Inside Dirt Late Model Racing
Column: World’s purse boost matches prestige
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt senior writer
The news came the morning of Feb. 28, as Georgia-Florida Speedweeks was still churning away, so some Dirt Late Model racers didn’t catch the important bit of information as soon as it was announced.
Like Jonathan Davenport, the 42-year-old superstar from Blairsville, Ga., who wasn’t the first person on his Double L Motorsports team to learn that the World 100 at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio — a race he’s won five times — was getting a major payoff bump to bring the winner’s prize in 2026 to an even $100,000 and the total three-day purse to a record $680,200.
“I didn’t even know it,” Davenport said last week when asked for his thoughts on the purse increase while he was competing in the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series-sanctioned Wieland Winternationals at Golden Isles Speedway near Brunswick, Ga. “I was reading that and I’m like (to crew members), ‘Guys, y’all know this?’ They’re like, ‘Yeah.’ I’m like, ‘Tell me!’ ”
The World 100 reveal was big news for Davenport and the rest of the Dirt Late Model world that correctly views Eldora’s long-running event — scheduled this year for Sept. 10-12 — as being far and away the division’s towering race. No other event packs as much punch as the World 100, which has grown into a juggernaut since its launch in 1971 by late Eldora founder Earl Baltes.
“That’s awesome,” Davenport said. “I’m glad (track owner) Tony Stewart and Eldora stepped up. That is our crown jewel. I mean, it needs to pay as much as anything else I feel like.”
Davenport’s comment represented the consensus across the Dirt Late Model landscape. As overwhelming as the World 100’s stamp is on the division, its posted purse, specifically at the top, hasn’t matched its cultural significance.
“We were talking last year that the World is the biggest Late Model race in the country, so they needed to boost the money,” said Devin Moran of Dresden, Ohio, the reigning Lucas Oil Series champion who is seeking his first victory in the Eldora classic that his Hall of Fame father Donnie captured four times. “So they didn’t listen to us, I wouldn’t think, but they did boost it up, so it was pretty cool to see.”
Mark Richards, the co-owner of the Rocket Chassis house car driven by Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill., expounded on Moran’s thought.
“Truthfully, the World 100 should be the biggest paying race because it’s the most prestigious race,” said Richards, who has been attending the World 100 for more than four decades as a crew member or car owner and finally won it in 2023 with Hudson O’Neal of Martinsville, Ind. “It’s the biggest crowd, and it’s got the best aura of all the races, so really, it should be…”
Richards paused. He considered a worthy first-place prize and then offered the number “$200,000,” though he understood that Stewart and Eldora pushing the race’s winner’s check to six-figures for the first time in its history is certainly a big deal. With the World 100 matching the first-place offering of Eldora’s June Dream, which has paid six-figures to win since its inception in 1994 (and climbed as high as $129,000 in ’23 before going back to $100,000 in ’24 with the money redistributed to other positions), no longer will anyone muse that they’d take the Dream’s cash over the World’s cachet.
“When I won those Dreams, everybody’s like, ‘Man, how cool would it be to win the World?’” said Brandon Overton of Evans, Ga., who famously swept the double Dreams that were run in 2021. “I’m like, ‘Who gives a s---?’ You know what I mean? I won $126,000 and $127,000 or whatever it was for (each of) those Dreams. When I won the World (in September 2021), it wasn’t half that (it paid $54,000).
“So yeah, I think it should pay a hundred-grand. That’s cool. I mean, Tony and them do a good job. They’re always stepping it up. That’s great for the sport. This gives you more reason to get your s--- right and go take advantage of it.”
The 25-year-old O’Neal doesn’t cling to the financial aspect of choosing the Dream over the World 100, but he’s glad to see that thought taken out of the equation for a driver.
“The World is the premier event for us and it’s kind of odd that the Dream has always paid more,” O’Neal said. “I’m still young and money probably doesn’t mean quite as much to me as what it does to, you know, maybe Davenport or somebody, so I would rather win the World. Even if it only paid $50,000 again, I would much rather win the World five times over than win the Dream once. It’s just the nostalgia and that’s the race that everybody wants. It’s the Super Bowl for us.
“But I’m really excited about (the World 100 increase). It was really cool to see that, and I think it’s a real tip of the hat to Tony (Stewart) and (Eldora general manager) Levi Jones. Tony recognizes what the World means to all of us and means to the fans, and that it should be one of the better paying racers that we go to all year.”
Richards pointed out the bottom-line fact of the World 100’s purse increase.
“The money’s getting to where it matches what the prestige is,” Richards said. “The prestige part of it, it doesn’t pay the bills, you know, right? I mean, we race a lot of races that pay 50-some-thousand (to win) now.”
Indeed, the explosion in purses across Dirt Late Model racing, especially in recent years, had essentially overtaken the World 100. The race began in ’71 with Baltes putting up a $4,000 winner’s prize (and $25-to-start) and then pledging to rise the first-place payoff by $1,000 each succeeding year. That grand-a-year increase became a tradition all the way through 2024, though there were a couple years when bonuses pushed the World 100 winner’s booty a little higher: in 1982 an extra $10,000 posted by noted dirt-track sponsor J.W. Hunt boosted Mike Duvall’s winning take to a then record $25,000 and in 2012 Brian Birkhofer became the race’s first $50,000 victor thanks to a $5,000 bonus added by Mark Larson of Rock Rivers Arms in Colona, Ill.
That $1,000 progression was a neat feature and a throwback to Baltes, but as Richards noted, “it never caught up to today’s times” as “inflation grew faster than the thousand dollars did.” Moran suggested that “with inflation it needs to be $10,000 a year or something,” and really, he’s not far off; the $1,000 increase that began in 1972 is equivalent to nearly $8,000 in today’s dollars.
The thousand-dollar tradition simply couldn’t keep the World 100 on pace with the rising tides of Dirt Late Model payoffs. Consider that in 1997 when the World 100 reached $30,000-to-win, only three races that year paid $50,000-or-more: the Dream, a 50th anniversary event at Hagerstown (Md.) Speedway and the Dirt Track World Championship at Pennsboro (W.Va.) Speedway. In 2017, when the World 100 hit $50,000 for the first time without including a bonus, there were five other races that paid at least $50,000-to-win: the Dream, DTWC, Silver Dollar Nationals, USA Nationals and North-South 100.
Now look at the schedules of the last two years. In 2025, when the World 100 shot from $58,000 to $72,000 in recognition of Eldora’s 72nd anniversary, there were 17 other Super Late Model races that paid at least $50,000-to-win, including four worth $75,000 and three at $100,000. This year, aside from the World 100, there are 18 races scheduled that pay at least $50,000; the World 100 is one of four offering $100,000-to-win (along with the Dream, USA Nationals and DTWC), so no longer does the most coveted event play second-fiddle in winner’s payoff to any other race. The World 100 now even pays a richer overall purse over it’s three-day run than the Dream, though the $5,600-to-start the World is slightly less than the Dream’s $6,000.
“They’re putting the money up as they should,” Moran said. “It just elevates the World 100 to an even bigger race. It’s so awesome to see Tony do that, and like I said, I’m excited for September. It would be the perfect time to win it now.”
Sheppard, who won the Dream in 2019 with the Rocket1 team for $125,000, sees the World 100 becoming even more pressure-packed with the money rising to the race’s stature.
“Eldora is already such a hard place to win at, and now with the World paying $100,000, it's gonna be... people are gonna be even more on point,” Sheppard said. “It’s the best time to win the World now — especially to have your name as the first $100,000 World winner.”
Davenport, who with one more World 100 victory will tie Billy Moyer for the most wins in event history, is on board with the race’s monetary expansion. While he continues to campaign for Dirt Late Model events to back off huge first-place payoffs and instead distribute more money throughout the purse to help keep more teams going — and he noted with a sly smile that Eldora’s Kings Royal Sprint Car weekend still offers the track’s biggest first-place prize ($200,000) and overall purse ($942,675) — he’s a believer in the World 100 always being at the top of his chosen division’s financial rankings.
“I was an asphalt racer (growing up), then I come over here and done this, and I’m like, ‘I’d rather win a Dream than a World because it pays more and we do this for a living,’ ” Davenport said. “But now, I’m more into the history part of it on this side. I’ve been here long enough. I’m like, now, well, the World's definitely cool. There's more prestige, there’s more people there, all that.
“Now,” he concluded, “it has a paycheck to go with it.”
