“I feel a little lost. There’s no dirt,” Brock Heger quipped before Friday evening’s Freedom 500. “I do see a little dirt down below (in the infield) so if I have to go down there, I’ll let it rip down there.”

Unfortunately for the UTV star, his words were a bit too prescient.

Heger traded in his Polaris RZR for a Ford Crown Victoria on Friday, trying his hand at pavement racing. The Dakar-slash-Hammers-slash-Mint-slash-Baja winner was surprisingly quick from the get-go, qualifying fifth to the disbelief of showrunner Cleetus McFarland; the latter, who signed a partnership with Polaris earlier in the week, remarked, “I thought he’s an off-road racer. How did he get number 5!?”

However, the race would be a massive bloodbath and Heger one of the many victims. He ran as high as third across the first 16 laps until the mandatory red flag to honor the late Greg Biffle. As the race resumed, he got turned but managed to keep the car from going around, though this left him in a hole. Heger climbed back into the top ten and was running eighth until he was spun again on Lap 89. This time, the damage was terminal as his left front axle broke, leaving him—poetically—beached in the infield’s dirt and grass.

Lap 89 was anathematic for the 18 remaining drivers. Four caution flags were flown on that lap alone; unlike NASCAR where caution laps count toward the race distance, it doesn’t apply to the Freedom 500 and thus the race resumed on the 89th lap each time. Heger was the second accident of this stretch, which led to Evan Sheff and Micah Sandman of CboysTV crashing into each other on the ensuing restart.

The first Lap 89 accident took out McFarland himself. He and his mechanic Zach Walker were sparring for the lead when they tangled. Justin Hildebrand—better known as JH Diesel—swerved up to dodge them but was clipped by an unsuspecting Kevin Smith into the wall. McFarland said “Zach [was] being an idiot” for coming down on him while he was on the apron, but followed up that “I was racing you pretty hard too.”

The carnage ended up putting Travis Pastrana at the front. The defending race winner, Pastrana looked dead in the water after swapping into a backup car that had a better engine but a broken nitrous system, so he tried to “exploit the rules as best I possibly can” by slipping back into his original Crown Vic during a caution at halfway.

Smith, who runs KSR Performance & Fabrication and has won McFarland’s other events, battled with Pastrana until he pitted and was ordered to the tail end. Pastrana survived each restart, holding off fellow NASCAR alumnus Kenny Wallace and McFarland’s fabricator Tye Braun. Just when they finally broke the 90-lap mark, Smith hit the wall for another yellow.

Braun finally found an opening on the inside with five laps to go, while James “Jackstand Jimmy” Taal tried his own move. The scramble led to more contact and ultimately another caution. Just before the yellow came out, Brian Deegan slipped by to take the lead.

Deegan held off Taal and Pastrana on the two-lap green–white–checker finish for his second Freedom 500 win after 2022. As the winner, he received a Carbon Cub Super Sport plane.

Much like his fellow X Games and rallycross star, Deegan should’ve had little business being in contention. A poor qualifying session put him at the back of the field, then he spun just a handful of laps in to further drop him back. He went to a backup car soon after, scrawling his #38 on the side in black Sharpie and rejoining the race. He gradually worked up the order before getting into second and surviving the ensuing chaos.

Many quipped that Deegan was like a bulldozer as he moved through. He in turn apologized to McFarland for missing a braking point and hitting him.

Pastrana and Deegan had a $5 bet on who would beat the other. The former thought, “‘Well, I don’t care how I do, but I got to beat Brian Deegan and I think I can get it done with this car.’ With two laps to go, the ol’ 38 came by me like a train. It was very sad.”

Despite the turmoil, Deegan felt the racing quality has improved over the years. It certainly helped with the addition of active racers from both terrains. Deegan and Pastrana were joined from the off-road side by those like Heger, rally driver and Baja 1000 class winner Lia Block, and Championship Off-Road Pro SPEC champ Wyatt Miller, while the pavement world had those like Wallace, ARCA regular Bobby Earnhardt, and McFarland’s cameraman Squirrel McNutt. (Those like Block, McFarland, Pastrana, Wallace, and Brad DeBerti have competed in both.)

“It’s stacked. It really is,” Deegan commented. “Even the guys that weren’t so good are now good. Everyone’s throwing down, so you’ve got to really try hard and really think about it. That’s the most thinking I’ve done in a while trying to set people up.”

Even those without proper racing experience showed out. James Condon, a luxury car YouTuber better known as Stradman, led much of the race before he wrecked while racing his fellow CarTuber ChrisFix.

Walker was the fastest in the six-group qualifying session, but started eighth because of a field invert that consisted of him rolling a die then adding five. Wallace, Smith, Heger, and Axell Hodges topped the other groups.

While the Freedom Factory is a paved 3⁄8-mile oval, Heger and Miller looked more than comfortable. Miller was second quickest in Group 1 qualifying behind Wallace, who raced at the track when it was known as DeSoto Speedway in the 1980s, before getting involved in a stack-up on Lap 67. At 14 years of age, Miller is the youngest driver to enter the Freedom 500.

“My car didn’t feel the greatest so I just made it really hard for people to pass me,” Miller explained. “I just held them up and then I got it figured out and getting a lot of speed. I think I was like the second fastest car, so pretty good.”

The race was such a fracas that the entire inventory of backup cars was fully exhausted, with the only one left being McFarland’s years-old Crown Vic parked in the infield basically as decor. Wallace was unaware of the car switch rule, which permits going to the backup mid-race if you’re unsatisfied with what you have or crashed out so that you could continue, because he missed the driver’s meeting.

“Somebody said, ‘You finished fourth in your same car.’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean?’ They said, ‘Yeah, you could go to another car.’ That’s awesome,” the nine-time NASCAR Busch Series race winner stated.

“I’ve never hit people that hard in the car and still keep going.”

Custom Offsets Freedom 500 results

Finish	Start	Number	Driver	Laps
1	21	38	Brian Deegan	100
2	24	69	James Taal	100
3	12	199	Travis Pastrana	100
4	7	55	Kenny Wallace	100
5	11	24	Kyle Wade	100
6	3	96	Axell Hodges	100
7	25	8	ChrisFix	100
8	18	89	Bobby Earnhardt	100
9	13	6	Tye Braun	100
10	10	70	Brad DeBerti	99
11	5	78	Kevin Smith	91
12	8	18	Zach Walker	89
13	2	30	Cleetus McFarland	89
14	15	88	Justin Hildebrand	89
15	4	1896	Brock Heger	89
16	22	562	Joey Hykel	89
17	23	14	Evan Sheff	89
18	27	7	Micah Sandman	89
19	16	0	Squirrel McNutt	85
20	6	73	Wyatt Miller	67
21	14	857	Lia Block	65
22	17	50	Jim York	65
23	26	992	Steve Hamilton	65
24	19	12	Manuel Gomez	64
25	1	27	James Condon	64
26	20	777	Taylor Ray	45
27	9	33	Brent Leivestad	42

Qualifying results

Rank	Number	Driver	Fastest Time
1	18	Zach Walker	19.624
2	55	Kenny Wallace	19.693
3	73	Wyatt Miller	19.786
4	78	Kevin Smith	19.794
5	1896	Brock Heger	19.824
6	96	Axell Hodges	19.860
7	30	Cleetus McFarland	19.905
8	27	James Condon	19.907
9	33	Brent Leivestad	19.924
10	70	Brad DeBerti	19.929
11	24	Kyle Wade	19.952
12	199	Travis Pastrana	19.962
13	6	Tye Braun	19.990
14	857	Lia Block	20.004
15	88	Justin Hildebrand	20.042
16	0	Squirrel McNutt	20.045
17	50	Jim York	20.077
18	89	Bobby Earnhardt	20.086
19	12	Manuel Gomez	20.143
20	777	Taylor Ray	20.164
21	38	Brian Deegan	20.173
22	562	Joey Hykel	20.181
23	14	Evan Sheff	20.181
24	69	James Taal	20.251
25	8	ChrisFix	20.313
26	992	Steve Hamilton	20.383
27	7	Micah Sandman	20.629

Featured image credit: FRDM+