With eight laps remaining in Saturday’s 50-lap Comp Cams Super Dirt Series feature at Legit Motor Speedway, second-running Payton Looney of Republic, Mo., had 5,000 reasons to stay exactly where he was.

Looney trailed race leader and eventual winner Steve Casebolt of Richmond, Ind., by as much as three seconds midway through the feature, but with Casebolt working his way through traffic, Looney had trimmed two seconds off the lead when the caution waved for a slowing Jesse Stovall.

Watch the feature replay from Night #1 at Legit Speedway Park for the Comp Cams Super Dirt Series:

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But rather than take a chance on a risky move when the race went back green, Looney stayed in Casebolt’s tire tracks. Turns out, it had a lot to do with economics. While the race paid $10,000-to-win — the tour’s only five-figure payday this season in an event not co-sanctioned with the Lucas Oil Late Model Series — it paid $5,000 for second. That’s equal to or more than the planned winner’s share in 25 events on the series schedule this season. So with that in mind, Looney was prepared to settle for second and its lucrative payday.

“(On the restart) Steve went in there and kinda parked it on the bottom and he actually kinda screwed up,” Looney said. “He thought he was gonna blow the bottom and lock the brakes up and turn left and I kinda just followed suit because I didn’t think there was anything up there (on the outside). I thought the top was pretty much done and it was pretty well latched up on the bottom.”

Watch Night #2 from Legit for the Comp Cams Super Dirt Series on FloRacing!

To Looney's surprise, there was driver willing to gamble.

“I heard (Kent Robinson) and I thought, ‘Who’s to my outside,’ ” Looney said. “He came blasting by and I saw he went straight up to Casebolt and when Steve, you know, kinda ran him up the hill a little bit I thought they might both wreck and we might go ahead and win. Then I got back by K-Rob and Steve moved up and that was good for me because I still felt like I had the best car.

Hear from the top three after Night #1 at Legit:

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“But you know, I got there too late basically. It was hard to pass, so when Steve moved up I was ready for that and I probably could’ve ruffled a couple of feathers, but I was afraid I would hit him right front first and spin myself out. It paid $5,000 for second and we ain’t raced in three months, so it was just better off for me to run second and take it on the chin.”

While he was content with the runner-up’s share of the purse, it didn’t stop him from thinking that he may have had a chance at his first career five-figure payoff.

“I wouldn’t have got him in (turn) one,” Looney said. “I think we would’ve been more side by side in (turn) one, but (turn) two to (turn) three I think I could have got him if he kept running that same line. It was working out for me that he moved up, but by the same token he could have shut the door on me in the bottom, too.

“If it didn’t pay so good to run second, I probably should have blasted it off in there in the middle and let it float on that lap-43 restart and see if maybe I could’ve done what K-Rob did ’cause I think if I ever would’ve taken the lead and had the whole track I’d been alright. I just knew if I went in there and hit bottom that I didn’t think anybody was gonna pass me. Obviously I was wrong.”

Moyer thinks twice

Kent Robinson wasn’t the only driver who saw a golden opportunity when finally, after 42 green flag laps, Saturday’s Missouri Hardwoods Back to the Future 50 was flagged with its first caution. Half of Famer Billy Moyer of Batesville, Ark., who started sixth and ran there for most of the race, thought he had a chance to pick up a few positions on the outside as well. Moyer got a good run on the top, but couldn’t complete the pass as the hole he was aiming for closed up quickly on the backstretch.

“I started to stick my nose in there, but it was probably going to be ugly if I did, so I got back out of it and you know, we had restart anyway, so it didn’t work,” Moyer said. “I think I was running the right part of the racetrack I feel like or that is where my car felt the best. Everybody was married to the bottom there. We was kinda way off on our setup. If I’d had the thing, the car where it needed to be, I think I could have passed him on that outside and went on, maybe even earlier, before the restart. But I was too snug through the center, like way tight through the middle.”

Moyer did manage to pick a position on the next restart — one lap later — but couldn’t climb higher than fifth.

“Really, I’m just happy to get out of there with fifth I guess, as bad as I had the car,” Moyer said. “Them two laps after the restart I thought I was gonna be able to get the 56 (Tony Jackson Jr.). But then like three laps into it, we kinda just equaled out again. You know I had to lean on my tire on my right rear so bad because it was so tight. When it was cold, it was really good. But when I got it hot, after about three laps, I was just sitting there again the same speed as (Jackson) was.”

Rickman's slick moves

Rick Rickman is used to running on slick surfaces at his hometown track, Magnolia Motor Speedway in Columbus, Miss., but that doesn’t mean the veteran driver prefers it. In fact, Rickman said he doesn’t feel like he’s all that good in those track conditions, but after his 16th-to-seventh run on Saturday, he may be gaining some confidence.

“This is a definitely a different kind of slick I guess, with (West Plains) being red dirt and Magnolia being the gray dirt,” said Rickman. “But slick is slick, no matter what color it is. That’s something we’ve always struggled on is the slick, but we seem to have gotten better on it. We got here not knowing what to expect ’cause we’ve never really been that good here.

“Then when we hot-lapped our time was pretty decent and we seemed to have gotten a little better. In the heat race it wasn’t really what we wanted. We kinda got jumped there because the outside wasn’t as good on the start. We held on and made the show … started 16th and come to seventh. We had a good race car, had a real good race car.”

Rickman felt like he may have been able to finish even better had he started closer to the front, or had he taken a more aggressive approach on his way from the back.

“I feel like I would have (finished in the top five) if I hadn’t of started so far back ’cause there was a couple of cars out there that, you know, we raced clean,” Rickman said. “I could have roughed ’em up probably and got by ’em, but I don’t drive that way. It took me a few laps to get around some of them. Maybe if I could have got around ’em a lap or two quicker I might could’ve passed some more cars. If I would have started a few more rows up it would’ve definitely helped.”