CONCORD, N.C. — Following two busy weeks in the upper Midwest, the World of Outlaws Late Model Series presented by DIRTVision is heading back toward the east coast.
Three race nights are on this week’s agenda, starting with a return to Stateline Speedway after three years away. The Rick Briggs Memorial powered by Dave Warren Powersports brings the Series to Busti, N.Y., on July 8 for a 40-lap, $15,000-to-win, main event.
Teams will have Thursday off before the annual midsummer visit to Sharon Speedway for the Battle at the Border on Friday and Saturday.
Drivers will race 40 laps for $12,000 in Friday’s lid lifter before Saturday’s finale, which pays $20,000 to the winner after 60 laps.
CHASING HISTORY
Bobby Pierce will have the opportunity at Stateline to do something no one has ever done in 25 seasons of World of Outlaws racing.
A victory on Wednesday would be his seventh in a row, breaking the record for the longest win streak in series history. The mark to beat stands at six, a number first achieved by Darrell Lanigan in 2012, then by Pierce in 2024 before he did it again this season with six-straight wins in the upper Midwest.
Pierce’s remarkable run dating back to his first Dirt Late Model Dream triumph a month ago has his margin atop the World of Outlaws standings up to 76 points, leaving him in prime position in the chase for a third series championship.
The upcoming schedule features plenty of chances for Pierce to further expand his advantage by the end of summer. He finished third in his only prior start at Stateline, but the four events after that – the Battle at the Border, Prairie Dirt Classic, USA Nationals and the Hawkeye 100 – are all races Pierce has won in the past two years.
BACK WHERE IT BEGAN
Last time the World of Outlaws were at Stateline, first-year World of Outlaws driver Nick Hoffman rolled into victory lane for the first time on the national Late Model stage.
Since then, the Modified legend and his Tye Twarog Racing operation have become a top-five team in the country, one that can contend for wins everywhere they go and kept pace with Pierce in the points through the first half of the season. The only thing Hoffman hasn’t done in the past few weeks is win, and that will need to change soon if he wants to get back in the thick of championship contention.
In six races up north, Hoffman finished second four times and never ran worse than fourth. Those numbers will win you a championship in many cases, but not when you’re chasing Pierce when he’s at the top of his game.
Hoffman is obviously fond of Stateline, but Sharon will be the place where he’ll need to make improvements to avoid losing more ground in the standings. He’s finished fifth there three times in seven starts, but his other four starts have all ended outside the top five, including a 12th in 2024 and an 18th in 2025.
WELCOME HOME
Stateline isn’t exactly right down the street from Tim McCreadie’s hometown of Watertown, N.Y., but Wednesday will be the closest thing to a home game he’ll get all season.
McCreadie’s history at Stateline isn’t the best though, with results of 19th, 12th and 21st in three World of Outlaws appearances, although the most recent one came back in 2013.
Aside from its location in McCreadie’s home state, Stateline will be a big night all around for Briggs Transport Racing. The race honors the late Rick Briggs, father of team owner Boom Briggs, and the team’s primary sponsor, Dave Warren Powersports, has played a key role in getting Stateline back on the World of Outlaws schedule.
Over at Sharon, he has a win to his credit from 2005 and more recently finished sixth and seventh in two starts last year.
SETTLING IN
The northern swing brought Trey Mills one of his best stretches yet as a national Late Model racer.
The 18-year-old’s 2026 campaign has featured several spectacular moments, like starting on the pole at the Dream and racing for the win at Golden Isles Speedway until he tumbled out of the ballpark, but he’s also been through his share of rough nights in between.
In his trip north, Mills strung together six-straight runs in the top 11. It wasn’t flashy or attention-grabbing, but that kind of quiet consistency is exactly what Mills has been looking for at this stage of his career to gain experience and respect from the World of Outlaws frontrunners. It also paid dividends in the points hunt, as Mills is up to eighth in the standings, 51 markers shy of Daulton Wilson in the MD3 Rookie of the Year battle.
Both World of Outlaws freshmen will be flying blind this week, as neither Mills nor Wilson have ever been to Stateline or Sharon.
TURNING HEADS
Logan Zarin may be too far back to catch the two rookies in front of him, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of finishing his first season at the national level off strong.
The Hookstown, Pa., driver has taken plenty of lumps on the road in 2026, but the team has remained positive and logged notes as they look toward the future. But last weekend, the No. 1Z team finally got to enjoy some fruits of their labor.
The NAPA Auto Parts Gopher 50 cancelation opened the door for Zarin to spend Independence Day at Muskingum County Speedway for the Freedom 50, and he was rewarded with a sixth-place finish, the best of his career in a full-field, national-touring event.
Luckily for Zarin, the schedule gives him an ideal chance to potentially improve on that run this week. After months of going to tracks for the first time, the World of Outlaws is going to two tracks Zarin knows well. He’s made two starts at Stateline in a Crate Late Model with the RUSH Series along with a Last Chance Showdown exit with the World of Outlaws in 2023.
Sharon is where Zarin has made six World of Outlaws starts in nine attempts, with a best feature finish of 14th from 2021.
