One year ago, the World of Outlaws Late Model Series was in a rough spot.

The tour finished the year with only eight full-time competitors, with just half of them scoring wins on the year. Most of the top dirt late model teams in the country were opting for a pick-and-choose schedule rather than a points chase with a single tour. That trend hurt both national tours, but the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series was still able to maintain top stars such as Tim McCreadie, Brandon Sheppard, Ricky Thornton Jr., and Hudson O’Neal. With the Outlaws, their headliners included 50-year-old Dennis Erb Jr., and three relative newcomers to the national scene in Tanner English, Max Blair, and Ryan Gustin.

Most would agree that nine top-10’s in 43 starts should not be enough for a top-five points finish on a national tour, but that’s exactly what Brent Larson did in 2022. In fact, Sheppard and the Rocket 1 Racing team just missed the top ten in World of Outlaws points, despite the fact that they were running full-time with Lucas last year. Just 25% of races were won by an Outlaw, and the title of most wins was shared by Jonathan Davenport and Mike Marlar at five apiece, neither of which were full-time with the tour. While the battle between the touring drivers and the outside challengers has always made dirt racing special, no series employee enjoys watching their stars get blown out night after night.

But over the winter, something changed. Steve Francis was promoted from competition director to series director in November, and a revamped schedule was announced featuring two new multi-race swings through the northeast and midwest. Yet the biggest change had nothing to do with the World of Outlaws. Prior to the season, the Lucas Oil series announced their switch to a playoff-style championship format rather than a traditional season-long points race. While we can debate the legitimacy of the new format until we’re blue in the face, it undoubtedly left a void in the national dirt late model scene that the World of Outlaws were happy to fill. 

This season’s full-time roster serves as evidence that there is still demand from the industry for a national tour with a traditional format. Fifteen drivers completed the full season, nearly double the amount from last year. The quality of the field also increased dramatically, as this year’s field included standouts like Sheppard, Bobby Pierce, Chris Madden, Nick Hoffman, and Brian Shirley, each of them with hundreds of wins to their name.

Nightly attendance also remained healthy, with this year’s average car count sitting at 40.6 compared to 40.8 a year ago. There are far too many examples across the sport of series and tracks struggling to attract cars due to inflation, parts shortages, and a myriad of other factors, so the tour’s ability to maintain high participation year over year is nothing short of impressive. 

While we don’t yet have a full slate of events for the 2024 season, a few bits and pieces of the schedule have been released. The events page on the World of Outlaws website confirms the return of two trips to Volusia for Sunshine Nationals in January and DIRTcar Nationals in February, in addition to the Illini 100 in mid-April and the USA Nationals the first week of August. 

Preliminary schedules from Wilmot Raceway and Maquoketa Speedway have the Outlaws coming to town July 29 and August 16-17 respectively, while news releases from Norman County Raceway and Spoon River Speedway announced they will both host the tour in 2024, although dates for those events have not been made public. Additionally, Ultimate Motorsports Park (formerly Friendship Motor Speedway) released a schedule that features a World of Outlaws date on Memorial Day weekend, which suggests that the $25,000-to-win Battle at the Border at Sharon Speedway will either be going away, or finding a new slot on the calendar.

It will not be the first time the tour has visited the North Carolina facility, as the Outlaws made one appearance at the track in 2015 for a 50-lap contest won by Chris Ferguson. Ultimate is just a bit over an hour north of Charlotte Motor Speedway via Interstate 77, which opens up the opportunity to showcase the dirt late model world to the NASCAR fans in town for the Coca-Cola 600.

So now, all we can do is sit around and wait until the full schedule is released, and teams announce their plans for the upcoming season. “The most powerful late models on the planet” have certainly been riding a wave of momentum for the past 12 months, and all signs point to that wave continuing into 2024. It sure is nice to once again have a tour that lives up to the reputation of the World of Outlaws name.