World of Outlaws Empire State Challenge

The defending champion puts on a clinic in traffic and takes the checkered flag more than six seconds ahead

People wonder what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, but what would the result be of the two working together? It probably looks a lot like David Gravel and Big Game Motorsports at Weedsport Speedway.

The two joined forces in 2021 and have effectively owned the New York track. It started with a victory in their first Weedsport trip that season, and they backed it up with another the following year. The next night Gravel started ninth and nearly pulled it off, driving to second. They returned to the top step of the podium in 2023 and stayed on top in 2024. Then that brought us to 2025.

The World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Cars invaded Weedsport on Sunday for the Empire State Challenge and the only New York stop for the Series this season. This trip proved to be no different as Gravel and the Tod Quiring-owned team dominated once again.

Gravel began the night by setting the fastest time in his Flight of Honest Abe Roofing Qualifying and parlayed that into a Heat Race win. The SPA Technique #1 Redraw put him on the pole of the Toyota Dash, which he also won. All that remained was the Feature.

The green flag waved and Gravel got the early jump, but Cole Macedo didn’t make it easy through the early circuits. He stayed within striking distance, but as the laps clicked away Gravel got stronger and stronger through traffic. The defending Series champion led from flag to flag, and the margin of victory was north of six seconds.

“You just never know,” Gravel said. “The pace gets so slow. They did track work, had the tiller out, and they haven’t done that all night. So, I just didn’t know if the top was going to be the place to be or not. We had a lot of aggressive guys behind us, so you know they were going to try it. I saw Cole (Macedo) in (Turns) 1 and 2 those first couple laps, but other than that I didn’t really see him.”

Gravel already owned the most World of Outlaws triumphs at Weedsport entering the night, and he extended that record with his fifth score. He’s won 33-percent of the Series’ visits to the D-shaped track. His 11th checkered flag of 2025 is the 114th of his career with The Greatest Show on Dirt as he continues to close in on Danny Lasoski’s total of 122 for sixth all-time.

Michael “Buddy” Kofoid took the second spot on Lap 22 and held on to finish runner-up. He was one of many sliding across Turns 1 and 2 to meet the cushion in the center of the corners, and it nearly cost him multiple times as he biked the Roth Motorsports machine up on two wheels. But the Penngrove, CA native managed to keep things under control for his 18th podium of the season.

“Just hit the fence basically,” Kofoid said with a laugh of his line in Turns 1 and 2. “The cushion seems to always kind of build here center off (Turn) 2. The entry to (Turn) 1 is just hard to wrap your head around just because the wall is almost like a square. You have to cut across (Turn) 1 otherwise you kind of get hung out in no man’s land and the wall comes at you. It seems better to just slide across. At least for me and our car it was better to be leaning against something.”

Sheldon Haudenschild took the Stenhouse Jr.-Marshall Racing/NOS Energy Drink No. 17 from eighth to third to round out the top three and notch his second straight Weedsport podium. He equaled Logan Schuchart for the fifth most podiums this year and now trails him by a manageable 56 markers for the fourth spot in points.

“It was just tough starting eighth,” Haudenschild explained. “The 1A (Ashton Torgerson) ran her down in there and parked it, and I was running about 10th there, so I was happy for that early caution. I just found the top and was able to get a few guys and just get my tires under me and get a little bit of heat in them and be able to move around.”

The brothers Carson Macedo and Cole Macedo completed the top five.

New York’s own Danny Varin wheeled from 19th to 10th to earn the KSE Racing Products Hard Charger.

Carson Macedo took the Jason Johnson Racing ride to his third Simpson Quick Time of 2025 in Honest Abe Roofing Qualifying.

Heat Races belonged to Carson Macedo (NOS Energy Drink Heat One), Buddy Kofoid (Real American Beer Heat Two), David Gravel (WIX Filters Heat Three), and Ryan Turner (TheGreatestStoreonDirt.com Heat Four).

The SPA Technique #1 Redraw went to David Gravel.

Gravel also topped the Toyota Dash.

Alex Therrien won the Micro-Lite Last Chance Showdown.

The Smith Titanium Brake Systems Break of the Race went to Chris Windom.

UP NEXT: The World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Cars head to the always exciting I-55 Federated Auto Parts Raceway Park in Pevely, MO on Aug. 1-2 for the grueling Ironman 55. The winner of the 55-lap finale takes the title of Ironman and $25,000. For tickets, CLICK HERE.

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

FEATURE RESULTS:

NOS Energy Drink Feature (30 Laps): 1. 2-David Gravel[1]; 2. 83-Michael Kofoid[3]; 3. 17-Sheldon Haudenschild[8]; 4. 41-Carson Macedo[7]; 5. 2C-Cole Macedo[2]; 6. 1S-Logan Schuchart[6]; 7. 15T-Ryan Turner[4]; 8. 18-Emerson Axsom[10]; 9. 38-Zach Sobotka[9]; 10. O1-Danny Varin[19]; 11. 23-Garet Williamson[11]; 12. 17B-Bill Balog[18]; 13. 28-Jordan Poirier[20]; 14. 15-Donny Schatz[14]; 15. 99L-Larry Wight[16]; 16. 79-Jordan Thomas[24]; 17. 99-Skylar Gee[15]; 18. 6-Zach Hampton[25]; 19. 45-Cory Eliason[13]; 20. 1A-Ashton Torgerson[5]; 21. 41R-Dalton Rombough[23]; 22. 55-Hunter Schuerenberg[22]; 23. 21-Alex Therrien[21]; 24. 7S-Chris Windom[12]; 25. 2X-Dave Axton[17]

For complete results, CLICK HERE.