BARBERVILLE, Fla.  For the first time, Garrett Alberson elected to include Volusia Speedway Park on his early-season itinerary. And after two nights of action, hes already fallen in love with the half-mile race track.

After an exhilarating late-race tussle, the Las Cruces, N.M., driver won for the first time with the World of Outlaws Late Models and bagged the $20,000 top prize in Saturdays DIRTcar Sunshine Nationals finale.

Its huge for the team, Alberson said. This is what Ive wanted to do my whole life. Just to be a contender in late model racing, its super cool.

Alberson began the 50-lap affair in the third starting spot behind two of dirt late model racings all-time greats Jimmy Owens  and Jonathan Davenport. Owens broke away to the early lead, while a slow start for Davenport allowed Alberson to climb to second exiting Turn 2 on the first lap.

Owens looked to have the dominant car early on, but Alberson kept the gap within a second until Lap 14. Nick Hoffmans  run of misfortune continued for the second-straight night with a flat left-front tire, bringing out the caution.

On the ensuing restart, Alberson briefly lost second to Tyler Erb but regained the spot when the No. 1t slid up and out of the groove in Turn 2 just before halfway.

After a caution due to a spinning Brent Larson, Alberson got his first look at the lead as he went three-wide down the backstretch with Owens and Max Blair for the top spot. Owens won that battle, but Alberson wasnt keen on letting him get away. Following a handful of attempts, Alberson threw a slider and made it stick to take the lead for the first time with eight to go.

Jimmy got out there really good early, but I could pace him and kind of run down the track a little bit, Alberson said. I knew once we got clean air there, I was going to be OK. I could make really good speed in the top, my right-front was giving up a little bit getting tight like everybody else.

When it looked like Alberson was driving away to a comfortable victory, Brian Shirley slowed on the frontstretch to set up a three-lap Dash to the checkers. For Alberson, the path to his first World of Outlaws win was simple hold off a future first-ballot Hall of Famer in Davenport.

Half a lap after the restart, Davenport slid up in front of Alberson before the No. 58 crossed him back exiting Turn 4. Superman tried the same move in the next set of corners, but Alberson once again had the momentum on exit to prevail. One more perfect lap later, Alberson crossed the line to become the 102nd feature winner in series history and first from the state of New Mexico.

Man, that restart got wild, Alberson said. JD and I were throwing slide jobs there at the end, hopefully it was all clean and everything. Man, this is awesome.

For Davenport, his maiden Sunshine Nationals appearance wrapped up with his second runner-up in as many nights. With a weekend of consistent speed at Volusia under their belts, the No. 49 team will be among the favorites when the Series returns to the track in February for Federated Auto Parts DIRTcar Nationals.

I thought Id make him earn it anyway, Davenport said. I didnt think I could get to him, but I found a line that I could slide across him through [Turns] 1 and 2, really stuck until we could exit.

Garrett pushed a little off of 2, so I said, might as well try it. But I bottomed out when I went to slide him and got a little more sideways than I wanted to so I wouldnt clear him and not hit him. That put me a little bit out of the ballpark, and then he got another run on me. From then, I was just trying to break his momentum.

Rounding out the podium was the No. 111 of Blair, who spent the entirety of the second half of the Feature lurking in the top five. After his Friday feature came to an early end with a Lap 1 incident, the third-place run was just what the doctor ordered for the Centerline Motorsports team.

I think we had speed all weekend, Blair said. The race track was awesome tonight, I cant say enough about how much work they put into getting something like this to race on. Minus one little bump into Turn 3, I dont know if it could have been any better.

Devin Moran drove from 15th up to fourth while Owens fell to fifth at the finish.

The finish:

Feature (50 Laps): 1. 58-Garrett Alberson[3]; 2. 49D-Jonathan Davenport[2]; 3. 111-Max Blair[7]; 4. 99-Devin Moran[15]; 5. 20-Jimmy Owens [1]; 6. 32-Bobby Pierce [17]; 7. 1T-Tyler Erb[4]; 8. 71-Hudson ONeal[22]; 9. 1-Brandon Sheppard [23]; 10. 9-Nick Hoffman [5]; 11. 2-Cody Overton [6]; 12. 74X-Ethan Dotson[18]; 13. 97-Cade Dillard [25]; 14. 96-Tanner English[14]; 15. 22*-Drake Troutman[27]; 16. 40B-Kyle Bronson [9]; 17. 28-Dennis Erb Jr.[26]; 18. 19R-Ryan Gustin [16]; 19. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[24]; 20. 16-Tyler Bruening [19]; 21. 19-Dustin Sorensen [20]; 22. 22-Daniel Hilsabeck[8]; 23. B10-Brent Larson [28]; 24. 3S-Brian Shirley [13]; 25. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain [29]; 26. 14W-Dustin Walker [30]; 27. 9M-Tim McCreadie[11]; 28. 44-Chris Madden [12]; 29. 76-Brandon Overton[21]; 30. 157-Mike Marlar[10]