CONCORD, N.C. — A nine-month championship battle will come to an end, as the Super DIRTcar Series prepares for its annual trek to the Tar Heel State.
The Beasts of the Northeast will finish out its 2025 season with a visit to The Dirt Track at Charlotte for the World of Outlaws World Finals Nov. 5-8.
Drivers will be in action on all four nights, kicking off on Wednesday, Nov. 5, with qualifying night. The Super DIRTcar Series will run two Qualifying sessions, which will determine the heat race lineups for Thursday, Nov. 6, and Friday, Nov. 7, consisting of 30-lap Features paying $10,000 to win.
Event points will be accumulated on the first three nights of World Finals, which will set the heat race lineups for the season finale on Saturday, Nov. 8. The final Super DIRTcar Series feature of 2025 will be a 40-lap feature paying $15,000-to-win.
Following the feature on Saturday, the 2025 champion will officially be crowned in a celebration on the frontstretch.
Mat’s Quest For 3
Entering this year’s World Finals at the Dirt Track at Charlotte, Mat Williamson leads the Series standings and is closing in on his third Super DIRTcar Series championship.
The St. Catharines, Ontario, driver has held the top spot since July, and brings momentum to “America’s Home for Racing” after winning his third Billy Whittaker Cars 200 during Super DIRT Week 53.
Despite only reaching victory lane four times in features as of Super DIRT Week, “Money Mat” has found plenty of success at Charlotte. He’s won four Features at the event, including one last season.
This year’s World Finals brings a new situation for Williamson, as it’s the first time he’s led the season-long points standings before to the event. He leads Alex Yankowski by 109 points entering Thursday’s feature.
The Future Is Now
While 10-time series champion Matt Sheppard is usually the one battling Williamson for the title at World Finals, a familiar face to Charlotte’s victory lane is Williamson’s competition in 2025.
Alex Yankowski, who earned his first series win during World Finals in 2021, has stayed within striking distance of Williamson all season, earning milestones along the way. The Covington Township, Pa., driver opened the season by winning the “Big Gator” trophy at Federated Auto Parts DIRTcar Nationals and added two feature wins.
“Kid Rocket” also led the standings for the first half of the season, before Williamson overtook him in July. Yankowski finished in the top 10 in all three races during last year’s World Finals, including a fifth in the final two races.
Yankowski isn’t the only Alex that’s turned heads with the Super DIRTcar Series this season. Alex Payne, the 2024 Series Rookie of the Year, scored his second career victory at Brockville Ontario Speedway, and backed it up with a win at Georgetown Speedway last weekend.
The Hopewell, N.Y., driver has a top five and two top 10s in 10 starts at Charlotte and is searching for his first series win in North Carolina. He also holds an advantage over Sheppard for third in the standings, leading the driver of the No. 9s by 21 points.
Super Finish
While Sheppard likely won’t capture his 11th series title in 2025, he still has the chance to lead the series win column this season. Sheppard has five series victories entering World Finals, tied for the most with Stewart Friesen.
With five wins at Charlotte in his career, the Savannah, N.Y., driver also has a chance to make history this season. A sixth World Finals win by “Super Matt” would make him the winningest driver in Super DIRTcar Series history in Charlotte, a mark he currently shares with Brett Hearn.
In his last six starts at the four-tenths-mile track, Sheppard has finished in the top five in five of them. That includes two wins, a second, a fourth, and a fifth.
Six-Car Battle
When the Super DIRTcar Series arrives at World Finals, every point will matter, especially for the drivers between positions seven through 12 in the standings.
Peter Britten, Jimmy Phelps, Tim Sears Jr., Anthony Perrego, Jack Lehner, and Felix Roy are all separated by 86 points entering the weekend.
Out of those six drivers, Perrego, the most recent World Finals winner, and Phelps have had the most success, earning three wins between them. Perrego was also the only driver to finish in the top 10 on all three nights of World Finals in 2024.
While Perrego was the best car out of the six drivers in Charlotte last year, Lehner, Britten, and Phelps each finished in the top 10 on two of the three nights.
At the end of the season, there’s a difference of $5,000 between those six positions in the final point fund, with seventh earning $9,000, and 12th earning $4,000.
Surprise Winners
While the battle for the championship takes center stage, Charlotte has also produced four first-time winners in Super DIRTcar Series history.
Along with Yankowski in 2021, Mathieu Desjardins (2022), Tim Kerr (2015), and Ricky Elliott (2004) each earned their first Super DIRTcar Series win at the North Carolina track.
If a driver earns their first victory at World Finals, they’ll become the fourth driver to accomplish that feat in 2025, joining Mario Clair (Cornwall), Sears (Brewerton), and Kolby Schroder (Lebanon Valley).
