Sometimes, it doesn’t need to be your night to still be your year.
Tim Ryan posted a dominant victory in Monday’s iRacing World of Outlaws NOS Energy Sprint Car World Championship finale from The Dirt Track at Charlotte, taking his second victory of the season and first since the series’ visit to Knoxville Raceway in November. But it was Alex Bergeron who, with a fourth place finish, locked up his third consecutive series title, earning $10,000 once again as champion by preserving most of his 30-point advantage over race and series runner-up Hayden Cardwell.
With the odds stacked against him all night, Cardwell had to have a flawless event, on top of hoping that Bergeron would make a similar mistake to the one Cardwell made last week at Williams Grove Speedway. To his credit, the Tennessee native was back on form, qualifying fourth, winning the final heat to line up there for the main, and immediately jumping past Gregory Lamey and Kendal Tucker to run second throughout the feature.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough on its own. Bergeron qualified seventh and finished second in his heat, and briefly fell to the edge of the top 10 in the feature, but climbed into the top five before the first caution. Needing only to avoid a wreck, he managed to make it up to third place around James Edens, but Edens would reclaim the final podium position in the race’s closing laps. Nonetheless, Bergeron only yielded seven points of his incoming cushion in spite of the results.
Tucker would drop to eighth in the feature, but maintained third in points over Edens and Ryan. Tyler Schell and Cameron Merriman, two first-time winners this season, were sixth and seventh in the final season standings, while Nick Cooper, Tyler Ducharme, and Austen Semmelmann completed the top 10. In the battle for the final license spot for next season, Rusty Kruger successfully extended his incoming one-point advantage over Mason Hannagan to six to return to the World Championship ranks next winter.
iRacing World of Outlaws NOS Energy Sprint Car World Championship results from The Dirt Track at Charlotte were as follows:
Fin. | St. | No. | Driver | Laps | Interval | Led | Best | Pts. |
| 1 | 1 | 98 | Tim Ryan | 35 | 35 | 13.752 | 78 | |
| 2 | 4 | 22 | Hayden Cardwell | 35 | -0.751 | 0 | 13.960 | 75 |
| 3 | 10 | 52 | James Edens | 35 | -1.449 | 0 | 14.129 | 70 |
| 4 | 7 | 12 | Alex A Bergeron | 35 | -2.451 | 0 | 14.088 | 68 |
| 5 | 8 | 17 | Cameron Merriman | 35 | -2.607 | 0 | 14.153 | 65 |
| 6 | 6 | 85 | Tyler Schell | 35 | -3.258 | 0 | 14.181 | 62 |
| 7 | 5 | 41 | Logan Rumsey | 35 | -4.925 | 0 | 14.193 | 59 |
| 8 | 3 | 00 | Kendal Tucker | 35 | -5.935 | 0 | 14.294 | 57 |
| 9 | 19 | 35 | Nick Cooper | 35 | -6.075 | 0 | 14.036 | 49 |
| 10 | 2 | 99 | Gregory Lamey | 35 | -6.175 | 0 | 14.235 | 51 |
| 11 | 12 | 10 | Rusty L Kruger | 35 | -7.929 | 0 | 14.238 | 47 |
| 12 | 20 | 91 | Anthony Jobe | 35 | -8.736 | 0 | 14.243 | 43 |
| 13 | 16 | 1 | Mason Hannagan | 35 | -8.865 | 0 | 14.150 | 42 |
| 14 | 9 | 18 | Austen Semmelmann | 35 | -8.883 | 0 | 14.238 | 41 |
| 15 | 15 | 8 | Cole Neuhalfen | 35 | -9.443 | 0 | 14.033 | 38 |
| 16 | 14 | 27 | Colton Davis | 35 | -9.478 | 0 | 14.100 | 36 |
| 17 | 13 | 3 | Lewis Hewett | 35 | -9.792 | 0 | 14.350 | 34 |
| 18 | 18 | 71 | Cole V Cabre | 35 | -21 L | 0 | 14.121 | 30 |
| 19 | 11 | 74 | Adam Elby | 35 | -26 L | 0 | 14.269 | 31 |
| 20 | 17 | 37 | Zane Scott | 35 | -26 L | 0 | 14.155 | 27 |
Final 2020-21 iRacing World of Outlaws NOS Energy Sprint Car World Championship points are as follows:
- Alex Bergeron, 725
- Hayden Cardwell, 702
- Kendal Tucker, 579
- James Edens, 557
- Tim Ryan, 554
- Tyler Schell, 534
- Cameron Merriman, 521
- Nick Cooper, 497
- Tyler Ducharme, 406
- Austen Semmelmann, 397
- Cole Cabre, 383
- Braden Eyler, 379
- Adam Elby, 376
- JD Brown, 331
- Rusty Kruger, 297
- Mason Hannagan, 291
- Colton Davis, 268
- Cole Neuhalfen, 263
- Logan Rumsey, 228
- Shae Paulo, 221
- Alex Smolders, 216
- Zane Scott, 201
- Lewis Hewett, 182
- Colton Hardy, 164
- Anthony Jobe, 150
- Daniel Gow, 148
- Gregory Lamey, 140
- Dustin Griffitts, 118
- Dillon Semmelmann, 99
- Brett Wheeler, 96
- Joshua Steinke, 91
- Dylan Schiebel, 51
- John Battista, 44
- Ryan Mayr, 29
- Cobe Stidham, 7
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