DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

Dirt racing news, results, discussion, analytics. Sprint cars, late models, modifieds, you name it. From national series, to top local shows. Brought to you five days a week. Email the show at info@dirtrackr.com.

A key divide opens between sprint car series | Daily 11-5-2024

The 2025 High Limit schedule is out, and we'll talk about it. But there was other, quieter news from the series yesterday that might be more important. We'll dive in there and talk about everything you need to know, plus David Gravel's social media troll job and more. Let's go!

It's Tuesday, November 5th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

You hear me talk about it periodically, but one of the best parts of dirtrackr.com is the analytics section. 12 series and special events, approaching 2200 races worth of results, stats, and analysis. In there, you can find a ton of information for free, including full race results, driver pages, and a bunch of stats. But if you want access to every tool and number I use for researching the daily shows, grab a subscription to DIRTRACKR Plus. $4.99 a month, or $49.99 a year. The year subscription gets you two months free effectively. And you can cancel any time very easily. Signing up gets you access to the Plus Dashboard which has added stat tools and visualizations. Unlock more than 25 extra features, including exclusive insights not found anywhere else. Whether you're a race fan, member of the media, or work for a series or track, DIRTRACKR Plus is the perfect resource for current dirt racing data to elevate your knowledge. Beat your friends in those dirt racing pools, or get an edge when you place those bets on things like USAC. And some of your favorite drivers and media members are already signed up for DIRTRACKR Plus. See everything Plus has to offer and sign up for a subscription over at dirtrackr.com/getplus.

If you guys were paying attention yesterday, you heard me say that if my information was correct, we were going to see the full High Limit schedule very soon, and that very soon was yesterday at 4PM eastern. This is almost a month earlier than the schedule was released for the 2024 season, and it's not lost on me that they made their announcements during World Finals week. Diving in, the slate for year two of High Limit is very different, especially early, and I said a few weeks ago that they were going to learn from the first season and iterate. A bunch of tracks are not back, like 34 Raceway, I-70 and Riverside, and 15 new tracks have been added. The season will open in mid-March at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway dirt track during the NASCAR weekend there, and they will be immediately into a spring California trip. They'll hit Tulare, Bakersfield, and Perris, before then coming back east through Arizona and to Vado in April. There are a lot of similarities to year one after the opening stretch, including the Port Royal weekends, Eldora during Kings Royal, stops at Lernerville, the fall west coast trip, the same run from Skagit to Port for the Tusky, and ending back at Texas. There is a nearly two week break in June, which will give teams the option to run the High Bank Nationals at Huset's, or potentially Dirt Cup at Skagit. And the series is off for the first few weeks in August for the Knoxville Nationals. As is always the case with schedules, some fans are going to be happy that their track was added, and others are going to be furious that certain ones were left off. Every single year when schedules are released, it's the same reaction. When you work in PR or social media for a series during this time, you basically just ignore your notifications for a day or two. These series can't go everywhere, and they aren't going to keep places on the schedule that don't make sense, for a variety of reasons. That's just the nature of the beast. So you won't hear me picking these things apart line by line. I will say though, I hope they have a serious plan in place for Las Vegas. The track surface there has been a problem in the past, and it's not made better by so little running happening there. They did get Texas into solid shape though, so there is hope. I will be curious to see if any of those High Limit teams go south to start the year at Volusia in February. With no East Bay and Golden Isles, there is much less incentive for them to do so. Of the 45 car fields at DIRTcar Nationals in 2024, 13 of them were High Limit guys. Feel free to leave your thoughts on the schedule below. You can see the full Kubota High Limit sprint car schedule over at highlimitracing.com.

Sticking with High Limit here though, I think what might have been more important yesterday was the much quieter side of the annoucements from this series. Besides the schedule, there were a handful of rule changes announced by High Limit's competition director Mike Hess. Two of which feel fairly inconsequential. They are heat race start lane choice for the pole sitter, and a rule about welding header bends. The heat race deal is basically just that the pole sitter can choose their lane for the initial start. The other three rules though have a little more teeth to them, and show that High Limit is not concerned about a significant departure in this space from the World of Outlaws. The first is legalizing an in-axle tire inflation system. Sprint car tires have bleeders in them to release excess tire pressure over the course of the race, and there is concern that under yellows and reds those bleeders allow for too much tire pressure to be lost. So on restarts, drivers don't have a good sense for where they are, especially that right rear. This system legalized by High Limit will actually put some air back in the tires if necessary. This has been characterized to me as more of a safety change than one for performance. The flip side though is these systems are supposedly priced around $1500, and you will see complaints about the cost. The next change is that High Limit is allowing one in-car shock adjuster next season. If you pay attention to non-wing stuff, sprint cars and midgets, you know they have knobs inside the cockpit where they can make adjustments to the compression and/or rebound of their shocks. So just like wing adjustments, drivers while the race is happening will be able to make those changes. The question will become which shock is the right one to adjust, and there is a scenario where teams have every shock adjuster cable run, and then just make a late decision on where to put the knob. The final change is that after a season of one inch wicker bills, which we covered quite a bit through the year here on the show, High Limit is adding back half an inch to those wickers on the top wing. So not back to the two inch wickers, but up to an inch and a half. The jury had remained out on whether or not the wicker bill change in 2024 made racing better, and it's clear here that Hess and High Limit were not convinced, but only adding back half is also evidence they don't think two is the correct size either. Regardless of individual opinions on these changes, I think the bigger takeaway here is that High Limit rules now differ from the World of Outlaws, because it's my understanding that these changes are not coming to that side. So going back and forth between the two series will require some changes and some cost. And then the question becomes, what's the trickle down affect to the regional and local levels. Will these be easy changes that those non-full timers are okay with, or will it cause there to be drivers and teams that dont show up because they can't, or don't want to abide by the new rules. And will you have tracks and smaller series stick with the Outlaw package, or follow High Limit. This rules area could be a key thing to watch in coming years now, because these small departures open the door for much bigger changes in the future.

Before we close today, did you guys see David Gravel's troll job on social media yesterday? He posted a photo of himself and Brad Sweet standing together along the fence, actually at Charlotte, with the caption "2k25" question mark. In the midst of series choices, this is clearly meant to stir things up between the Outlaws and High Limit. And make no mistake here, Gravel is one of the more social media literate drivers there is. He knows exactly what he's doing. He had everyone wondering if a swap to High Limit is in the works, which even spawned a story by Tyler Burnett over at floracing.com. But I went ahead and trolled his troll job and wondered if this was actually an announcement that Brad Sweet was coming back Outlaws. Brad made sure to reply to me though and confirm that is not the case. Hey, man, you never know. I would still expect though, Gravel to stay Outlaws for 2025. Anything is possible, but with Huset's and Jackson not on the High Limit schedule, and some things I've been told, I don't think a swap is in the cards.

That's your Wednesday Daily show. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you back here tomorrow!