MANSFIELD — Josh Richards won his second in a row and fifth race of the season Sunday night during the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series Freedom 50.

But the biggest winner of the night was Mansfield Motor Speedway track president Cody Sommer and his staff, who saw their first great weather night of the 2017 racing season.

Rain and cold had wreaked havoc on previous race weekends, including a powerful thunderstorm on Memorial Day weekend that ended the All-Star Memorial Classic event with a bang just before the feature races.

“Finally ….” Sommer exhaled on the track after the Winner’s Circle events ended. “No rain means we finally had a successful event and we had a great crowd.”

A packed house watched the national Lucas Oil Late Model Series cars and a competitive street stock class compete on the .44-mile track, which Sommer returned to dirt this season for the first time since 1999.

“Racing tonight (in the Freedom 50) was actually really good for second and third and fourth,” Sommer said. “(Richards) kind of ran away with it, but he won the series event (in Portsmouth, Ohio) last night too, so that team just kinda has something figured out right now.”

The 29-year-old Richards, a native of Shinnston, West Virginia, led the 50-lap feature wire-to-wire, beating 16-year-old pole sitter Hudson O’Neal to the line to grab a lead that was never threatened. He earned the winner’s check of $10,800 and moved over $100K for the season.

“This is one awesome track,” said Richards, in the Lucas Oil Victory Lane for the 17th time in his career.

“I was fortunate enough to come here and run an ARCA race for Venturini Motorsports like seven years ago. To have another dirt track come onboard, you don’t see that very often. It’s cool to see them put the effort out and with such a facility like this it’s neat to win here.

“I can’t thank the crowd and the track crew enough. I was a little skeptical from the races earlier this year on how the track conditions would be, but they did a phenomenal job getting the track worked in. The car moved around really well. I could pass cars pretty much at will, I had a few close calls, but other than that, the car was exceptional.”

Gregg Satterlee, 32, from Indiana, Pennsylvania, outdueled O’Neal to take the second spot as he joined Richards on the podium for the second night in a row. O’Neal – the son of former series champion, Don O’Neal – made his first podium appearance with a third-place finish.

The younger O’Neal, in his fifth year of racing, revealed afterward he just received his driver’s license in his home state of Indiana last week.

Satterlee also praised the Mansfield Motor Speedway.

“They haven’t raced here a lot. Our hats are off to the promoter and everyone who put this show on tonight. There was a huge crowd here tonight. We always like racing in front of a big crowd it’s always a lot of fun. We had a great car again, but we have some more tweaking to do to catch this green number 1 car,” he said.

“Good job to Hudson, he’s only 16 and he is going to be a threat for years to come. I enjoyed racing with him side-by-side tonight, hopefully we can all get to do this again tomorrow night in Zanesville. This is a beautiful facility and we could race all over the track. I look forward to coming back,” Satterlee said.

An excited O’Neal sounded like a young man tasting big success for the first time.

“It was a blast out there. Congratulations to Josh on the win. I am just happy to be here and run inside the top three. I can’t wait to call my car owner Todd Burns and tell him ..  he is going to be so excited. It’s so much fun racing with all of these guys. It’s a whole team effort. I look to coming back here next year … it races phenomenal,” O’Neal said.

The race had a local flavor with five north central Ohio drivers. Doug Drown from Wooster (16th place), Matt Irey from Ashland (18th), Ryan Markham from Ashland (20th), Larry Bellman Jr. from Wooster (23rd) and Dave Hornikel from Mansfield (24th) all competed in the event.

Mansfield racer Kyle Moore also won the 20-lap street stock feature, a race made longer by nine caution flags. He earned a $2,000 top prize by besting 10 other drivers.

Officials with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series took time after the race to congratulate Sommer and his team.

“We heard a lot of great compliments on the facility,” Sommer said. “This is really the first time for a lot of the national names to really see this place.

“It’s kind of encouraging and nice to know what we have been saying all along about Mansfield Motor Speedway being one of the nicest places in the country,” the North Carolina native said. “It’s nice for national level racers to come in and validate that.

“I think we are onto something special here. This is just the beginning with our first real national event. All in all, it was a really smooth night and we’re getting ready to enjoy some fireworks now,” Sommer said.

And for once, the lights and booms in the skies north of Mansfield were man-made and not thunderously sent down from the heavens.