After serving a suspension halfway through the season, Matt Sheppard mounted one of the biggest comebacks in Super DIRTcar history to win the Textron Off-Road World Finals and his sixth series championship on Saturday night at The Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, NC.

The points battle was in question until the final lap of the final race of the season. Billy Decker started the night only 37 points behind Sheppard.

Entering the weekend, Sheppard knew that the best way to keep his lead was to make sure Decker stayed behind him, and he accomplished that goal through three nights of racing. Friday might have been a little closer than he desired. Sheppard finished second in that feature with Decker in third.

On Saturday night, Sheppard started on the pole after setting fast time and winning his heat on Thursday.

“Wow this is unreal," Sheppard said. “You can't take a lap off here; you have to be on the gas running as hard as you can every single lap. It's awesome to be able to put on a show like that in front of a crowd like this. This makes our season."

Sheppard held the points lead in early July. An incident between Sheppard and Larry Wight at Utica-Rome Speedway in Vernon, NY, resulted in a two-race suspension for Superman, but instead of setting him back, it freed him to race more aggressively.

Sheppard fell as low as ninth in the standings — 185 points out of the lead.

"When you're leading the points all season, you're worried every race about finishing good and it kind of took the pressure off, and we just went out and said we want to win as many races as we can and that's what we did,” Sheppard said.

By the time the checkers waved over Charlotte on Saturday night, Sheppard had 12 wins.

The three-time champion Decker chased Sheppard through the end of the season and closed the gap to 30 points entering the World Finals weekend. And while it was not Decker's time to add a fourth trophy to the mantle, he put four more wins in the record books.

"I'm so proud of this whole team, they worked really hard to overcome some obstacles," Decker said. "We dug and clawed and fought. I'm disappointed we didn't get the championship, but I don't want to take anything away from their efforts and second place in points."

Decker finished seventh Saturday night.

As for Saturday night’s race itself, Sheppard did not want to leave anything to chance. Starting on the pole, he sliced his way through traffic as the first half of the event went caution free. He built up a two-second lead over Keith Flach and was never really contested.

Flach finished second. Mike Mahaney rounded out the podium.

Top-10 Finishers 
1. Matt Sheppard
2. Keith Flach
3. Mike Mahaney
4. Danny Johnson
5. Tim Fuller
6. Peter Britten
7. Billy Decker
8. Ryan Godown
9. Pat Ward
10. Erick Rudolph