The traditional colors of the end-of-year holiday season are red and green. And red and green — as reflected in the “Results and Entries” listings under “Drivers” in the USTA website area — tells you about all you need to know about the 2015 North American drivers dashwinning title.

George Napolitano Jr. won three times on the final day of the 2015 season at Harrah’s Philadelphia Sunday afternoon (Dec. 13), giving him 832 victories this year. Aaron Merriman won four times at Northfield Park on Sunday evening, cutting Napolitano’s edge to five, 832-827.

But you have to look at the “red and green” to know to not expect a nip-and-tuck battle for the remainder of the year, but a coronation to come, likely this week.

“Green” in the USTA system means results are in and posted; “red” denotes cards that the horseman is scheduled to participate in as far out as the draws have gone.

Merriman has six red squares — one for each of the two cards he will be driving each of the next three days, at The Meadows in the afternoon and at Northfield at night — on top of the “green” boxes indicating recent results.

Napolitano has no “red boxes.” They all are green. George Napolitano Jr. has said all along that after the Philly meet closed, he would not again sulkysit in 2015, and to date he is keeping to that statement. He closes his year five ahead of Merriman — but now with nothing in the way of Aaron Merriman gaining the 2015 national title.

Napolitano won the second, third, and 10th races at Harrah’s Sunday, bringing his final seasonal total to 399 victories, eclipsing Tim Tetrick’s former local one-year mark of 380. His UDR landed at .397, also giving him the local crown in that category.

This performance was a repeat of his campaign at his other base of operations, The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono, 100 miles due north of Harrah’s on the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania turnpike, where he won 407 races (breaking his own record) and also had the leading UDR figure of .407. (UDR title figures are based on a driver having competed an average of at least once per card; UTR titles for trainers are generally figured for trainers that have one starter for every two cards — a distinction that will become important a few lines below.)

One of Napolitano’s winners Sunday came from the barn of Gilberto Garcia-Herrera, who visited Victory Lane 153 times during the meet for his first Philly dash title, beating out Ron Burke by 16 victories — a sizable accomplishment, seeing as Burke had won the last two training win titles here, and five of the last six. In the UTR category, Chris Oakes won the title, his 99 entrants letting him amass a UTR of .440 — vs. the .438 figure for Garcia-Herrera (who had won a UTR crown locally in 2012), even with Gil having a win and three seconds in seven starters on closing day.

Merriman visited the Northfield winner’s half-circle after the third, ninth, 10th, and 15th races Sunday night to finish his week with 15 victories. Even half that number of wins this coming week would put Merriman in a lead he almost assuredly would retain until the end of the year. In third place is Merriman’s fellow Northfield competitor Ron Wrenn Jr., two-time defending North American sulkysitting dash champ, at 752 wins.

Aaron Merriman has led this particular dance for a significant length of time twice before — in 2010, when a June accident put him on the sidelines for four months, and last year, where Wrenn mounted an unbelievable December rush of 100-plus wins to snatch the title in the final days of the campaign.

This year, the road is straight and clear for Aaron Merriman — and he starts his march down this particular yellow-brick road Monday afternoon at The Meadows.