessee’s 411 Motor Speedway). “I really hope to, and like I said, I hate to say it, but with how brutal it is, if we can end Speedweeks with two cars and motors in good shape, we’re here for it.”