November 9, 2025 | By Alex Nietem, WOO Sprint Car PR

Buddy Kofoid Closes 2025 with World Finals Victory

CONCORD, N.C.—A strong sendoff to the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series season is always valuable.

It’s a long road that takes the country’s best Sprint Car teams to several states from coast-to-coast and dozens of racetracks for roughly 80 nights of action per year. It’s miles and miles on the road. It’s late nights and early mornings. Everyone wants to go into the off-season on a high note as next year will be here before you know it.

That’s exactly what Michael “Buddy” Kofoid and his Roth Motorsports crew were able to do Saturday at The Dirt Track at Charlotte. The Greatest Show on Dirt closed out its 48th season of action with a $25,000-to-win World of Outlaws World Finals main event. With big money on the line, it’s no surprise Kofoid brought his best.

This year’s highest earner in the sport lined up fourth for the 25-lapper and got to work right away. Kofoid climbed to third on the opening circuit, and four laps later the Penngrove, CA native made his way to second. On the 15th lap, misfortune for 2025 champion David Gravel gave Kofoid a gift. Gravel got into the Turn 1 fence while leading and went around. The resulting damage ended his evening.

That handed Kofoid the lead, but it wasn’t an easy drive to victory from there. The country’s winningest Sprint Car driver, Rico Abreu, clawed his way to second from seventh in the latter stages. Abreu threw a couple slide jobs at Kofoid on restarts but couldn’t quite clear. Kofoid did what he needed to do in traffic late and got the job done to close out the campaign.

“I felt like we were catching David,” Kofoid said of before Gravel’s crash. “It would’ve been nice to race for it. I don’t know what happened. It’s just a bummer for him. I felt like we were getting closer, and it maybe could’ve been a good race. I’m just really happy to be standing up here. It’s not easy winning in Charlotte. It’s not easy having speed in Charlotte. I owe it all to Dylan (Buswell), Nate (Knotts), and Gage (Tyra). Happy to have Todd Ventura here. He does a really good job running our team for us. To do this in front of a packed house is really cool.”

The win put the punctuation on a spectacular sophomore season for Kofoid as he topped a dozen World of Outlaws races with the Roth crew. That’s five more than the 23-year-old bagged during his rookie year in 2024. The 22nd overall of his career breaks a tie with Tim Kaeding and Rico Abreu to make him the fifth winningest Californian in Series history.

Rico Abreu took the runner-up spot to finalize a fantastic World Finals week. The St. Helena, CA native grabbed a Thursday victory and a pair of seconds. He wraps up the year with 10 podiums in 17 tries with the World of Outlaws.

“Definitely narrower surface, harder to get going,” Abreu said. “We just kept working to get our car to feel better for me. The more we got out there the better I was able to get it to sit in the rear tires and drive forward. I’m just really fortunate to be racing with really good guys and just a good way to cap off the year there.”

Brent Marks charged from ninth to third to round out the podium. The “Myerstown Missile” had speed all week and wrapped it up with his best World of Outlaws finish of the year.

“The track tonight was actually pretty tricky,” Marks said. “We got a pretty big curb that we could race against, but you had to be careful against it because it would really suck you in and get you tight. It was a little bit more tricky than the last two nights. But overall, with the rain that we had, I felt like the track was really nice. I was kind of hoping they could get the infield tires in another half a lane, and I think if that would’ve happened, we could’ve had two lanes that would’ve been absolutely awesome. We had a lot of speed on Thursday and a lot of speed last night.”

Even though Gravel’s crash ended his night early, he still got to celebrate as he and Big Game Motorsports were officially crowned the 2025 World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series champions. Gravel becomes only the sixth driver ever to claim two titles in a row. Gravel and team members Cody Jacobs (crew chief), Pete Stephens (car chief), and Zach Patterson (tire specialist), put together a masterful campaign with the Tod Quiring-owned car consisting of 17 wins, 40 podiums, 56 top fives, and 64 top 10s.

“What a season,” Gravel said. “I’m just really proud of my guys. I feel really bad for them tonight with what happened, but it doesn’t put a black eye on your whole season. It’s been such a good year. I just can’t believe how consistent we were all season. These guys produced every night, and I can’t thank them enough.”

Spencer Bayston and Corey Day completed the top five.

Logan Schuchart earned his Series-high ninth KSE Racing Products Hard Charger of the year with a drive from 23rd to seventh.

Heat Races belonged to David Gravel (NOS Energy Drink Heat One), Rico Abreu (Real American Beer Heat Two), Buddy Kofoid (WIX Filters Heat Three), and Spencer Bayston (TheGreatestStoreonDirt.com Heat Four).

The SPA Technique #1 Redraw went to David Gravel.

Gravel also topped the Toyota Dash.

Justin Peck won the Micro-Lite Last Chance Showdown.

The Smith Titanium Brake Systems Break of the Race went to Emerson Axsom.

UP NEXT: The World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Cars will kick off the 2026 season at Barberville, FL’s Volusia Speedway Park on Feb. 4-7 for the Federated Auto Parts DIRTcar Nationals. For tickets, CLICK HERE.

If you can’t make it to the track, catch every lap in 2026 on DIRTVision.


SATURDAY RESULTS

410 Sprints - Winged

NOS Energy Drink Feature (25 Laps): 1. 83-Michael Kofoid[4]; 2. 24-Rico Abreu[7]; 3. 19-Brent Marks[9]; 4. 17JR-Spencer Bayston[6]; 5. 14-Corey Day[3]; 6. 9R-Chase Randall[5]; 7. 1S-Logan Schuchart[23]; 8. 71-Parker Price Miller[2]; 9. 41-Carson Macedo[16]; 10. 17-Sheldon Haudenschild[15]; 11. 42-Sye Lynch[19]; 12. 49X-Cale Thomas[22]; 13. 15S-Kerry Madsen[17]; 14. 55-Hunter Schuerenberg[12]; 15. 1A-Ashton Torgerson[8]; 16. 7S-Chris Windom[14]; 17. 18-Cory Eliason[25]; 18. 99-Skylar Gee[27]; 19. 23-Garet Williamson[10]; 20. 6-Zach Hampton[24]; 21. 24D-Danny Sams III[20]; 22. 27-Emerson Axsom[11]; 23. 17B-Bill Balog[26]; 24. 28M-Conner Morrell[28]; 25. 2-David Gravel[1]; 26. 15-Donny Schatz[13]; 27. 7BC-Giovanni Scelzi[18]; 28. 26-Justin Peck[21]

MicroLite Last Chance Showdown (12 Laps): 1. 26-Justin Peck[1]; 2. 49X-Cale Thomas[2]; 3. 1S-Logan Schuchart[3]; 4. 6-Zach Hampton[4]; 5. 2C-Cole Macedo[6]; 6. 2MD-Darin Naida[5]; 7. 10-Ryan Timms[7]; 8. 9-Daison Pursley[8]; 9. 13-Tanner Holmes[11]; 10. 99-Skylar Gee[14]; 11. 6K-Kaleb Johnson[13]; 12. 28M-Conner Morrell[12]; 13. 17B-Bill Balog[9]; 14. 7NY-Matt Farnham[10]

C Feature (10 Laps): 1. 6K-Kaleb Johnson[1]; 2. 99-Skylar Gee[3]; 3. 44-Chris Martin[5]; 4. 6R-Bill Rose[2]; 5. 18-Cory Eliason[6]; 6. 84-Ty Gibbs[8]; 7. G5-Gage Pulkrabek[4]; 8. 3J-Jacob Begenwald[9]; 9. 4-Colton Young[10]; 10. 0-Glenn Styres[12]; 11. 71RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[7]; 12. X-Greg Wilson[11]

Toyota Dash (6 Laps): 1. 2-David Gravel[1]; 2. 71-Parker Price Miller[2]; 3. 14-Corey Day[4]; 4. 83-Michael Kofoid[5]; 5. 9R-Chase Randall[3]; 6. 17JR-Spencer Bayston[6]; 7. 24-Rico Abreu[7]; 8. 1A-Ashton Torgerson[8]

Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 2-David Gravel[1]; 2. 9R-Chase Randall[2]; 3. 19-Brent Marks[3]; 4. 15-Donny Schatz[4]; 5. 15S-Kerry Madsen[6]; 6. 26-Justin Peck[5]; 7. 2MD-Darin Naida[8]; 8. 17B-Bill Balog[7]; 9. 6K-Kaleb Johnson[9]; 10. 44-Chris Martin[10]; 11. 3J-Jacob Begenwald[11]; 12. 0-Glenn Styres[12]

Real American Beer Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. 24-Rico Abreu[1]; 2. 71-Parker Price Miller[2]; 3. 23-Garet Williamson[4]; 4. 7S-Chris Windom[7]; 5. 7BC-Giovanni Scelzi[8]; 6. 49X-Cale Thomas[5]; 7. 2C-Cole Macedo[6]; 8. 7NY-Matt Farnham[9]; 9. 6R-Bill Rose[11]; 10. 18-Cory Eliason[3]; 11. 5-Jeremy Weaver[10]

WIX Filters Heat 3 (8 Laps): 1. 83-Michael Kofoid[1]; 2. 1A-Ashton Torgerson[2]; 3. 27-Emerson Axsom[6]; 4. 17-Sheldon Haudenschild[5]; 5. 42-Sye Lynch[4]; 6. 1S-Logan Schuchart[10]; 7. 10-Ryan Timms[3]; 8. 13-Tanner Holmes[9]; 9. 99-Skylar Gee[7]; 10. 71RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[8]; 11. 4-Colton Young[11]

The Greatest Show on Dirt Heat 4 (8 Laps): 1. 17JR-Spencer Bayston[1]; 2. 14-Corey Day[2]; 3. 55-Hunter Schuerenberg[3]; 4. 41-Carson Macedo[4]; 5. 24D-Danny Sams III[6]; 6. 6-Zach Hampton[7]; 7. 9-Daison Pursley[5]; 8. 28M-Conner Morrell[9]; 9. G5-Gage Pulkrabek[11]; 10. 84-Ty Gibbs[8]; 11. X-Greg Wilson[10]