DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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We now have the "Paul Silva" rule | Daily 1-8-2025

The World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series has announced a number of rule changes, and we'll get into them today, including the Clinton Boyles rule, agreeing with High Limit on something after they said they wouldn't, and dashing Paul Silva's dreams of world domination with turned up headers. Let's go!

It's Wednesday, January 8th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

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A couple of schedule notes for you off the top today. First, no racing at the Wild West Shootout tonight. Because of a cold front, they have pushed the Wednesday program to Thursday. Thursday was previously an off day anyway, so no issues rescheduling here. Racing at Vado now will run straight through from Thursday to Sunday. Bobby Pierce has won the first two races out at Vado Speedway Park, and will certainly be the favorite through the weekend.

Also, the Hangover at I-75 in Tennessee has been pushed back a week. That $5000 to win late model show will now take place January 18th. That does put them directly up against Lucas at Golden Isles, so that purse money might be a little more gettable with a bunch of the top teams headed for speedweeks.

Back on Monday, the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series announced a number of rule changes in advance of the 2025 schedule getting underway. We knew at least some of this was coming, as World Racing Group CEO Brian Carter had alluded to a few things during several offseason interviews. I wanted to run through them today, because there are a few interesting things of note. The first rule change mentioned is that once the night's draw has commenced, a team may not enter a backup car in order to manipulate the car count and gain an advantage for qualifying. I'm going to call this one the Clinton Boyles rule, although the Vermeer team was not the first to do something like this. Their use of it though, is the most recent example of something like this happening. Under the standard World of Outlaws format, qualifying shifts to two flights at 38 cars. Towards the end of the 2024 season, the Outlaws spent two nights at the Dirt Oval at Route 66. Night one, 38 cars, two flights of qualifying. Night two though, they lose Rees Moran, to drop to 37 cars. Vermeer, who had both Chris Windom and Kerry Madsen in the field, decided to pull down a third car and enter crew chief Clinton Boyles. That pushed the field back to 38 and two flights. So why did they do this? Well both Windom and Madsen were towards the bottom end of the draw. Tracks typically slow down through qualifying, so a single flight buried in the draw put them at a disadvantage. Adding Boyles pushed things to two flights, and now they are qualifying against guys around them in the draw, bettering their chances. It's pretty simple actually. In the future, these types of things could still happen, they just need to happen before the draw starts. Another rule change is that the Outlaws now quote "highly recommend" six mounting points for the fuel cell, and that all fuel cell mounting bolts must be safety wired. This is obviously a response to some of the fuel cell detachments we saw in 2024. I would bet this is an area that will continue to be under scrutiny. There is also an update to rear axle rules, with ultra-light axles not recommended for 2025, and they will be illegal for 2026. There is also some added verbiage for seat mounting around the use of spacers, another safety thing, and a reminder to get those fire suppression systems recertified for to meet SFI specs. The one rule change that surprised me in here is an update to the wicker bill height. We saw the Outlaws lead sprint car racing down this path, and eventually cut down to one inch on these wickers from two inches used previously. For 2025 though, High Limit pushed it back up to 1.5 inches, which was one of a number of rule departures from the Outlaws, which we had discussed a while back. The Outlaws though, matching High Limit here, and going back up to 1.5. Brian Carter had said the Outlaws wouldn't follow High Limit on their changes, so this was clearly a reconsideration. The bulletin says quote "The increased maximum height of the wicker bill comes after continued discussions with our partners following the National Sprint Car Council meeting at PRI and determining it's in the best interest of the Sprint Car industry" unquote. The Outlaws are not following High Limit though in allowing the in-axle inflation systems, and in-car shock adjusters. And the final change announced, I'm going to coin the "Paul Silva" rule, as the Outlaws will no longer allow any elbows on the exhaust after the header enters the collector. This effectively eliminates the turned up headers we saw Paul Silva run on the 57 and 57W towards the latter half of 2024. And after the success that Kyle Larson found driving with them, they suddently started showing up everywhere. Going forward though, all exhaust now must exit toward the rear of the car. This is the one area of sprint car racing specifically that I don't love. Any type of innovation that's found, is quickly squashed. Not that turned up headers is an innovation, but it was a different path. We've seen similar things made illegal in recent seasons, like different bird cage designs, and other shock types. I know we are all about trying to keep costs down, but it would be nice to see some progress on these cars that effectively have been the same for several decades. I wish the Outlaws and the other sprint car powers would allow for some more freedom around technical innovations. If you want to see all the rule updates for yourself, they are in a release over at worldofoutlaws.com.

As we continue to follow progress for some of the regional sprint car series, POWRi's roster for their expanded 410 winged division gained another driver yesterday. Joining already committed Ayrton Gennetten, and Natalie and Xavier Doney is Missouri driver Joe B. Miller. Joe B ran 41 410 shows in 2024, picking up five wins and 24 top tens. His victories came against Maverick, MOWA, and the IRA among others. He also had top tens against POWRi and the World of Outlaws. Joe B always one of the more versatile drivers in open wheel racing, running winged and non wing sprint cars, midgets, and micros through his seasons. We've even see him run different cars on different tracks on the same night. He's a solid addition to the full time POWRi group, and could be in line for a few wins. I am a bit surprised POWRi is rolling these driver announcements out so slowly. Word is they will easily start the season with 16 drivers, and their first race is in February at Texas Motor Speedway. We are about six weeks away from that, and we know of four drivers on that roster.

If you want more dirt racing content this week, Dirt Track Confessions has Len Sammons, Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks has Dirt Court Jesters, and there are new episodes of the Dirt Reporters from Dirt on Dirt, the Dirt Nerds, Getting up to Speed, and The Driver's Project. To see all the shows and their newest episodes, head over to dirtrackr.com/podcasts.

That's the show for today. Thanks as always for tuning in. Hope you guys have a great Wednesday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!