MINOT, N.D. — Sunday night at Nodak Speedway, Tim McCreadie put on the show.
The 2006 champion of the World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series presented by DIRTVision scored one of the hardest-fought victories of his career, going from the sixth row of the starting lineup to the lead in 50 laps to become the first series winner at Nodak since Mitch Johnson in 1989.
After starting the weekend with finishes of 13th at River Cities Speedway and 10th at Norman County Raceway, a get-healthy night was the only thing on McCreadie’s mind at the start of the feature. Then he started moving forward, passing car after car until he found himself at the front of the pack in the closing stages.
“I’ve been married to the same setup for about a month,” McCreadie said. “Ever since we went to Eldora we just weren’t overly good. We threw something at it tonight, hats off to these guys with an awesome racetrack. Once the sun went down, with that little bit of prep it started to get shiny. Hairy, but a lot of fun out there.”
The early portion of the program was dominated by the No. 32 of Bobby Pierce, who took the Simpson Quick Time Award, won his heat and drew the Bilstein Pole Award. He wasn’t able to stay out front on the start though, as second-starting Ethan Dotson ripped around the top of Turns 1 and 2 to take command.
Pierce wasn’t going to go away easily though, as he kept the No. 74x in his sights and briefly challenged Dotson for the lead before Tristan Chamberlain spun in Turn 1 to bring out the first caution.
Dotson powered away on the restart, and Drake Troutman got by Pierce to slide into second 13 laps in. Another quick caution for Aaron Turnbull nullified that pass, but Troutman was able to once again get by Pierce once the race went back green.
Both Troutman and Pierce spent the next 10 laps chasing down Dotson, and by the halfway point, a three-way tussle for the lead was on until Dustin Sorensen put the field under yellow again with a flat right-rear tire.
Further back, McCreadie had made his way up to seventh when the caution flew, and a brilliant restart sent the No. 9m up to fourth and onto the radar of the leaders. With 13 to go, McCreadie got to the inside of Nick Hoffman and into third.
When Dotson and Pierce started fighting tooth-and-nail for the win with under 10 to go, McCreadie saw his chance to join the party. Dotson threw the slider on Pierce entering Turn 3 and Pierce crossed him over exiting the corner, all while McCreadie went to the bottom to make it three-wide down the frontstretch for the lead.
A solid run through Turns 1 and 2 allowed him to clear Pierce, and from there, McCreadie never looked back on his way to the 36th World of Outlaws victory of his career.
The victory moved McCreadie to within 10 points of Troutman in the race for fourth in the standings and gives him a head of steam entering next weekend’s NAPA Auto Parts Gopher 50 at Deer Creek Speedway, a race he’s a past winner of.
“It was pretty bad up until about 20 minutes ago,” McCreadie said of the level of optimism in the Briggs Transport camp. “I think we’ve got a little bit of a handle. I’ve got some trust in some other things that I maybe didn’t have trust in setup-wise before. We had such success with this car the first time we came out with it that we haven’t really had to know how to make it any different or any better.
“I went to Eldora and I struggled. I know we ran good, but I thought we struggled with balance all week. Ever since then we’ve struggled, and then tonight was probably the most balanced I’ve been in a while when I could peel off and run through the middle of one and two and not lose the right front pushing up the track. So if I can get it to do that a lot, I think we’ll be OK.”
Pierce came up one spot short of his sixth World of Outlaws triumph of 2025, but his first podium of the weekend was enough to maintain a 78-point lead.
“The first caution, they called caution and Troutman was right behind me,” Pierce said. “He hit me in the left-rear when they called caution and my brake line’s hanging. I completely had no brakes for like 40 laps. It’s really a miracle I didn’t fly off the racetrack, it’s a miracle I still ran second. The bad thing is I know we had a really good car, I think I would have won by half a track to be honest. It was my kind of racetrack, but you can’t drive these things with no brakes.”
Standing on the podium for the third-straight night was Hoffman, who continued the best stretch of his late model career with a third in his Nodak debut.
“McCreadie was quite a bit better than we were and was able to roll by me,” Hoffman said. “I was able to show him the middle first, and then he got that middle lane rolling pretty well and was able to get to the lead. Hats off to him, he did a great job. To win twice and run on the podium still is a really good weekend for us.”
Ryan Gustin moved up 10 spots from 14th to fourth, while Troutman settled for fifth.
The finish:
Feature (50 Laps): 1. 9M-Tim McCreadie[12]; 2. 32-Bobby Pierce[1]; 3. 9-Nick Hoffman[5]; 4. 19R-Ryan Gustin[14]; 5. 22*-Drake Troutman[4]; 6. 74X-Ethan Dotson[2]; 7. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain[9]; 8. 96-Tanner English[11]; 9. B1-Brent Larson[17]; 10. 28-Dennis Erb Jr[10]; 11. 3S-Brian Shirley[6]; 12. 19-Dustin Sorensen[3]; 13. 8-Matthew Larson[16]; 14. 49-Jake Timm[8]; 15. 2-Cody Overton[13]; 16. 11-Aaron Turnbull[15]; 17. 1-Amelia Eisenschenk[18]; 18. 15-Laela Eisenschenk[19]; 19. 09-Michael Leach[7]; 20. 44*-Cole Schill[20]; 21. 9H-Austin Harris[21]; 22. 12-Ashton Winger[22]
