World of Outlaws USA Nationals • night 1

It’s been 12 years since he won the USA Nationals, but Tim McCreadie still knows his way around Cedar Lake Speedway.

The Watertown, NY native drove from seventh to the lead in 15 laps and came out on top of the chaos at the end for his fourth win of the year with the World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series presented by DIRTVision.

On a night when the Cedar Lake surface provided plenty of room for big moves and hard racing, but was quick to punish the slightest misstep, drivers who know when to push the issue and when to stay smooth were going to come out on top. And with his three decades of dirt racing experience, no one fits that description better than McCreadie.

“It’s no secret, when it gets like that, I’m just patient enough to stay in it,” McCreadie said. “A lot of guys, they get impatient, they drive hard and they throttle out of it. It’s more like what happens in the Big Blocks once in a while, or what happens when tracks are good enough that where you run matters. That’s kind of how this place is and why we all like coming here.”

The 30-lapper started with Cade Dillard and Hudson O’Neal sharing the front row, but Garrett Alberson immediately decided to join the party from third by sending it three-wide into Turn 1. The No. 58 started bouncing on the inside of Dillard, and with his wheels in the air and no air on the nose, Alberson went around in Turn 2.

Chris Madden inherited the third spot for the restart and repeated Alberson’s move, but this time he kept it straight in the corner. “Smokey” stayed three-wide with Dillard and O’Neal down the backstretch and pulled ahead on the bottom in Turns 3 and 4 to take command.

The No. 44 remained a bottom feeder throughout the early laps while O’Neal pounded the cushion trying to get by, and seven laps in he finally built up enough momentum to blast by off Turn 4. However, that was only the beginning of their tussle. Madden tried a slide job in Turn 3 two laps later, but got crossed over off the corner. In the next set of corners, Madden found a strip of brown through the middle and used it to power off Turn 2 to O’Neal’s inside and back into the lead.

Madden wasn’t done fending off challenges for the lead, but the next one wouldn’t come from O’Neal. McCreadie had gotten to third by that point, and when O’Neal slid up the track in Madden’s wake, it was all the opening McCreadie needed to slip into second.

Shortly before halfway, Madden started to explore other lanes as he made his way through traffic. Leaving the bottom open in Turns 1 and 2 proved to be the wrong move, as McCreadie used the lane to drive straight into the lead with 15 to go.

With the laps winding down, McCreadie grew his lead to over a second and looked to have the win in the bag until a slowing Garrett Smith brought out the caution with two laps remaining.

When the green flag flew once more, McCreadie went back to his tried-and-true low lane while O’Neal – who got back around Madden for second before the yellow came out – banged the boards for all they were worth around Turns 1 and 2. The No. 71 carried a massive head of steam down the backstretch and got to McCreadie’s outside before the two made contact. That sent McCreadie sliding sideways into Turn 3, but he gathered it back up and kept going. Meanwhile, O’Neal initially kept it straight, but got out of shape on the cushion coming to the white flag and spun on his own to hand the lead right back to McCreadie.

“Hudson almost pulled my pants down on that last restart,” McCreadie said. “I should have known better to roll the middle or go in on the top, once we packed the crumbs down for a few laps it was going to be fast. I went into one and kind of parked too hard. I don’t know what happened down the backstretch, I didn’t really do anything different than I’d been doing, he just happened to clip me with his wheel or something. It stretched the wheel right out of my hand and I thought I was going to spin out down there. I got lucky and hung onto it.”

The second green-white-checkered attempt turned out to be much calmer than the first, as McCreadie pulled away on the restart and went uncontested the rest of the way.

The late cautions also benefitted Nick Hoffman, who went from fourth with two to go to second in the final rundown. With Series points leader Bobby Pierce struggling all night and finishing 17th, that finish cut Hoffman’s deficit to 88 points and extended his margin to 48 markers in the Coltman Farms Racing Cup battle.

“I don’t know what it is up here, you get in the north – Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota – our stuff’s really good,” Hoffman said. “I didn’t feel exactly where I needed to be there, where McCreadie rolled by us in the middle and I moved out late in that race and he still was quite a bit faster than we were up there.”

Madden held onto third in his first World of Outlaws start driving for Kale Green, marking his best Series result since his win to end 2024 at The Dirt Track at Charlotte.

“We’ve got a good piece here, we’ve just got to work on it a little bit and get a few more of the bugs worked out,” Madden said. “We haven’t been in these kind of conditions, slowing down that much on the bottom and it was a little choppy down there. We were loading up, the motor was shutting down and then it would fire back up and blow the tires off. We’ll get it ironed out here for Saturday.”

Ricky Thornton Jr. and Brandon Sheppard rounded out the top five.

RACE NOTES:

Cade Dillard set the Dirt King Simulators Fastest Hot Lap.

Garrett Alberson won the Simpson Quick Time Award.

Cade Dillard won Real American Beer Heat 1.

Hudson O’Neal won STAKT Products Heat 2.

Nick Hoffman won Keyser Manufacturing Heat 3.

Garrett Alberson won Jarrett Rifles Heat 4.

Ricky Thornton Jr. won Real American Beer Heat 5.

Chris Madden won Real American Beer Heat 6.

Dennis Erb Jr. and Mike Marlar won the Landa Pressure Washers Last Chance Showdowns.

Cade Dillard won the Bilstein Pole Award.

Mike Marlar won the FOX Factory Hard Charger Award.

Jake Timm was the MD3 Rookie of the Race.

Nick Hoffman won the WELD Racing Second-Place Finisher Award.

Ricky Thornton Jr. was the ARP Fourth-Place Finisher.

Brandon Sheppard was the MSD Fifth-Place Finisher.

Dan Ebert was the Swift Springs Sixth-Place Finisher.

Mike Marlar was the VP Racing Fuels Eighth-Place Finisher.

Cade Dillard was the Lifeline USA Ninth-Place Finisher.

Devin Moran was the COMP Cams 10th-Place Finisher.

Tanner English was the Cometic Gaskets 12th-Place Finisher.

UP NEXT: The USA Nationals continue on Friday, Aug. 1, with Qualifying, Heat Races, the Heat Race Winners Dash and the FANS Fund Dash for the World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series presented by DIRTVision. Tickets will be available at the gate.

If you can’t make it to the track, stream every lap live on DIRTVision.

Feature (30 Laps): 1. 9M-Tim McCreadie[7]; 2. 9-Nick Hoffman[6]; 3. 44-Chris Madden[5]; 4. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[4]; 5. 1-Brandon Sheppard[10]; 6. 60-Dan Ebert[11]; 7. 16-Tyler Bruening[8]; 8. 157-Mike Marlar[20]; 9. 97-Cade Dillard[1]; 10. 99-Devin Moran[18]; 11. 76-Brandon Overton[17]; 12. 96-Tanner English[14]; 13. 1T-Tyler Erb[9]; 14. 49-Jake Timm[15]; 15. 19R-Ryan Gustin[24]; 16. 28-Dennis Erb Jr[19]; 17. 32-Bobby Pierce[23]; 18. 3S-Brian Shirley[16]; 19. 58-Garrett Alberson[3]; 20. 22*-Drake Troutman[25]; 21. 71-Hudson O’Neal[2]; 22. 49D-Jonathan Davenport[12]; 23. 10-Garrett Smith[13]; 24. B1-Brent Larson[22]; 25. 2-Cody Overton[26]; 26. 1*-Chub Frank[21]