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BARBERVILLE, Fla. — Three weeks removed from his first World of Outlaws Late Models victory, Garrett Alberson ran it back on Thursday night.
A dominant showing allowed the Las Cruces, N.M., driver to double his win total with the series and collect his first Gator from Volusia Speedway Park’s Federated Auto Parts DIRTcar Nationals.
After starting the feature at the front thanks to a heat race win and a fortuitous redraw that netted him the Bilstein Pole Award, Alberson immediately ripped away to the early lead. But due to a sequence of passing showers earlier in the afternoon that dumped some extra moisture on the track, he was taking on a much different version of Volusia than what he experienced earlier in the week.
“I felt like the overall speed and grip level was certainly up from the last couple days,” Alberson said. “The black felt really slick, I think just because you had so much speed when you got to it. So it made the slide jobs and stuff kind of wild. The car was not super comfortable to drive, but I didn’t want to give it up on not trying hard enough.”
Second-starting Mike Marlar rode behind Alberson for the first dozen laps, with the gap fluctuating between 1.5 seconds down to half a second once Alberson caught traffic. Marlar and the rest of the field got another shot at the No. 58 when Mark Whitener and Brent Larson slowed to bring out the caution on Lap 12, but Alberson prevailed once more.
A poor restart from Marlar sent him tumbling down the running order, opening the door for Ricky Thornton Jr. to slide into second place. Behind them, the fight was on for third between Brandon Sheppard and Bobby Pierce, with Pierce taking the spot at the halfway point.
Pierce wasn’t done there, as he took advantage of a mistake by Thornton in Turns 3 and 4 to move up to second and set sail towards Alberson. Half a dozen laps later, Pierce caught Alberson and crossed up in front of him exiting Turn 2, but the yellow flag was displayed for the stopped car of Nick Hoffman before the leaders could make it back around to complete the lap, sending Pierce back to second.
“I looked at the board and saw that the 32 was there, and there’s not a lot better on the cushion right there,” Alberson said. “I knew if I didn’t do my speed just right that I was going to be a sitting duck. That traffic was so tricky, if you slid in behind too close to a lap car right there, you jump the cushion really easily.
“Sometimes it goes your way and sometimes it doesn’t. I feel like a lot of times it hasn’t gone my way, but tonight it did.”
Alberson nailed the ensuing restart to pull away from the pack once again. With no more interruptions over the final 10 laps, that was all he needed to win his second feature in a row.
Winning races at the highest level of dirt late model racing was always something Alberson knew he was capable of, but he admitted that scoring his first two World of Outlaws wins at Volusia was never on his radar.
“When we came here with Earl [Pearson Jr.] back in the day when I was crewing for him, I think we made one race in two years,” Alberson said. “So I was like ‘maybe I don’t know how to set up a car for this place.’ But we’ve got so many good people behind us, it just makes it a lot easier for your car to be close.
“I don’t know what it is about this place. It kind of fits our deal here. It kind of reminds me a little bit of one of my home tracks in El Paso, it’s got a sweeping D-shape with a lot of speed, and I always love that place.”
While Alberson was busy driving off to the checkers, Pierce and Thornton put on a show dueling for the second spot. That was until Thornton smacked the wall in Turn 4 and dropped out of contention, handing over the runner-up spot to Pierce.
While the “Smooth Operator” was happy to stand on the podium with the Outlaws for the first time in 2025, he couldn’t help but wonder what could have been had the yellow never flew after he got around Alberson.
“We were all going at it hard,” Pierce said. “I feel like in that instance there, we got the lead somehow and obviously an untimely caution. But you’ll have that. I knew it when we were coming around the corner, I saw [Hoffman] in the wall and I was like ‘well, we’re going back a lap.’ It is what it is.”
Thornton’s late error gave Devin Moran the chance to slide into third, continuing an impressive streak of 12 top fives in 14 starts this season.
“Last night with that format, we did a little testing and I felt like we got a lot better,” Moran said. “Tonight we struggled a little in qualifying going out that early, so we’ve just got to keep working on that. If we can get in the redraw, we have a good chance of winning races, we’ve just got to get to that point. All in all a good night.”
Ethan Dotson finished fourth to not only claim the MD3 Rookie of the Race Award, but also become the World of Outlaws points leader by four points over Pierce and Sheppard. Thornton recovered from his late contact and held on to fifth to maintain the Big Gator points lead.
The finish:
Feature (35 Laps): 1. 58-Garrett Alberson[1]; 2. 32-Bobby Pierce [5]; 3. 99-Devin Moran[11]; 4. 74X-Ethan Dotson[10]; 5. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[4]; 6. 1-Brandon Sheppard [3]; 7. 19R-Ryan Gustin[6]; 8. 18D-Daulton Wilson[12]; 9. 111-Max Blair[7]; 10. 2-Cody Overton[19]; 11. 40B-Kyle Bronson[9]; 12. 76-Brandon Overton[16]; 13. 9M-Tim McCreadie[14]; 14. 157-Mike Marlar[2]; 15. 96-Tanner English[13]; 16. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain [23]; 17. 3S-Brian Shirley[21]; 18. 22*-Drake Troutman[29]; 19. 97-Cade Dillard [25]; 20. 49D-Jonathan Davenport[8]; 21. 1T-Tyler Erb[24]; 22. 76N-Blair Nothdurft[17]; 23. 28-Dennis Erb Jr.[27]; 24. 19-Dustin Sorensen[28]; 25. 16-Tyler Bruening[26]; 26. 49-Jake Timm[15]; 27. 114-Jordan Koehler[18]; 28. 9-Nick Hoffman[20]; 29. B1-Brent Larson[30]; 30. 5-Mark Whitener[22]
