WoO LMS Notes: Race Week At Talladega

EASTABOGA, Ala. — It’s race week in Talladega, but the most powerful race cars in Alabama won’t be found at Talladega Superspeedway.

Across the street sits Talladega Short Track, site of the Alabama Gang 100 (April 25-26) for the World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series presented by DIRTVision.

It’s a weekend of firsts for the series. Talladega marks the kickoff of the Coltman Farms Racing Cup, the season-long miniseries that awards points at each Cup event toward the inaugural champion at the end of the year. Saturday’s finale wraps up with the first 100-lap Feature of the year. And the winner of that race will take home the first $50,000 payday of 2025.

The United Sprint Car Series will race alongside The Most Powerful Late Models on the Planet on both nights.

PULLING AWAY

Bobby Pierce may have come up one spot short of a third-straight Illini 100 victory two weeks ago at Farmer City, but he still took a positive step toward a second World of Outlaws championship.

The Illinois native’s finishes of sixth and second at the bullring were enough to extend his lead atop the standings to 66 points over Ryan Gustin and Nick Hoffman, neither of whom were able to crack the top five on either night.

Last week, Pierce and many of his fellow Outlaws stayed busy racing in Iowa with the MARS Late Model Championship. After finishing runner-up to Brandon Sheppard for the second time in six days at Cedar County Raceway, Pierce swept the weekend at 34 Raceway to become the first dirt late model driver to reach double-digit wins in 2025.

The World of Outlaws title fight resumes on the red clay this weekend at a track Pierce has yet to find victory lane. He came close in 2023, finishing third in a split-field preliminary Feature. Gustin owns the best Talladega record of the top three, with the 2024 Ice Bowl win to his credit and a podium finish in the 2023 Alabama Gang 100.

BACKING IT UP

Coming into 2025, Ethan Dotson and ASD Motorsports jokingly dubbed their first season on the road with the World of Outlaws the “Just Don’t Suck Tour.” With 10 races in the books, they’ve passed that test with flying colors.

After coming close on multiple occasions, Dotson’s day finally arrived at Farmer City, where he led the final 27 laps of Friday’s feature to claim his first World of Outlaws victory. He left Farmer City fifth in the overall standings and one of two rookies in the top five alongside Drake Troutman, who sits 34 points ahead of Dotson.

Talladega holds a special distinction on Dotson’s résumé – it’s the only track he’s won at in a late model more than once since moving up from the DIRTcar UMP Modifieds in 2023. The Californian has made seven appearances with the Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series at Talladega over the past two years and won two of them.

With both of those scores coming in 40-lap affairs, Dotson will look to maintain that speed over the longer distance this weekend in his Alabama Gang 100 debut.

GAINING STEAM

He may not be stealing headlines like Pierce and Dotson, but Brian Shirley has quietly become one of the hottest late model drivers in the country over the past several weeks.

His finishes of third and fourth at Farmer City weren’t only his best runs of the year with the Outlaws, they were part of a six-race top five streak between World of Outlaws and MARS action.

A ninth-place effort on Saturday at 34 Raceway may have brought that run to an end, but the Bob Cullen Racing team is still leaps and bounds ahead of where they started the year – seven of his 13 late model top 10s in 2025 have come in the past four weeks.

While Shirley has always been known as one of the best in the Midwest, he’ll now have to prove he can be just as fast outside of Illinois and Iowa. Talladega has been kind to him in the past, as Shirley’s first visit in 2023 netted him a runner up on Friday and a top 10 in Saturday’s main event.

FAMILIAR TERRITORY

Few drivers are more eager to get to Talladega than Ashton Winger, who plans on brushing off a lackluster Illini 100 weekend at a track he’s shown plenty of pace at before.

The Hampton, Ga., driver is a two-time super late model winner at Talladega, the first coming in Iron Man Series action in 2022 before racking up a Hunt the Front win in 2023. Winger is also no stranger to winning on NASCAR weekend at Talladega, taking the checkers in crate late model competition in 2018.

More recently, Winger was one of seven World of Outlaws regulars in the field at a Hunt the Front doubleheader earlier this month and was the only one to finish top five on both nights.

MAKING STRIDES

Dennis Erb Jr. has been slowly progressing back toward the front since switching back to Rocket Chassis last month, and he took a big step in the right direction last weekend.

The 2022 series champion has collected more FOX Factory Hard Charger Awards than anyone this year, and he started off his weekend with MARS with more of the same with a 20th-to-eighth run at Cedar County.

Erb found his best early-night speed of the year at 34 Raceway to lessen the workload come feature time, resulting in a pair of podium finishes.

Erb will aim to maintain that pace this weekend and grab his first Talladega top 10 in his third trip to the Alabama Gang 100.