DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Where does the James McFadden to Tarlton news leave Roth Motorsports? | Daily 1-1-2025
Today we are updating the last few sprint car silly season situations, and wondering about the future of the Roth 83. Plus we've got Outlaw roster updates, and I'll share some 2024 show numbers with you. Let's go!
It's Wednesday, January 1st, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.
Happy New Year friends, and welcome to 2025.
I know the news came out last week, but I did want to double back to the Tarlton announcement about replacing the departing Cole Macedo for 2025. The team announced last week that Tanner Holmes and James McFadden will split time in the 21 sprint car this coming season. McFadden will run the car during the summer once his Australian season is complete, and Holmes will fill in something like 30 races along the way. The release mentions NARC speedweek for JMac, which I'm assuming is the fastest five days in motorsports deal that starts June 11th and takes the teams north for Super Dirt Cup at Skagit. McFadden will also race in the midwest (so likely the Knoxville Nationals), and during that late summer/early fall High Limit and World of Outlaws stretch out west. Holmes will run the early High Limit schedule on the west coast, and then scattered NARC and World of Outlaws races. When Holmes isn't running the Tarlton 21, his family 18T will be out on the road filling in the rest of his slate. Holmes spent all of 2024 in the 18T after running the final part of the 2023 season after the Knoxville Nationals with Shark Racing, filling in for Jacob Allen. His final stats for this past season in 46 appearances included a win, eight top fives, and 15 top tens. His 410 win came with NARC at Southern Oregon Speedway, and he won three 360 races as well. This deal has been in the works for several months, at least on the Holmes side. I heard about it back in October, and even reached out to Tanner and Tarlton crew chief Drew Warner. Neither would spill any details though. I think this is a very solid opportunity for Holmes, as that Tarlton machine is always good, Warner has a ton of experience, and they were in the NARC fight all season with Macedo against Justin Sanders. The surprising side of this announcement was the McFadden part. I had heard nothing about this end of it, and the assumption around the community all along was that McFadden would return to the second Roth car during his summer schedule. He helped Roth earn a High Limit charter during year one, even though he missed the early part of the season with travel woes coming from Australia. Dominic Scelzi filled in before McFadden took the seat over in April. In 47 High Limit races, he had three wins, 18 top fives, and 35 top tens. That brought the 83 to fourth in the final owner standings, earning that charter. McFadden also an Outlaw winner in 2024 as well. So this swap to Tarlton was a surprise, and it seems to further cloud the future of that second Roth entry. We heard maybe Ryan Timms at one point, but we know that's not happening. Chase Randall was briefly rumored, and now McFadden's new deal away from Roth. So where we stand at the moment with that other 83 car, I don't know. I've spoken to a few friends here lately about it again, and nobody seems to have a clear understanding of where they are. At the High Limit banquet, McFadden's crew chief Brent Ventura revealed he was coming off the road, and I've heard rumblings of other crew guys there getting new deals. It seems possible now that maybe that car is just on the shelf. I was curious as well about where we sit right now with Buddy Kofoid, but there was no official announcement about Kofoid's plans for 2024 until a few days into January. So the fact that we haven't gotten an official confirmation on their Outlaw plans isn't out of the norm. Everything I keep hearing though is that Kofoid will return for year two with the World of Outlaws. This whole situation also is made all the more difficult because the Roth team isn't known for being particularly transparent or communicative publicly about their operation. It's likely we'll never get any sort of official announcement about that second car.
The rest of the silly season is starting to wrap up. There are only a handful of open rides left, including Jay Kiser's 23, Bill Rose's 6, and a few others. Open questions include does the Premier 70 come back at all, will Kevin Newton fill the seat of his car with another driver, does the Heidbreder car continue, and what happens with rides like the Trone 39 and Curt Michael's 27. I've been asked a bunch about Zeb Wise, but I'm not aware right now that he has any plans. And after being linked at various points with all sorts of rides, Chase Randall's future is still unknown. It makes you wonder if Randall will end up back in a family owned car. The other wild situation is Crouch. Brenham Crouch posted a quick shop video a few weeks ago, and that team has a lot of equipment sitting in their shop. Two complete truck and trailer setups, nine sprint cars, two vans, and two mules. With Brenham going to CJB for another High Limit season, that's a lot of stuff to be sitting idle. I know Brekton Crouch also races, but he only made 11 appearances in 2024, at least so says MyRacePass. You have to wonder what they'll do with all of that.
We talked yesterday on the show about High Limit getting their roster to 11 confirmed, and we are in similar territory on the Outlaw side. Gio Scelzi was officially confirmed back on December 23rd, so that takes the Outlaws to ten. That includes Scelzi, David Gravel, Carson Macedo, Donny Schatz, Logan Schuchart, Sheldon Haudenschild, Cole Macedo, Garet Williamson, Chris Windom, and Bill Balog. Buddy Kofoid would take them to 11, and the Bill Rose 6 would be 12. There are still a few other possibilities for additions, but time is starting to run out. We are just over a month from DIRTcar Nationals.
On the Outlaw late model side, add one more there with the confirmation that Kyle Bronson is back. That pushes the World of Outlaws late models to 13 full timers. He was fourth in the standings in 2024, with 13 top fives and 29 top tens. He did go winless in Outlaw competition though, with his lone victory coming against the Spring Nationals at East Alabama in April. Bronson doesn't have a full schedule posted to his website just yet, and the Outlaw season starts January 22nd at Volusia. I would be a bit surprised if we didn't see Bronson at Golden Isles with Lucas though in two weeks.
If you want other dirt racing audio this week, Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks has Dave Daniels, Cullen Goodman, and Slide Job Bob. Hoogie's Garage has Keith Kauffman and Kameron Key among others, Getting up to Speed has Taylor Kuehl, and there are new episodes of the Dirt Reporters, Dirt Track Confessions, Passing Points Down Under, Plum Wild, and the Driver's Project. To discover something new in dirt racing podcasts, head over to dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
Wrapping up today, I thought I'd share a few numbers with 2024 now in the books. If I added correctly, we did 260 daily shows, and for the year, we did 9.5 million show plays across platforms. That was a 70% increase over 2023. We did more plays in 2024 than we did in all the previous years of DIRTRACKR combined. Of that 9.5 million, 6.8 was on YouTube alone. The YouTube channel didn't quite get to 40,000 subscribers like I'd hoped, but still a very strong year, adding nearly 12,000 new subs. We'll hit that 40k number soon in 2025. We saw big growth on Facebook, and right now as I write this we are on the brink of 25,000 followers over there. Videos on Facebook did nearly 46,000 watch hours, which is more than five years worth of time. For comparison, we did nearly 55 years worth of watch time on YouTube in 2024. It was officially 480,000 watch hours there. For the life of DIRTRACKR, we are past 18,000,000 show plays, with YouTube equating for nearly 80% of that. So there you go, and understand that none of this would be possible without your support, so thank you very much.
Hope you guys have a great Wednesday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!