Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series Driver Spotlight: Clay Harris - 4th in Points
Clay Harris rolls into Atomic sitting fourth in points, and for a 24‑year‑old in just his third year on the Lucas tour, that alone says a lot. Folks call him The Shark, and when you look at the way he’s carved his way up through this sport, the name sure as hell fits. Clay’s been racing since he was five down in Jupiter, Florida, starting in go‑karts at his little hometown track in Hobe Sound. Before most kids even knew what a heat race was, he’d already stacked three track titles, then six more in the Florida State Series. When he started traveling out of state, he didn’t slow down... thirteen more championships across the Tri‑State and National Karting circuits, plus wins at the Unili Tire Nationals, World Karting Nationals, Inox Nationals, and four Maxxis National Championships. One of those was the Junior Champions of Champions, a race you can’t even enter unless you’ve already won a national title, and Clay didn’t just show up to that one. He won it!
By 2017 he’d done everything he could do in karting and jumped straight into Dirt Late Models. He won five races in his first fourteen starts in a 602 crate, and from there the path was pretty clear. Clay joined the Lucas Oil tour full‑time in 2024, finished 13th in points that year, did it again in 2025, and along the way started showing flashes of what he could be. Last season he grabbed a pair of third‑place runs in crown jewel prelims - one at the Show‑Me 100 and another at the Topless 100. Those are the kind of nights that tell you a driver’s figuring things out even if the final stat sheet doesn’t show the win yet.
This year, though, he’s taken another step. Through twenty‑three events he’s made eighteen features, logged ten top‑fives and twelve top‑tens, and put together the most consistent stretch of his Lucas career to date. His Speedweeks run was strong from start to finish - seconds and thirds at All‑Tech, a third and a fifth at Ocala, and a pair of fourth‑place finishes at Golden Isles. That last part matters more than people realize. Golden Isles is Clay’s favorite track, and he left there last weekend with confidence in his pocket and the kind of rhythm you want when you’re heading north into the heart of the schedule.
Atomic, though… Atomic has made him work for everything! He’s only made one Lucas feature here - last year’s Buckeye Spring 50, where he started 24th and drove up to 19th. His other three attempts ended in the B‑Main, including a heart breaker last summer when he finished third in the Independence 50 B, one spot short of making the show. It’s been a tough place for him, no way around it. But this year he’s not rolling in as a long-shot or as a kid trying to survive the tour. He’s rolling in as the fourth‑place driver in the series, coming off the best month he’s ever had, with a team that’s clearly found something.
Clay Harris isn’t coming to Atomic to hope things go his way. He’s coming to change the way his story reads here. And with the way he’s been running, you can feel it... The Shark’s getting closer.
Photo courtesy Clay Harris Racing. Photo Credit Heath Lawson Photography.
