For the second season in a row, the championship battle in the headlining Modified division is going to come down to the final night of the season at Bowman Gray Stadium. And just like last year, it’s coming down to Tim Brown making more history, or Brandon Ward scoring his first Bowman Gray title.

But that’s where the similarities between this year and last year come to an end. Last year all anybody wanted to talk about was whether Brown could win his 12th championship even without winning a race. Brown proved that he could, and extended his own Bowman Gray record in the process.

Entering Saturday’s 150-lap season finale, Brown already has four wins on the season. A fifth victory would guarantee him his 13th championship at “The Madhouse.” In fact, according to Justin Mincey, Bowman Gray’s unofficial stat keeper, Brown would be guaranteed to win the championship by finishing in second, even if Ward wins the race. Brown enters Saturday’s finale with a seven-point lead over Ward.

Even if Brown fails to finish in the top two positions, his path to the championship is still very clear. He has to finish within one position of Ward, and within five positions of Chris Fleming, who is currently third in the points standings, 17 points behind Brown.

Ward has been having the type of season that Brown had one year ago. Ward has been extremely consistent, with only two finishes outside of the top five the entire season. And even when he has finished outside of the top five, his finishes were sixth and seventh. Ward’s only fault this season has been not scoring a victory. But even without the victory, Ward still finds himself just seven points back of Brown with a chance at his first Bowman Gray championship on Saturday night. 

Ward needs to finish two positions better than Brown. If he does that, Ward will score his first Bowman Gray Stadium championship and become the 24th driver to win a Modified championship at Bowman Gray.

Third-place driver Chris Fleming looked primed to be the one to take the fight to Brown in the finale, but a rough night one week ago was a major setback for Fleming. Fleming entered the penultimate night of the season as the points leader, but his first feature last weekend came to an end on just the second lap due to a mechanical issue. He finished eighth in the second race of the night. Fleming has three victories on the season entering Saturday’s finale.

In order for Fleming to pull off the upset on Saturday, Fleming would have to finish four positions ahead of Ward, and six spots ahead of Brown. That would score Fleming his first Modified championship, and Fleming would become the oldest Modified champion in the history of Bowman Gray Stadium at 60 years, one month and seven days old.

Lee Jeffreys, Burt Myers and Junior Snow are all still mathematical possibilities to win the championship, though it would take miracles for any of those three drivers to pull it off. Jeffreys is 40 points back, while Myers is 48 points behind, and Snow is 67 points behind Brown.

The Modified division isn’t the only division with a compelling championship battle coming to an end on Saturday night. In fact, all four divisions have a relatively tight battle to decide their respective champion.

The closest battle out of any division belongs to the Street Stocks. Christian Joyce is just four points ahead of Austin Jones, and eight points clear of Brad Lewis. Joyce has to finish second or better to win the championship via tiebreaker with Jones. Jones has to finish two positions ahead of Joyce to win the title. Lewis can win the championship if he finishes one spot ahead of Jones and three positions ahead of Joyce. Joyce holds the tiebreaker over Jones and Lewis should the points end deadlocked.

In the Sportsman division, Chase Robertson’s five victories on the season have him 19 points clear of Zack Ore, and 24 points clear of Riley Neal. Robertson will score his first Sportsman title by finishing fifth or better. Ore can pick up his first Sportsman championship by finishing five positions ahead of Robertson. Neal’s path to become the third father-son champion duo in the Sportsman division is a bit tougher as he would have to finish two spots ahead of Ore and seven spots ahead of Robertson.

And finally in the Stadium Stock division, A.J. Sanders is inching closer to his fourth Stadium Stock title, which would tie him for the most championships in that division with Chick Wall. Sanders leads Brandon Brendle by 20 points, and has to finish fifth or better to secure the championship.

It all comes to an end on Saturday night at Bowman Gray Stadium, live on FloRacing. Race fans that can’t make it to Bowman Gray can watch with a FloRacing subscription. Fans can subscribe by clicking here.