Best of the Quarter Century (2001-2025)
Dirt Late Model's top moments of 2001-25
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt senior writer
As part of our coverage looking at the first 25 years of the 21st century, we look at the top 25 memorable moments in the sport, listed chronologically by earliest (Best of 2025 coverage index):
2001: Inaugural Eldora Million
Comment: After poor weather pushes Eldora Speedway promoter Earl Baltes’s pie-in-the-sky blockbuster event from October 2000 to June of the following year, Donnie Moran wins the richest dirt race ever at the half-mile oval in Rossburg, Ohio, to forever become known as the Million Dollar Man.
2002: Birky downs Bloomer in World 100
Comment: Brian Birkhofer elicits one of the loudest roars in Dirt Late Model history with a final-lap pass of Scott Bloomquist to capture Eldora’s World 100 for the first time in his career. The Iowa driver’s dramatic move prompts announcer Ozzie Altman’s immortal call of the photo finish: “I can’t swear to it, but I think Birkhofer pulled off the upset.”
2003: Industry-shaking meeting
Comment: While conducted outside the public spotlight, an off-season get-together matched many heavy-hitter Dirt Late Model drivers and team owners with World Racing Group (then Boundless Motorsports) and Hoosier Tire officials to form a “Dirty Dozen” of traveling stars that rekindled the World of Outlaws Late Model Series in 2004 for a head-to-head showdown with upstart Doug Bland’s Goodyear-backed Stacker2 Xtreme DirtCar Series.
2004: Baltes hands over reins
Comment: Ending a 51-year run during which he built Eldora Speedway into the most famed dirt track in the country, Earl Baltes officially announced during September’s World 100 that he was entrusting the facility’s future to NASCAR champion Tony Stewart, who purchased the track. The crowd serenaded Baltes with chants of “EARL! EARL! EARL! EARL!” when he and wife Berneice told fans of their retirement plans following driver introductions.
2005: Lucas Oil tour’s birth
Comment: Shortly after becoming title sponsor of the fledgling NARA DirtCar Series, Lucas Oil Products purchases the tour in March 2005, renames it the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series and begins an era of two national circuits running alongside the World of Outlaws Late Model Series.
2005: Bloomquist’s World 100 practice crash
Comment: With all eyes focused on Scott Bloomquist’s special World 100 entry commemorating his 25th anniversary in the sport — a chrome version of his famed No. 0 machine — he proves he can set the Dirt Late Model world ablaze without even turning a competitive lap. The silver car only appears on track for hot laps just before Friday’s time trials because he slammed the turn-three wall and was plowed by Chris Elling’s oncoming car, immediately ending his weekend because event rules then stated drivers could only pilot the car that they initially took through technical inspection.
2006: Best World 100 ever?
Comment: Earl Pearson Jr. celebrates the lone World 100 triumph of his career after coming out on top following a wild battle for the lead that saw four drivers have a legitimate shot at victory in the final 25 laps. While Pearson assumed command for good on lap 86, Eldora’s faithful was in a frenzy down the stretch watching the wall-scraping Jeep Van Wormer briefly grab the lead from Shannon Babb on lap 80 and a young Josh Richards stick his nose in the mix while Dale McDowell and Clint Smith joined the frontrunners as well.
2009: Super Shepp
Comment: July 1’s DIRTcar Summer Nationals event at Highland (Ill.) Speedway produces an iconic Hell Tour visual when, during a heat race, Steve Sheppard Jr. becomes incensed by a tangle with Dennis Erb Jr. Sheppard climbed out of his wrecked car, stomped down the frontstretch and stair-stepped up the nose and hood of Erb’s stopped machine before falling onto Erb’s roof and reaching in for Erb as track officials scrambled to stop him. While Sheppard was disqualified for the night and placed on probation for the remainder of the series, the images showing him bounding atop Erb’s car earned him the “Super Shepp” moniker.
2010: Moyer brings out the broom
Comment: At 52, Billy Moyer shows he’s still capable of performing at the highest level with an unprecedented sweep of September’s Knoxville Nationals, winning both $7,000 preliminary features and the $40,000 finale at Knoxville (Iowa) Raceway less than an hour’s drive from his boyhood home. It’s part of a spectacular that also saw him win Eldora’s Dream and World 100 in the same year for the second time in his career — and with his record sixth World triumph coming from the 23rd starting spot.
2011: WoO championship drama
Comment: Rick Eckert becomes a WoO champion in unforgettable fashion, snatching the title in the dying moments of November’s World Finals finale at The Dirt Track at Charlotte in Concord, N.C., when Josh Richards slowed with a flat right-rear tire heading towards the white flag while running ninth, four spots ahead of Eckert. The massive crowd goes wild as Eckert sails past the limping Richards for a 12th-place finish that gives the then 45-year-old his lone national touring series crown.
2014: Bloomquist’s window-net kerfuffle
Comment: Scott Bloomquist’s fourth career World 100 victory, but first since 2001, came in especially unlikely fashion: after soaring into the lead on lap 19, he was pulled over one circuit later so DIRTcar officials could confiscate an “unapproved device” — a Lexan-supported window net — and tell him his penalty was to restart at the rear of the field. He proceeded to charge right back to the front and win in an absolutely dominating drive. “I mean, that first race was over,” Bloomquist of his initial run to the lead. “Then they got to see another race.”
2014: Birky’s storybook retirement announcement
Comment: Authoring a performance for the ages, Brian Birkhofer reveals at the start of the Knoxville Nationals weekend that he’ll retire from racing after Saturday’s finale. He proceeds to go out in the most emotional manner possible, overtaking Scott Bloomquist rounding the final turn to win the 100-lap feature amid a cascade of raucous sound from the fans in the grandstand of his home-state track.
2015: Bloomquist’s demise, J.D’s arrival
Comment: Announcer James Essex’s excited call — “There’s no green light!” — signaled heartbreak for Scott Bloomquist, who was stripped of a hard-fought $100,000 Dream victory at Eldora because his car weighed in 25 pounds light at the scales. The disqualification amid a hectic postrace scene handed the checkered flag to Jonathan Davenport, who became a crown jewel winner for the first time in his then-budding career and went on to enjoy one of the best seasons in Dirt Late Model history driving the K&L Rumley Enterprises No. 6 that sported the famed suspension “Device” developed by Kevin Rumley.
2015: Losing Earl
Comment: The Dirt Late Model world went into mourning on March 23 with the news that legendary Eldora Speedway founder and dirt racing icon Earl Baltes had died at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, Ohio, at the age of 93. Tributes poured in as the industry came to grips with the passing of the trendsetting promoter known for his no-nonsense attitude and down-home persona and, of course, wearing a cap with a flipped-up bill.
2016: Late Models in a Dome
Comment: Special-event promoter Cody Sommer launches an event that many thought impossible, constructing a fifth-mile dirt track on the floor of The Dome at America’s Center in downtown St. Louis, Mo., to host December’s Gateway Dirt Nationals featuring a $20,000-to-win Dirt Late Model feature. The inaugural weekend includes some early speedbumps, but overall it’s a success as Scott Bloomquist emerges victorious and the race begins its ascent toward its current status as an annual late-season juggernaut that draws nearly 200 competitors and more than 30,000 fans.
2019: Dream’s fifth heat
Comment: There’s never been a more chaotic Dirt Late Model heat race than the fifth one during June’s Dream finale program at Eldora — and naturally, Scott Bloomquist was at the center of it all. Making his first start since suffering serious injuries in a March motorcycle accident, he stars in a truly wild heat that saw, in succession, Bloomquist start from the pole position, receive a jumping penalty on a mid-race restart, rally to take the lead, slam the turn-one wall with multiple other cars on another restart after a sudden cloudburst wet the track and repair his car during an extended red-flag period (with officials electing to run the sixth heat before the conclusion of the fifth). Bloomquist took the checkers first in the prelim and, finally, was disqualified for weighing in just a hair light.
2019: Richards’s Eldora breakthrough
Comment: When Brandon Sheppard piloted the Rocket Chassis house car to a photo-finish victory over Dale McDowell in June’s Dream, he knew the story of the night wasn’t as much about his first major win at Eldora but more focused on his team owner Mark Richards finally capturing one of the track’s marquee events with his own effort. A Dirt Late Model lifer, Richards received nonstop congratulations after ending a 44-year pursuit of crown jewel glory at Eldora with a long list of drivers, first as a crewman, then as a crew chief and team owner.
2020: Dirt Late Model racing’s big return
Comment: With the Dirt Late Model community starved for racing during the Covid-19-induced shutdown that began in mid-March, the Schaeffer’s Oil Tar Heel Invitational — a 25-car, no-spectator event streamed live on FloRacing from Tri-County Racetrack in Brasstown, N.C. — brings the action back. Shane Clanton emerges victorious in the 40-lap feature on a night that saw sponsors step up organically to offer thousands of dollars in bonuses to competitors.
2021: Overton’s double Dreams domination
Comment: After losing its crown jewel events in 2020 because of Covid-19 restrictions, Eldora Speedway responds by scheduling two Dreams over a single four-day period in June. Brandon Overton takes advantage in epic fashion, sweeping the entire weekend — winning both 100-lappers plus his two preliminary features — to collect more than $273,000 for his Wells Motorsports team.
2022: Terbo wins one for dad
Comment: Just four days after his father, Mark, dies from a heart attack while in St. Louis, Tyler Erb pushes through the anguish and turmoil of his family tragedy to win the Gateway Dirt Nationals finale. Only a handful of people close to Erb knew of his father’s passing until he reveals the sad news publicly during a tear-soaked victory lane with his mother and team members.
2022: Another Million Dollar Man
Comment: Twenty-one years after the running of the historic first Eldora Million, the Ohio track hosts a reprise as a lead-in to June’s Dream. The oval’s modern-day dominator, Jonathan Davenport, turns back a late challenge from Chris Madden for the seven-figure winner’s purse that helps push him to a $2 million season.
2023: O’Neal becomes a champion
Comment: The first playoff to determine the Lucas Oil Series champion — a best-finish-wins battle between the top four drivers in the standings entering October’s first-ever Dirt Track World Championship held at Eldora Speedway — provides the ultimate theater. Season-long dominator Ricky Thornton Jr. is eliminated early in the 100-lapper by a tangle and Jonathan Davenport goes out due to mechanical trouble instigated by rough conditions, opening the door for Hudson O’Neal to pass Devin Moran on the final circuit to snatch the $200,000 title with a runner-up finish close behind DTWC winner Brandon Sheppard.
2024: Bloomquist’s passing
Comment: The Dirt Late Model world is rocked by the death on Aug. 16 of Scott Bloomquist, the larger-than-life figure considered one of the greatest drivers in the sport’s history. He perishes in a morning crash aboard a vintage plane he was flying; a months-long NTSB investigation later rules that he intentionally flew the aircraft into a barn on his family’s property.
2024: East Bay’s swan song
Comment: Daulton Wilson wins his first-ever Lucas Oil Series feature in the finale of the Winternationals at East Bay Raceway Park in Gibsonton, Fla., which hosts its last Speedweeks event after 48 years of history. With the third-mile oval already sold to the neighboring Mosaic Co. and scheduled to close at the end of the 2024 season, a packed house witnesses what becomes the track’s final Super Late Model event after a planned $50,000-to-win October weekend is lost to a hurricane.
2024: PDC glory for Pierce
Comment: Bobby Pierce’s decade-long frustration and heartbreak in the Prairie Dirt Classic at Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway ends in July when he rallies from the rear following a midrace spin to pass Nick Hoffman on the final lap for a $50,000 triumph. An exhausted and emotional Pierce needs time to gather himself in victory lane before starting his celebration amid the crowd's cacophony.
