July 22, 2025 | By Alex Nietem, WOO Sprint Car PR

Emerson Axsom Joins KCP Racing for Duration of 2025 World of Outlaws Campaign

CONCORD, N.C.—Emerson Axsom is joining forces with KCP Racing for the remainder of the 2025 World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series season.

The news comes on the heels of Giovanni Scelzi and the Iowa-based team parting ways during Kings Royal week.

Axsom is one of the sport’s top rising talents. The Franklin, IN native’s last couple years have been spent honing his skills with wings after a successful stint in the United States Auto Club (USAC) ranks during the early portion of the 2020s.

The 20-year-old has wheeled the Klaasmeyer-Petry Motorsports No. 27 Sprint Car since the beginning of 2024 and quickly acclimated to Winged Sprint Cars. Last year he gathered a pair of wins with a 410 under the hood, once at Putnamville, IN’s Lincoln Park Speedway, where the World of Outlaws will visit on Oct. 17, and the other at the famed Knoxville Raceway. And speaking of Knoxville, Axsom was named the 2024 NOS Energy Drink Knoxville Nationals presented by Casey’s Rookie of the Year.

This year he’s won once at Eldora Speedway with the All Star Circuit of Champions. In 27 World of Outlaws appearances in 2025, he’s tallied eight top 10s and peaked at third at Oklahoma’s Lawton Speedway in March. The move to KCP signals Axsom’s latest rise up the ranks of Sprint Car racing.

“I’m super excited,” Axsom said. “I talked with my previous car owners, Dale Klaasmeyer and Scott Petry, and we all kind of agreed that we built this team for an opportunity like this to come. Obviously, Matt (Barbara) and KCP and everyone there has built a very established team and successful team. So, when an opportunity comes like this, I called my owners and asked, ‘What do you think I should do?’ They both told me it’s a no brainer and that I should go chase this opportunity. I’m just excited to work with this group of guys. They’re super professional, and I’m just happy to get an opportunity and glad all the work we’ve been putting in has paid off and people are seeing it.”

KCP Racing has established themselves as one of the sport’s premier organizations. Owned by Matt Barbara and Bret Nehring, the team launched in 2013 and won a Knoxville Raceway track championship a year later with Ian Madsen before earning another in 2017. They then went on the road full-time with the World of Outlaws in 2018, and Madsen took home Kevin Gobrecht Rookie of the Year honors.

Scelzi joined the team midway through 2020, and eventually the orange No. 18 returned to The Greatest Show on Dirt in 2023 as Scelzi replicated Madsen’s feat by being the season’s top rookie. The team has collected a dozen World of Outlaws victories.

The first stop for Axsom aboard the KCP Racing car will be Wednesday, July 23 at York Haven, PA’s BAPS Motor Speedway. Then it’s over to Mechanicsburg, PA’s Williams Grove Speedway on July 25-26 before finishing the weekend at New York’s Weedsport Speedway on July 27. For tickets, CLICK HERE.

For the remaining 2025 World of Outlaws schedule, CLICK HERE.

If you can’t make it to the track, catch every lap live on DIRTVision.