DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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It's not new, and I don't give a d*mn about it | Daily 11-14-2024
On this Thursday edition of the Daily, we'll talk you through what has been one of the more the strange and winding sprint car silly season situations, and why I just don't give a damn about ride buying. Plus weekend racing ahead and more. Let's go!
It's Thursday, November 14th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.
The weeks long driver situation for the CJB Motorsports sprint car team finally came to a conclusion yesterday with the announcement that Brenham Crouch will indeed drive for the team in 2025. To run you all the way back through this situation, CJB had spent the last few seasons with Spencer Bayston in the car. Towards the latter part of the summer, it became clear that Bayston was out at season's end, and the clear favorite to take over was Justin Peck. If you were looking for a young dude who can wheel a sprint car and be the face of your deal for years to come, Peck made a lot of sense. With plans for sprint car veteran crew chief Barry Jackson to step back from being on the road full time after 2024, CJB had planned on pairing Peck with Tye Wolfgang from Kasey Kahne Racing. Wolfgang was coming off a stretch as the car chief for Brad Sweet's team, with the guy previously in that spot, Joe Mooney, going on to start a successful run with Anthony Macri. Wolfgang didn't have previous crew chief experience, but he'd obviously worked with some of the sport's best, and clearly that position is a great jumping off point. But somewhere along the way, it seems as though funding and sponsorship became an issue, and suddenly everything was in flux. It's my understanding that even as late as the High Limit finale at Texas Motor Speedway, Peck still thought he had the deal. But word started to get out during that weekend and around the High Limit banquet that CJB was likely going a different direction. And that direction was Brenham Crouch. Crouch was coming off his rookie season on a national tour, where he finished 16th in the High Limit standings with just two top tens, and was effectively last of the full time runners. There is no performance case to be made for why you'd put Crouch in the car over Peck, but there is a business case. We'll come back to that in a bit. As this continued to play out though, when it became clear the driver wasn't going to be Peck, who subsequently signed on with Rudeen, the situation with Wolfgang started to change. For crew guys that are looking to win and compete, the perspective shifts when the driver situation goes from the established Justin Peck to the project that is the development of Crouch. And then through a convenient set of factors with KKR's Eric Prutzman deciding to step out of the crew chief role for Brad Sweet, Wolfgang was the easy and familiar choice there, and he backed out of the job with CJB. Even with Wolfgang out, those of us that cover the sport were hearing an announcement naming Crouch was expected any day, but over the past few weeks, we'd obviously gotten nothing. And then came the rumblings of the deal falling apart. The story was CJB was having a hard time finding crew guys, and maybe they wouldn't sign Crouch after all. There were even rumors of conversations with other drivers. Free agents like Parker Price Miller, Zeb Wise, and Cory Eliason were mentioned. How true any of that was, I'm not sure, but the longer this went without an announcement, the more true it felt. And then suddenly yesterday came the announcement that it would indeed be Crouch. They don't have a schedule yet, who the crew will be is an ongoing situation, but Crouch is in and retired driver Paul McMahan will serve as a mentor. The team will start their 2025 season at Volusia during DIRTcar Nationals with the World of Outlaws and go from there.
So now that you know how this has all played out, I want to take this a bit further. First, Barry Jackson's comments to Jeremy Elliott over at sprintcarunlimited.com yesterday are certainly worth diving into. First, the crew and crew chief problem is apparent, especially given that Jackson conceded to Jeremy that he may have to quote "play a bigger role and spend some time out there" unquote. Jackson meaning there that his pull back to a more shop based team manager role might be over before it really started if they can't find help quickly. The other interesting comment from Jackson was his comparison of Crouch to past CJB driver David Gravel. When talking about being patient with Crouch's development, he mentioned how Gravel had zero wins the season before he came to CJB, and then won nine races the first year, and 20 the second. Jackson did this to illustrate how we don't know a driver's potential. I certainly see his point, but this is an unfair comparison on multiple fronts. First, Gravel had six Outlaw wins on his resume when he started at CJB. Yes, he was winless in 2015, but Gravel knew what it took to win against the Outlaws and already had nearly three full seasons under his belt with the series. Gravel going into 2016 and Brenham Crouch going into 2025 were and are at very different points in their careers. It's not an apples to apples comparison, and it's not fair to Crouch to think he's going to suddenly go from zero wins and two top tens to anything close to what Gravel accomplished in that first season. He's 19 years old with basically two seasons of 410 sprint car racing, one mostly with the IRA, and 2024 with High Limit. He deserves a little more leeway here.
When you look around at the reaction to Crouch getting this deal, you're seeing a lot of comments about money. And yes, going back to my business case reference from earlier, Crouch is bringing more to CJB than just his talent and a seat. I have no problem calling a spade a spade here. Unlike the haters and complainers though, I don't care one bit about ride buying. It's been part of motorsports for many decades, and the pearl clutching over it is ridiculous every time it happens. It's like all of these people are suddenly figuring out how the world works. There are literally entire series built off people buying seats. Leighton Crouch is trying to give his son the best opportunity to succeed. If you are a parent, that should be something that is easy to understand. I work my ass off every day to be able to do the same for my own kid. Racing is expensive and sponsorships are hard to find. I'd much rather CJB take Crouch's deal and stay in business, then fold up and go away completely. Because crew guys are going to have jobs this year because of that car, and there is a chance that Brenham starts to find his footing and figure it out. He's not a weapon on the track, and he's certainly not the worst driver showing up to these races. Regardless of whether ride buying happens or not though, it's always been true that the hypertalented will get deals. Those drivers cannot be ignored. I'm talking about the Kyle Larsons and Christopher Bells and Buddy Kofoids and Corey Days. Talent and ability have always mattered, and that will continue to be true. But for the rest of the field, money talks. Some drivers need to more time to figure it out, and engines and tires and diesel fuel aren't going to buy themselves. I will forever not understand why some just can't seem to wrap their brains around that.
Alright, let's run through quickly all of the racing coming up this weekend. At Senoia, the FloRacing Night in America series closes out their season with two nights, Friday and Saturday. $20,000 and $30,000 to win, plus the $75,000 championship. Bobby Pierce leads Ricky Thornton Jr. by 27 points entering the weekend. I know the track has shifted some weekend events to Sunday, as it's a rainy Thursday today in the southeast, but the rest of the weekend looks great.
Following Senoia, a bunch of teams will head to Cherokee Speedway on Sunday for the Blue Gray 100. That one is $20,000 to win and will draw plenty of big names.
Out in California, the Hangtown 100 at Placerville is Friday and Saturday for the USAC national midgets. We've been documenting some of the big names expected to race, but we do still have a championship to decide over the next few weeks. With seven race nights still to go, Daison Pursley has 87 points on Cannon McIntosh. Ryan Timms in third and on down the order, including Logan Seavey and Zach Daum are probably all too far back to mount a serious charge. Hopefully the weather plays nice out there.
At BAPS in Pennsylvania on Saturday is basically your final 410 sprint car show for the year, really anywhere in the US. $10,000 to win, and all of the usual suspects in Central PA should be in attendance, including Anthony Macri, Troy Wagaman, Lucas Wolfe, Justin Whittall, and more.
In Oklahoma, the ASCS National Tour wraps up their 2024 season with three shows; tonight at Tulsa, and Friday and Saturday at Creek County. Seth Bergman enters with a healthy 156 point lead on Sam Hafertepe for the title.
A sneaky one to pay attention to is POWRi 360s at Vado Speedway Park this weekend. $10,000 to win, and Justin Peck and Rico Abreu will be in attendance at this one, along with a bunch of local and regional sprint car drivers.
And down under, the Sprintcars in the City event at the Adelaide 500 continues on the temporary NAPA Speedway. Last night it was Jock Goodyer topping Chase Randall and Grant Anderson in the opener. James McFadden started a bit deep, but DNF'd I believe after mechanical issues.
If you want to keep up all weekend with what you can watch via the streaming services, hit up the schedule over at dirtrackr.com/watchtonight. We'll call it right there for the week.
Hope you guys have a great Thursday out there, we'll see you back here on Sunday!