CONCORD, N.C. — David Gravel might’ve secured his second straight World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series title on Thursday, but that doesn’t mean he’s cruising to the finish line.
Complacency isn’t what leads to two championships in a row with The Greatest Show on Dirt. Winners want to win. And winners are exactly what Gravel and the Big Game Motorsports team are.
A runner-up on Thursday’s World of Outlaws World Finals opener heightened the hunger for a trip to victory lane. It was Rico Abreu who held Gravel off, and he got his chance at redemption just one night later.
On Friday night, Abreu took the lead from Brent Marks on a late restart as Gravel surged from fourth to second. Then Gravel chipped away at Abreu’s advantage as the laps waned. The Rico Abreu Racing No. 24 got slightly held up coming to the white flag, and Gravel capitalized. He shot to the inside of Abreu and slid ahead. Abreu tried a slider to regain the top spot in Turns 1 and 2 but didn’t have enough. Gravel pulled away and took the checkered flag at The Dirt Track at Charlotte.
“Just being back a couple rows and getting to pace some guys and see what works and what doesn’t,” Gravel explained of what helped lead him to victory. “I felt like the bottom of (Turns) 1 and 2 wasn’t very good but in (Turns) 3 and 4 I felt pretty good. I wasn’t having good exit speed but was really gaining to the center. I just kept working it.
“I changed my entry a lot of times there in (Turns) 3 and 4 at the end. The more I got in the brown, the better and more I gained on him (Abreu). He definitely started hanging for sure. He was struggling there in (Turns) 1 and 2. I got faster than him in the cushion, and he was definitely hanging on. It’s good to get a win.”
The victory gave Gravel 17 in 2025 with the World of Outlaws, moving him one away from equaling his personal best mark for one season. It’s the 120th of his career, and he’s two from tying Danny Lasoski for sixth all-time. Eight of those have come at The Dirt Track at Charlotte.
Abreu came home with the runner-up spot, narrowly missing out on two triumphs in a row. The St. Helena, Calif., native made one slip in traffic that he thought may have been the difference. A win and a second will still line him up on the pole of a heat race for Saturday’s season finale.
“I’ve got to watch to see where the 2 car was making ground,” Abreu said. “I felt like on lower air pressure I was really good firing off. Then we caught traffic, and I was trying to watch and judge where the traffic was going. The 17 just kind of moved right up in front of me, and I had to make a last-minute decision. You just kill your momentum when you make big, altering movements like that. I think looking back on it I was really aggressive in the beginning of the race on my tires. I used a lot of the left rear tire and could feel it grinding.”
Donny Schatz drove from 10th to third for a much-needed encouraging finish aboard the Sides Motorsports No. 15.
“We found something to get the motor running in that heat race there,” Schatz said. “I don’t know if we got something in the fuel, but it kind of plugged the nozzles. We made up that ground in the heat race, which is huge. When you get inside the top 10, you can go race. We’ve run good around here in the past. I could kind of float the middle there after the restarts for a couple laps then you had to get up and go. I just couldn’t finish the corner quite right. I watched David, and he was kind of in the line I wanted to be, so I had to be off his right rear a little bit. It got my car a little upset, but we’ll take it.”
Chase Randall and Spencer Bayston completed the top five.
The finish:
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 2-David Gravel[6]; 2. 24-Rico Abreu[2]; 3. 15-Donny Schatz[10]; 4. 9R-Chase Randall[4]; 5. 17JR-Spencer Bayston[3]; 6. 27-Emerson Axsom[9]; 7. 83-Michael Kofoid[16]; 8. 41-Carson Macedo[25]; 9. 10-Ryan Timms[7]; 10. 42-Sye Lynch[5]; 11. 26-Justin Peck[21]; 12. 1A-Ashton Torgerson[14]; 13. 55-Hunter Schuerenberg[23]; 14. 15S-Kerry Madsen[27]; 15. 18-Cory Eliason[19]; 16. 49X-Cale Thomas[22]; 17. 71-Parker Price Miller[13]; 18. 2MD-Darin Naida[18]; 19. 99-Skylar Gee[20]; 20. 7S-Chris Windom[29]; 21. 19-Brent Marks[1]; 22. 6-Zach Hampton[17]; 23. 2C-Cole Macedo[12]; 24. 28M-Conner Morrell[30]; 25. 17B-Bill Balog[28]; 26. 14-Corey Day[24]; 27. 17-Sheldon Haudenschild[11]; 28. 23-Garet Williamson[8]; 29. 1S-Logan Schuchart[26]; 30. 24D-Danny Sams III[15]
