CONCORD, N.C. — The northernmost portion of the schedule is up next for the World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series presented by DIRTVision with four nights of racing across two states.
First up is the third visit in series history to I-94 emr Speedway on Thursday night for a 40-lap, $12,000-to-win, contest. A trip up to Grand Forks, N.D., awaits on Friday for the annual trip to
River Cities Speedway, with $12,000 up for grabs in another 40-lapper.
Action shifts back to the “Gopher State” on Saturday for a 50-lap, $15,000-to-win, show at Norman County Raceway in Ada, Minn.
The weekend then wraps up in Minot, N.D., where the World of Outlaws will visit Nodak Speedway for the first time since 1989 in a 50-lap, $15,000-to-win, Sunday night showdown.
FINALLY GOT ONE
They say that once you get the first win out of the way, they start to come in waves. If that’s the case for Drake Troutman, the rest of the World of Outlaws field could have a problem on their hands.
With five top fives in the first 16 races of the season, Troutman and Team22 Inc. entered I-55 Federated Auto Parts Raceway Park as the best team on tour without a World of Outlaws victory. The pairing won for the first time together a week prior at Peoria Speedway with the DIRTcar Summer Nationals, giving them the confidence they needed to get the monkey off their back at Pevely.
After spending Sunday crew chiefing his friend and fellow MD3 Rookie of the Year contender Ethan Dotson to a Hell Tour top five at Lincoln Speedway, Troutman will head to the upper Midwest with all the momentum he could ask for.
The only thing holding him back could be experience, as he’ll be racing at all four tracks on this week’s itinerary for the first time. But considering Troutman has already run a staggering 75 races in all corners of the country in the first half of 2025, learning a facility on the fly is nothing new.
STILL ON TOP
Thanks to his fifth World of Outlaws win of the year on Friday and his ninth-straight top five on Saturday, Bobby Pierce continued to be dirt late model racing’s man to beat at I-55.
So far in 2025, all five of Pierce’s wins have come at tracks he had never won at before with the World of Outlaws.
While Pierce won his debut at I-94 in 2023, the other three tracks coming this week haven’t been as kind to him. He’s still searching for a top 10 at River Cities after two trips there, and Pierce was on his way to the win at Norman County in 2024 before an expired engine ended his night. And like every other full-time Outlaw, the Oakwood, Ill., native has never turned a lap around Nodak.
BACK IN THE GAME
Ryan Gustin’s two wins in the opening weeks of the season made it look like “The Reaper” would be Pierce’s biggest title threat all season long.
But as soon as the Todd Cooney Motorsports team seemed on top of their game, they went on a stretch of six races without a top five. A return to the podium at Marion Center Raceway put some wind back in Gustin’s sails, and he followed that up with a fourth one night later at Bedford Speedway.
Gustin took on Week 2 of the Hell Tour to warm up for the resumption of the World of Outlaws season, and ended up winning a home-state stop at Davenport Speedway last week to go back to victory lane for the first time since March. Finishes of third and sixth at Pevely didn’t just keep him in the top three in the World of Outlaws standings, it also put him in position to lock up the weeklong Summer Nationals championship on Sunday at Lincoln.
The next few stops on tour could lend themselves to more solid runs for the No. 19r. Gustin is two-for-two in top fives at I-94 in World of Outlaws competition and has one win and no finishes worse than eighth in four starts at River Cities. He was also leading at Norman County one year ago until mechanical trouble ended his night.
ON THE RISE
Jake Timm is rolling into a stretch of racing in his home region, hot off the best week of his young late model career.
In Hell Tour competition at Davenport, Timm set quick time, won his heat race and was in contention for his first super late model win before ultimately coming home second. He backed it up with another top 10 at Lee County Speedway before capping things off with a ninth-place result at I-55, his best World of Outlaws run of the season.
Timm’s biggest challenge this year has been racing at so many new tracks for the first time, but that won’t be an issue on Thursday night. He raced at I-94 on three occasions during his time with the United States Modified Touring Series, collecting a best finish of eighth in 2018.
GAINING GROUND
Tim McCreadie’s newfound speed on the Ohio-Pennsylvania swing raised one question heading into the summer – could he maintain that pace outside of the northeast?
The third-mile Pevely bullring may be the polar opposite of the big, fast tracks McCreadie won at in May, but a runner-up on Friday proved that he wasn’t going to be a two-hit wonder. That run left McCreadie six points behind Troutman in a battle for fourth in points with both drivers firing on all cylinders.
This week, McCreadie will get to do something he rarely has the chance to do three decades into his career – race somewhere for the first time.
Of the four tracks on the agenda, River Cities is the only one McCreadie has been to before. While it’s been 10 years since his last appearance, he has two wins and four top fives in six starts between 2006 and 2015, and he’ll try to become the first three-time World of Outlaws winner in Grand Forks on Friday night.
