Who Wins Tonight's Topless 100? Reading the Signs at Batesville

If you've had a scanner app open for the last two weeks, you already know: this might be the best stretch of dirt late model racing all year. Two 100-lappers down, one $50,000 finale left tonight at Batesville Motor Speedway, and every one of them has changed who you'd bet on.

The 34th Annual Ace Doran Topless 100 wraps up tonight. Here's what got us here, and who's actually in form for it.

Photo: Heath Lawson

Florence Set the Tone

The Sunoco North-South 100 at Florence Speedway on August 8 was as good as it gets. Josh Rice — racing 20 minutes from his own shop — won a two-lap, side-by-side duel with Jonathan Davenport for his first career North-South 100, worth $75,000.

It wasn't clean getting there. A lap-11 pileup on the frontstretch collected more than half the field, including Brandon Sheppard, Mike Marlar, and four-time North-South winner Bobby Pierce — all gone before the race was a quarter over. Rice changed four tires across three stops and drove through a broken shock to run down Davenport in the closing laps.

Two things that matters for tonight: Rice is riding the biggest win of his career into his home region, and Davenport — who's dominated Batesville for years — proved his car is plenty fast even after losing one at the wire.

Cedar Lake Reminded Everyone Who's Hot

A week before Florence, the World of Outlaws USA Nationals at Cedar Lake Speedway had its own headline: Bobby Pierce started 10th and drove to his third USA Nationals win in four years, worth $100,000. Tyler Erb had opened the week with the Thursday prelim.

USA Nationals isn't a Lucas Oil points race, so it won't touch tonight's standings. But it moved Pierce back to the top of the national rankings and reset the conversation about who's actually the best car in the country right now — which makes every result the rest of this month worth watching a little closer, Topless 100 included.

Friday at Batesville: Tires Wrote the Story

Friday's twin 25-lap semifeatures locked the top 16 points-earners into tonight's field, and tires — not raw speed — decided both of them.

Max Blair won semifeature one after inheriting the lead when Devin Moran went flat with five laps left, then held off a hard-charging Carson Ferguson to the stripe. Points leader Brandon Sheppard led early but pitted twice for flats of his own. Charlie Cole salvaged third despite losing power steering midway through — eight caution flags in one 25-lap race tells you how much the track was chewing up rubber.

Photo: Zach Yost

So Who Wins Tonight?

Nobody actually knows — that's the fun of it — but here's how we'd stack the field.

• Jonathan Davenport is the default favorite on history alone: six wins at Batesville since 2021, two Topless 100 titles including last year's, and over $140,000 banked at this track. He was also the fastest car at Florence for 98 laps.
• Josh Rice carries real momentum and nothing to lose. Teams that just won the biggest race of their season tend to show up loose and confident, not tight.
• Brandon Sheppard still leads the points, but two flats on a chewed-up Friday track is a real yellow flag for tire strategy over 100 laps tonight.
• Tim McCreadie and Dale McDowell, the last two men not named Davenport to win this race, both know exactly what it takes at this track.
• Don't sleep on Billy Moyer — the Batesville native won the Comp Cams Series stop here back in July, and hometown knowledge is worth real lap time on a track this technical.

Pro tip for anyone racing this weekend, not just watching: the thing most fans miss about a 100-lap show is that it's rarely won on raw pace. Friday's semifeatures were decided by who managed their tires, not who was fastest lap one — plan your setup and pit strategy for lap 100, not lap 10.

Current Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series Standings

The series is back to a traditional season-long points format in 2026 — no playoff — chasing a $1.2 million points fund that gets divided up at the season-ending Dirt Track World Championship at West Virginia Motor Speedway in November. Here's where the top 10 sit heading into tonight, per Lucas Oil's official standings:

| Pos | Driver | Points | Behind | |-----|--------|--------|--------| | 1 | Brandon Sheppard | 5,735 | Leader | | 2 | Hudson O'Neal | 5,650 | -85 | | 3 | Devin Moran | 5,590 | -145 | | 4 | Brandon Overton | 5,285 | -450 | | 5 | Max Blair | 5,215 | -520 | | 6 | Ricky Thornton Jr. | 5,110 | -625 | | 7 | Garrett Alberson | 4,995 | -740 | | 8 | Josh Rice | 4,945 | -790 | | 9 | Brian Shirley | 4,945 | -790 | | 10 | Kyle Bronson | 4,665 | -1,070 |

Worth noting: Alberson sat out Batesville while recovering from injuries, so his points lead over Rice and Shirley won't move tonight regardless of how the race unfolds.

Photo: Mike Ruefer

Every Result Adds Up — At Any Level

Big series or your local Saturday show, the math is the same: results compound over a season, and the teams who actually track them — not just remember the wins — are the ones who know where they stand before points night comes around. That's the whole idea behind MZS's results tracking, built for exactly this kind of week-to-week grind, just at a scale that fits your team instead of a $1.2 million points fund.

The takeaway: three drivers enter tonight's $50,000 Topless 100 with a legitimate case to win it, and by Sunday morning the points battle, the "who's really number one" argument, and the Batesville trophy case will all look a little different.