Michael Atwell Carrying Confidence into World Crown 300 at Cordele

Michael Atwell hopes to continue a stellar season on Saturday with a win in the Cohen Law Group World Crown 300 at Cordele Motor Speedway.

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Atwell returns to Cordele after earning a fourth-place finish in the Georgia Summer Nationals 125 one month ago. It was Atwell's third career top-five finish in the Summer Nationals.

While the Florida driver has enjoyed success at Cordele over the years, he returns this time with even more confidence than before. A winner of several marquee events in the Sunshine State during his career, Atwell scored a breakthrough win earlier this season in the Rattler 250 at South Alabama Speedway.

That confidence gives Atwell plenty of reason to believe he can win one of several marquee events to end the 2025 season. That stretch begins on Saturday with the World Crown 300.

“A lot of us know when it comes to racing, confidence is a big thing, whether that be team confidence, whether that’s confidence in myself," Atwell told Racing America. "I know that the guys we’ve got behind us, Chris Davidson Motorsports, Mike Garvey, myself, I know we all work our tails off and do the right things.

“It shows that we deserve to compete with the best and are competing with the best. We’re showing up there to win. That’s what we do every week and what everybody does, but we definitely have the confidence going in and I think we have a really good shot at it.”

ENTRY LIST: Cohen Law Group World Crown 300 Presented by Noland's Roofing

The World Crown 300 returned to the Super Late Model landscape one year ago, with Michael Hinde scoring the win. Atwell struggled, finishing two laps down in 12th, but competing in this year's Super Fest series at Cordele has given him plenty of notes to use for Saturday's $35,000-to-win event.

“We missed it a little bit last year,” Atwell said. “We went there a few weeks ago and we were decent but definitely had a lot of room to improve. I’m excited to get back there for sure, and, you know, such a prestigious event. Hopefully, we can add that one to the list this year."

The World Crown debuted in 1983, and continued until the closure of Gresham Motorsports Park in 2014. If Atwell can win on Saturday, he'll join a list of drivers including the likes of Dick Trickle, Darrell Waltrip, Chase Elliott, Mike Eddy, Gary Balough, Rich Bickle, Bobby Gill, Freddie Query and Ronnie Sanders as World Crown victors.

READ MORE: World Crown 300 Adding Another Chapter to History Books on Saturday

“Putting the trophy on the shelf would be amazing," added Atwell. "Looking down the list of people that have won that, it’s just like looking down the list of the Rattler 250 and seeing all the historic names that have won it and where they’ve progressed through their racing career. It absolutely would be incredible to be able to hang that up on the shelf.

“I think we’re hitting the peak. We’ve ran good all year, and really these last few months when we thought we could improve on balance and that kind of stuff, we still come out with really good results. Building on the confidence, I think we’re peaking here at the right time of the year to show up and knock some of these off the wall.

An extra challenge with the World Crown 300 compared to other events at Cordele, such as SpeedFest or the Georgia Summer Nationals, is the distance. With 300 laps of feature racing on the docket for Saturday, competitors must stay on top of the temperamental racing surface at the Cordele, Georgia facility.

“You’ve got to make sure the balance is right, because it changes and progresses so much throughout temperature changes and the amount of rubber that’s being put down on the track," Atwell explained. "Normally, we are pretty good there. Going there a month ago, we definitely learned a lot, especially with the Hoosier tires we were on and that kind of stuff. We were just looking for the balance and we missed it a little bit.

“Especially in a 300-lap, you’ve got to keep the fenders on it, to begin with. It’s just making sure we can keep up with the track throughout the weekend, make sure that we’re making the right adjustments."

Fans can watch Saturday's Cohen Law Group World Crown 300 live on RacingAmerica.TV. Click here to become a RacingAmerica.TV subscriber today, and tune in at 6 p.m. ET for all of the action.

-Photo credit: Will Bellamy/Racing America