DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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The Curious Case of Kasey Kahne | Daily 12-22-2024

A driver we were told was off the High Limit tour is back, and we'll talk through the curious situation today. Plus more USAC silly season moves, an update on Ricky Thornton Jr.'s Chili Bowl dilemma, and more. Let's go!

It's Sunday, December 22nd, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

Today's show is being supported by Sprintcarunlimited.com. You guys hear me talk about Jeremy and his work pretty regularly, and I've been a paid subscriber to his site since 2021. And that's because there is nobody out there doing the type of work you can find at sprintcarunlimited.com. In just the last few weeks he's broken a bunch of news, including Chase Dietz to Stehman, Freddie Rahmer out with Eichelberger and Brock Zearfoss in, plus the Kyle Reinhardt and Preston Lattomus stuff with Capitol Renegade, and the news with Gerard McIntyre and Scott Cowman. So with a subscription you get breaking news, regular commentary, and his weekly podcast. And right now, through January 3rd, you can get all of this for just $28 a year when you use code "Holiday2024" at checkout. That's code "Holiday2024" at checkout at sprintcarunlimited.com. $28 bucks a year is less than $2.50 a month. And if you want even more, check out the Sprint Car Unlimited YouTube channel where Jeremy does his daily 90 at 9 videos, plus regular interviews on the Deep Dive. Thanks to sprintcarunlimited.com for the support of DIRTRACKR.

In sort of an unexpected reversal, we found out on Friday that Kasey Kahne will be back in 2025 as a full time driver on the road with High Limit. Kahne followed his employee and teammate in Brad Sweet to High Limit for 2024 after being out with the Outlaws full time previously. It wasn't an easy season for the 18-time NASCAR Cup Series winner though, as he ended up 14th in the final standings, with just a single top five and nine top tens in 45 feature appearances. Kahne's car ran without a ton of sponsorship all season after losing previous partner Karavan Trailers, and crew help was an issue from start to finish. There were some bright spots though towards the end of the season with a top five run during the High Limit makeup at Wheatland, and fifth place run on Friday at World Finals against the Outlaws. I say this move was unexpected, because back in October when we found out that Eric Prutzman wouldn't be back as Brad Sweet's crew chief, the plan then was for Kahne to run pick and choose in a shorter schedule, and have Prutzman oversee all of KKR while taking the lead on Kahne's team. It was kind of the whole point of Prutzman's change, not have to travel so much, but stay deeply involved at KKR. And the whole plan was spelled out in Jeremy Elliott's story including quotes from Prutzman about all of it. The plan led to Tye Wolfgang deciding against taking the crew chief role at CJB with what he thought was going to be Justin Peck in the car. The prospect of getting to crew chief for Sweet, and CJB's hire of Brenham Crouch led to Wolfgang's change in plans. With Kahne back full time though, Prutzman will be at at least 61 races, with likely more than that coming. I have hard time believing Kahne will sit out some of the Outlaw crown jewels. So, this whole situation is odd. It would seem to me that if you were breaking in a new crew chief, you do that with Kahne in a lower pressure deal, and give Sweet the best shot with Prutzman. But that doesn't appear to be what they are doing. The announcement did point to Kahne going racing with Prutzman next year. The addition of Kahne back though does boost High Limit to nine for 2025, joining Brad Sweet, Tyler Courtney, Spencer Bayston, Daison Pursley, Aaron Reutzel, Justin Peck, Tanner Thorson, and probably Rico Abreu. Brent Marks still unconfirmed, as is the CJB car with Crouch. I would expect the CJB five though to either go Outlaws or High Limit. It's highly possible that the loss of so many of the High Limit regulars from this past season was a motivating factor in Kahne returning. Those not back include Parker Price Miller, Jacob Allen, likely the Roth 83 and James McFadden, and Chris Windom. Other questions remain on the Vermeer 55 and Crouch 1 cars. At this moment, I have not heard of any new additions coming for High Limit. I'll be curious to hear what your thoughts are on this change for Kahne and Prutzman.

On the USAC sprint car side, you can add two more teams to the list of full timers for next season. Late on Thursday came word that Hayden Reinbold will add a full USAC sprint car run to a schedule that's already included full time midget racing the past few seasons. Reinbold has been a regular with the Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series in recent years, and will now expand to the USAC National Sprint Cars and USAC National Midgets. He was an Xtreme winner at I-44 Riverside late in 2023, was sixth in the Xtreme standings this year, and had a top five and two top tens in 12 USAC midget appearances. He'll continue racing for the Reinbold-Underwood team, and will be joined on the sprint car trail by Mitchel Moles, who's been a Reinbold-Underwood driver since 2022. Moles knows how to win, and he'll be a solid teammate for Hayden to lean on. I believe the addition of Reinbold and the confirmation of Moles being back takes us to six so far. These two join CJ Leary, Briggs Danner, Logan Seavey, and Jake Swanson as sprint car full timers next year.

Updating a story we talked about a few weeks ago, it sounds as though nothing has changed with Ricky Thornton Jr. and that Chili Bowl conflict with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series opener at Golden Isles next month. Kyle McFadden with Dirt on Dirt did a story about it late last week, and he had quotes from RTJ that were about the same as I got before. The plan remains for Thornton to race at Chili Bowl on Tuesday, then fly from Tulsa to Georgia to race on Wednesday night. He'll stay there through Friday, and then depending on the weather and situation at Chili Bowl, they will decide Saturday plans from there. We haven't been including the defending Lucas champion on either national tour list here recently, because RTJ told before they hadn't made a decision yet, and he echoed those comments to McFadden. He says the Koehler 20RT squad will run a national tour, but that they are still undecided between Lucas and Outlaws. No matter which choice they make, I think we'd expect the 20RT to be the favorite on either side for the title. Obviously Bobby Pierce may think different on the Outlaw side, but it's hard to argue against Thornton's stats the last few seasons. It would at least be split odds. Once Chili Bowl starts in a few weeks, this could be one of the more interesting storylines to follow that week, especially if the weather stays nice in Georgia and RTJ locks in on his prelim night, which would force him to choose. We haven't seen prelim night rosters yet, but Buddy Kofoid has been a Tuesday guy, and before that it was Larson. So RTJ won't have an easy path.

Looking at some regional late model stuff, the Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series has it's first committed driver for 2025. They revealed on Friday that Tennessee driver Christian Hanger will join the tour for the first time. Hanger won the Ice Bowl at Talladega in 2022, and is a multi-time winner with the Southern All Stars. I think we are probably looking at some significant changes to that Hunt the Front roster for next season. We know that 2024 champion Brandon Overton has moved over to Riggs and the Longhorn Factory team and is set to chase the Lucas title. Ashton Winger talked not long ago about pondering a national tour run, he was second a year ago. So that's the top two, who had three wins, 24 top fives, and 33 top tens between them. And Hanger will be a new addition. We'll see in the coming weeks and months who else throws their hat in here. The Hunt the Front series championship season doesn't start until March, so teams still have plenty of time to make decisions.

We'll call it good for there today. As a quick reminder, this is our last more traditional daily show until December 30th. Don't fret though, still a lot of brand new content coming your way during Christmas week. I've got interviews lined up with some great dirt racing guests, covering all sorts of different topics from multiple sides of the sport. So, I'm not going away and we aren't posting re-runs. Fresh content all week to keep you company during the holidays.

Hope you guys have a great Sunday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!