Michael Bumgarner out dueled Ryan Millington on a late restart to win the Jack Ingram Memorial at Hickory Motor Speedway.
Michael Bumgarner has won the lion’s share of races at Hickory over the past 12 months including two of the three majors, the Bobby Isaac Memorial and the Fall Brawl. However one race had been missing from his resume and Saturday night he got it.
“I wanted this one bad,” said Bumgarner “This kind of seals the deal for our triple crown at Hickory. To finally notch the Jack Ingram off the list and have them all in almost a calendar year, we just missed it last year, it’s awesome to finally get this and kind of the way we did it, we had an up and down night. We didn’t have the best car but just to survive, the No. 84 and the No. 4 were racing each other pretty hard, I didn’t know they were going to wreck each other but we were ready for anything and ready to capitalize.”
Bumgarner and Millington were running inside the top five in the closing laps but it was Landon S. Huffman and Parker Eatmon battling for the win. Eventually the two would collide, giving Bumgarner and Millington the front row. The two would run side by side for all of the last 8 laps of the race without laying a fender on each other. Bumgarner prevails on the outside to win by just a car length.
“The race with Millington there at the end was just phenomenal,” said Bumgarner “That’s how you’re supposed to race. You know I gripe about the tour and how rough it is but sometimes you got to practice what your preach and Millington does the same.”
“That was an absolute blast,” said Millington “It seems like every time we come to Hickory we end up putting on a really good race. I’m just happy it ended up being with Michael because I knew we would be able to race clean. We could’ve done that for fifty dang laps and just raced hard. It’s nice when you get to race with somebody that’s got some respect for you and you got respect for them.”
As respectful as the racing was between Bumgarner and Millington at the end, the opinions may differ for Landon S. Huffman and Parker Eatmon. Huffman dominated the night but a late caution would give Eatmon one last shot at Huffman. The two raced door handle to door handle for several laps on end until Huffman was finally able to clear Eatmon from the bottom. Things then got a little more physical. Eatmon moved Huffman, Huffman gave it back. This went both ways for 3 laps before Eatmon gave one bump too many, spinning Huffman and in the check up Bumgarner got into the back of Eatmon taking both leaders out of contention.
“The first two times he moved me it was fine, he just moved me,” said Huffman “He had my back tires way off the ground, like he gave me very little chance it was still racing, you know. I felt like it was aggressive on the moves, we would probably do a little less than that but he wasn’t just moving me he was moving himself. He got in the lead and he just messed up, that’s how I got back to him. After the two moves he just wrecked me, gave me no chance. I’ve saved a lot of racecars after getting moved in three and four here but tonight there was no saving it.”
Shades of Bristol 1999, Eatmon takes blame for the incident.
“Obviously we got like 15 laps to go so we’re gonna race hard there,” said Eatmon “I went in there and got into him. I just meant to rattle his cage. I didn’t mean to turn him around, I don’t wanna race like that. We were moving each other and I just got in a little too deep and spun him out.
“It’s a fine line towards the end of the race, especially when the rear tires are shot. It’s a racing deal, we’ll come back next week and be better.”
Jack Ingram Memorial – Hickory Motor Speedway – August 1, 2026 Results:
1) #51 Michael Bumgarner
2) #15 Ryan Millington
3) #13 Cody Kelly
4) #01 Thomas Beane
5) #18 Alex Meggs
6) #17 Skyler Chaney
7) #50 Tristan Pena
8) #84 Landon S Huffman
9) #4 Parker Eatmon
10) #29 Landon Lewis
11) #14 Christopher Martin Jr
12) #7 Cassidy Keitt
13) #75 Landon Huffman
14) #16 Kyle Campbell
