CONCORD, N.C. — Alex Payne won the Super DIRTcar Series finale at the Dave Smith Motors World Finals on Saturday night, exactly one year after his first victory at The Dirt Track at Charlotte.
The Hopewell, N.Y., driver’s sixth Super DIRTcar Series win came in the 40-lap feature and capped a season in which he finished fourth in the standings.
Payne led the field to the green and beat Jimmy Phelps to Turn 1. Cautions for Tim Sears Jr. and Justin Stone slowed the field early. Payne later pulled away, but he got into lap traffic and Phelps and Mike Maresca closed in.
Maresca passed Phelps in traffic with four laps to go to take second, his second straight podium finish. Phelps was third, Tyler Dippel finished fourth as the MD3 Rookie of the Race, and Alex Yankowski rounded out the top five after pitting for a right-rear flat tire and driving from 13th to fifth in the final two laps.
Payne won the $15,000 prize and his second World Finals triumph. In victory lane, he had one sentence to describe the race: “Thank god for hard tires.
“I didn’t know what to do there in lapped traffic,” Payne said. “I slipped up there, and I’m pretty sure I saw Jimmy’s roof. I didn’t think he was that close. I thought I did a really good job with lap cars. It’s just tough here trying to get cars off the bottom. I had to use the nerf bar there quite a bit.”
Maresca snuck underneath Phelps in traffic with four laps to go to gain the runner-up spot, earning the Baldwinsville, N.Y., driver his second consecutive podium finish.
Phelps settled for third, beating Payne by three points to earn third in the Super DIRTcar Series standings.
Tyler Dippel, the MD3 Rookie of the Race, finished fourth, and Alex Yankowski rounded out the top five. The 2026 Super DIRTcar Series champion drove from 13th to fifth in the final two laps, after pitting for a right-rear flat tire.
The finish:
Feature (40 Laps): 1. 70A-Alex Payne[1]; 2. 7MM-Michael Maresca[3]; 3. 98H-Jimmy Phelps[2]; 4. 1-Tyler Dippel[5]; 5. 84Y-Alex Yankowski[8]; 6. 26-Ryan Godown[4]; 7. 9S-Matt Sheppard[10]; 8. 91-Felix Roy[7]; 9. 88-Mat Williamson[6]; 10. 16-Louden Reimert[12]; 11. 11-Matt Caprara[15]; 12. 12-Darren Smith[13]; 13. 21A-Peter Britten[11]; 14. 35-Mike Mahaney[9]; 15. 6-Matt Stangle[21]; 16. 2-Jack Lehner[14]; 17. 4M-Logan Watt[17]; 18. 29-Ryan Krachun[28]; 19. 7M-Paul Mancini[29]; 20. 28-Michael Trautschold[18]; 21. 35C-Chris Curtis[22]; 22. 44G-Sebastien Gougeon[24]; 23. 165-Rex King Jr[30]; 24. 15X-Justin Stone[20]; 25. 17-Marcus Dinkins[27]; 26. (DNF) 25-Erick Rudolph[16]; 27. (DNF) 83X-Tim Sears Jr[25]; 28. (DNF) 99L-Larry Wight[19]; 29. (DNF) 9-Tim McCreadie[23]; 30. (DNF) 3-Justin Haers[26]
