David Gravel kicked his championship drive into high gear on Wednesday night at The Dirt Track at Charlotte.

Gravel, who leads the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Cars title chase by 74 points over Carson Macedo, paced the field in qualifying for Thursday’s and Friday’s World of Outlaws World Finals events – a dream start to his week.

A pair of scorching lap times by the driver of the No. 2 Big Game Motorsports entry only furthered the notion that Gravel is three days from being crowned the series’ newest champion. Gravel lapped Charlotte’s four-tenths-mile oval in 12.626 seconds to top the charts for Thursday, before posting a 12.983-second lap to pace the field for Friday’s action. Gravel’s lap for Friday was the session’s only sub-13 second lap.

Brian Brown, Sheldon Haudenschild and Ryan Timms followed Gravel in Thursday time trials, while Buddy Kofoid, Gio Scelzi and Macedo were second through fourth in Friday’s session.

Chris Madden dominated qualifying for Thursday’s portion of World of Outlaws CASE Construction Equipment Late Models racing, using a 14.785-second lap to best Bobby Pierce and Ricky Thornton Jr.

Anthony Perrego was the man of the hour in Wednesday’s Super DIRTcar Series qualifying for Thursday. Perrego entered the weekend ranked fifth in series points, 155 markers behind leader Matt Sheppard – but Perrego is on for a five-point bonus for posting a 16.241-second lap that not even Sheppard, who ranked fourth in the session, could top.

Qualifying for Friday’s Late Model and Big-Block Modified action was postponed to Friday due to inclement weather. Racing returns to The Dirt Track on Thursday, with a full slate of heats and features set to get underway following opening ceremonies at 4 p.m.