McCreadie, Briggs Found Stride After Program Overhaul; Pairing To Continue In 2026

McCreadie, Briggs Found Stride After Program Overhaul; Pairing To Continue In 2026

By JACK O’CONNOR
When Tim McCreadie looks back on his 2025 campaign with the World of Outlaws Late Model Series, he wonders what could’ve been had he ran the entire season with a Longhorn Chassis as opposed to starting out the year with Rockets.
Through the first seven races of this year, running a Rocket car, the Watertown, NY driver had only been able to muster two top ten finishes and was bolstering an average finish of 14.2, leading to the Boom Briggs-owned No. 9 team to break out a Longhorn for the event at IL’s Farmer City Raceway in April.
While McCreadie didn’t have the finishes at Farmer City he wanted as he crossed the line 21st and 19th, it didn’t take too long for the driver who won two straight Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series championships in a Longhorn to feel right back at home as in the seven races that followed, he scored six top ten finishes, including two wins at OH’s Raceway 7 May 15 and at PA’s Bedford Speedway just three days later.
The consistency continued throughout the year as heading into this past week’s World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte, McCreadie had six victories, which was second most behind champion Bobby Pierce and was sitting fourth in the standings, a position he maintained when the dust settled on the weekend.
“We thought the stuff with Rocket would be really good, but it wasn’t working out and we were on a bit of a tail spin,” McCreadie said before action kicked off Friday.
“So, we decided to switch cars and our shock program, and that really turned things around for us. If we could start the season over again, who knows where we’d be. Nonetheless, I’m happy we finished strong and we definitely have some things to build off of for next year.”
This season was McCreadie’s first in a decade that he followed the World of Outlaws tour full-time. For the 2006 series champion McCreadie, he felt it was just time to change things up.
“If you’re doing the same tour long enough, you get used to how the swing goes,” McCreadie said.
“There was a lot of places I had never been to, so the traveling schedules kind of threw us off a little bit, but it was fun. No matter which side you’re on, there’s good cars that run hard; both are very professional. We’ve been over there (Lucas) for a good bit and had success, so I figured why not come back over here and see what it feels like.”
Last season, the 51-year-old departed Paylor Motorsports, the organization he spent more than four years at, to take an offer to drive the Mark Richards-owned Rocket house car. However, the partnership only lasted nine months as Brandon Sheppard was tabbed to return to that seat for a second time this year, resulting in McCreadie teaming up with Briggs, a native of Bear Lake, PA.
McCreadie said he had been close friends with Briggs and even traveled to races with him previously, which made getting behind the wheel of Briggs’ machine easy.
“We’ve raced around and helped each other out throughout the years anyway, so it wasn’t that hard to come over and race for him (Briggs),” McCreadie said.
“Plus, I had already been riding to the tracks with him a lot because I lived by him enough to just go with him. So figuring out if we could get along and not have any problems was easy. Then at the shop, Chub (Frank) and everybody there are great people and the equipment has always been first class. It was hard work, but it wasn’t really stressful because it all came together like we were hoping it would.”
Its looking like both McCreadie and Briggs are coming back for more next year.
“They seem to be okay with me; I haven’t heard otherwise,” McCreadie said.
“A lot of this stuff is normal type of racing; we don’t need to have contracts. There’s a couple of places I’ve been where I should’ve probably had contracts drawn up, but running with these guys feels like when I was running the Sweeteners stuff. It’s been good, and hopefully we fighting for a championship next year.”
In years past, McCreadie has been busy at the World Finals, pulling double duty aboard the Petruska family-owned Atlas Paving No. 66 Big Block Modified. This year though, McCreadie, a 23-time winner with the Super DIRTcar Series, said running a Modified wasn’t in the cards, and he’s unsure when he might do it again.
“I know the Petruska’s have gone in a different direction with (Matt) Sheppard and (Alex) Yankowski, so they probably didn’t need me anymore and I really haven’t had any other offers or looked for anything else to do,” McCreadie said.
“I think for me to do the Modified again, I need somebody who would allow me to do a little bit of practicing so I could knock the rust off and actually figure something that helps me out that could make me quick enough to be competitive down here. Right now, the Modifieds are so different and I don’t want to waste races that cost so much money to run if I feel we aren’t going to be competitive. We’ll see what the future holds though.”