CONCORD, N.C. — More than nine months after the journey began at Volusia Speedway Park in January, the final destination is on the horizon.
As it has every year since 2007, the World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series presented by DIRTVision season will come to an end at The Dirt Track at Charlotte as part of World of Outlaws World Finals (Wednesday-Saturday, Nov. 5-8).
The event is once again set to attract one of the largest and toughest fields of late models found anywhere to do battle over four nights in front of one of the largest crowds in dirt-track racing.
Action gets underway on Wednesday with qualifying for both the Thursday and Friday programs. The following two nights will both include full $15,000-to-win programs, with drivers earning points that will place them into a Dash or Last Chance Showdown on Saturday.
Those races will set the lineup for the season finale, which goes 50 laps for $25,000 to cap off the weekend.
The late models will be joined on all four nights by the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series and the Super DIRTcar Series to round out the trio of the top divisions on dirt.
ON THE DOORSTEP
With a 124-point cushion entering the weekend, Bobby Pierce already has one arm around his second World of Outlaws championship trophy.
It’s been another season of excellence for the “Smooth Operator,” with his 11 wins so far making him the winningest driver on tour for the third-straight season. One of the Midwest’s brightest stars has been a force to be reckoned with across the nation for several years, but Pierce expanded his reign of terror further than ever in 2025.
His 11 victories have come at 10 different tracks – eight of them were tracks he had never previously won at in World of Outlaws action, and three were ones he had never been to before.
However, the last two months haven’t brought the level of success that the dirt late model world has come to expect out of Pierce over the last three years. Since sweeping the weekend at Arrowhead Speedway in August, Pierce has gone winless in his last six series starts.
ONE FINAL PUSH
While Pierce and Nick Hoffman are on their way to sewing up the top two spots in the standings, several other points battles through the field are razor-thin with hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line.
After scoring a career-high $100,000 payday at Cedar Lake Speedway’s USA Nationals, Ryan Gustin found himself comfortably in the the third spot with Tim McCreadie trailing by more than 120 points. Since then, “T-Mac” has made Gustin anything but comfortable.
A stretch of eight top 10s in nine starts, capped off by back-to-back wins at 81 Speedway and Boothill Speedway trimmed McCreadie’s triple-digit deficit down to only four points.
Gustin was in serious need of a momentum shift, and he got it by winning the final night of the Bayou Classic on the same night McCreadie failed to finish to expand his lead back to 50.
McCreadie already has some Charlotte history to his credit – he’s the only driver to have won at the track in more than one series, with one victory in a late model and three in a Big Block Modified. Meanwhile, Gustin is still searching for his first Charlotte top 10 in his seventh year competing at World Finals.
ROOKIE ROUNDUP
Three World of Outlaws freshmen are set to complete their first full tour across the country this weekend.
Drake Troutman has become the runaway leader in the MD3 Rookie of the Year Award battle by 166 points, enough for seventh in the standings. The highlight of his debut season with Team22 Motorsports came in June at I-55 Federated Auto Parts Raceway Park, where he picked up his first World of Outlaws victory.
Troutman also won twice with the DIRTcar Summer Nationals this year in addition to a $100,000 modified win at Mississippi Thunder Speedway in May.
Ethan Dotson also found his way to Victory Lane early in his rookie campaign on Illini 100 weekend at Farmer City Raceway. The ASD Motorsports team went through their share of growing pains over the summer, but made a late-season surge with a stretch of three top fives and five top 10s over six races to hold onto 10th in the standings entering World Finals.
The final member of the rookie trio, Jake Timm, is set to make his Charlotte debut this weekend. The Winona, Minn., native has been making steady improvements all year long, scoring a best finish of fifth in his home state at Norman County Raceway.
SHARK TANK
With the 2025 season winding down across the nation, approximately 70 drivers are expected to descend on Charlotte for one more chance to score a win in one of the season’s premiere events.
First-time World 100 champion Ricky Thornton Jr. will be atop the list of favorites all week long in his Koehler Motorsports No. 20rt, having finished fourth or better in his last five Charlotte starts including three wins. The Chandler, Ariz., native will be a busy man all week, as he’s also set to wheel the Indy Race Parts No. 71 sprint car at Charlotte as well as a Micro Sprint at Millbridge Speedway on Monday and Tuesday.
Last year’s winner of the 50-lap finale, Chris Madden, is set to go for his fifth World of Outlaws victory at Charlotte aboard the Kale Green-owned No. 44. “Smokey” hasn’t done as much racing in 2025 as he’s used to, but he remains as fast as always. Madden has three regional wins across the southeast to his credit in 2025, and finished runner-up last time out in the Dirt Track World Championship at Eldora Speedway.
The highly-anticipated reunion of Mike Marlar and Delk Racing came last month at Boothill Speedway in the Bayou Classic, but the “Winfield Warrior” was never a factor in 13th on Friday and 21st on Saturday. Since then, the pairing has found their footing with a sixth-place run at Eldora and a weekend sweep at Atomic Speedway in American Late Model Iron Man Series competition.
Plenty more standouts have announced their plans to be part of World Finals, including Jonathan Davenport, Dale McDowell, Jimmy Owens, Hudson O’Neal, Brandon Sheppard, Devin Moran, Brandon Overton, Chris Ferguson and many more.
