LANCASTER, S.C. — With the national touring stars of the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series in his own backyard this weekend, Brandon Overton stepped up and continued to show the nation why he’s in contention for driver of the year.

Following his home state triumph at Georgia’s Lavonia Speedway on Friday night, Overton kept the momentum rolling with a 50-lap beat down in Saturday’s stop at Lancaster Motor Speedway.

Overton was the second fastest qualifier, won his heat and started third for the feature.

Immediately going to second on the start, Overton bided his time aboard the Wells Motorsports No. 76 before striking to take the lead from Johnny Pursley on lap 12. From there, it was game over. A few cautions tried to slow down his Clements Racing Engines powered Longhorn Chassis, but nothing could deter the 29-year old from another trip to victory lane.

He commanded the final 38 laps with ease and cruised to a 3.012-second victory at the checkered flag.

Continuing his magical campaign, Saturday’s score gives Overton 11 career World of Outlaws Late Model wins with the last four victories all coming consecutively over the past month. He’s also up the 19 overall wins on the year, approaching World of Outlaws championship leader Brandon Sheppard, who sits at 25 victories this season.

“We’ve got one hell of a hot rod right now; this thing is a joy to drive,” Overton said. “Everything is just going so perfect for us right now. We’re really spoiled winning like this, because then you run bad and feel so horrible. These last couple of months have been amazing though, and I hope it doesn’t end anytime soon.”

Hanging on to his second-place finish, Ricky Weiss snapped a 22-race streak of finishing outside the top two, securing his first runner-up bid with the World of Outlaws since May 23 at Jackson (Minn.) Motorplex.

“This isn’t really my forte, so to run second and gain the points we did tonight is huge for us,” Weiss noted on racing the half-mile. “I like big tracks, but when it gets dirty like that, we start to struggle. We’ve been working so hard on this thing. It’s rewarding to get back up front. Hopefully it only grows from here.”

Rounding out the podium at Lancaster was Ross Bailes in the Big Frog Motorsports No. 58.

“We were really good at the start, and I thought we would be able to contend more throughout the race,” thought Bailes. “We had that long green flag run and I could feel my car starting to come in, but that caution killed us. I don’t know if my tires cooled down or what, but I just couldn’t fire the same after that. It took me 5-10 laps to get going and that cost us too much. I was hoping I could get up there and really give these Carolina fans something to cheer about.”

The finish:

Feature (50 laps): 1. 76-Brandon Overton [3][$10,000]; 2. 7-Ricky Weiss [2][$5,000]; 3. 58-Ross Bailes [4][$3,000]; 4. 1-Brandon Sheppard [5][$2,500]; 5. 28-Dennis Erb [7][$2,000]; 6. 44-Chris Madden [8][$1,700]; 7. 18-Chase Junghans [11][$1,400]; 8. 12-Ashton Winger [12][$1,300]; 9. 1J-Boom Briggs [13][$1,200]; 10. 24D-Michael Brown [18][$1,100]; 11. B1-Brent Larson [9][$1,050]; 12. 42-Cla Knight [14][$1,000]; 13. 29V-Darrell Lanigan [6][$950]; 14. 9-Johnny Pursley [1][$900]; 15. 1w-Ricky Weeks [16][$850]; 16. 6-Chris Blackwell [10][$800]; 17. 57-Zack Mitchell [17][$770]; 18. 2F-Dennis Franklin [23][$750]; 19. 97-Cade Dillard [20][$730]; 20. 4-Matthew Nance [19][$700]; 21. 88-Trent Ivey [15][$700]; 22. 0-Scott Bloomquist [21][$700]; 23. 79-Ben Watkins [22][$700]. Lap Leader(s): Pursley 1-11; Overton 12-50. Hard Charger Award: 24D-Michael Brown[+8].