DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Dirt racing is changing fast, a sprint car team hiring, who cuts used tires? | Daily 9-29-2025

Dirt racing continues to shift and change at a fast pace, and we'll talk about another strategic move today and some of the layers involved. Plus Sunday results, race track news, more silly season stuff, and why cutting trash tires just feels malicious. Let's go!

It's Monday, September 29th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

With as much as the ground continues to move and shift in dirt racing, and how much change we've seen in the last couple of years, it probably shouldn't surprise us when we get news like we did today. But I do think it's in interesting illustration of just how fluid things are and will continue to be, and how layered and connected everything is. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it was announced earlier this afternoon that Brad Sweet and Kevin Rudeen have partnered up to buy the NARC sprint car series out west from Jim Allen and Brent Kaeding. The move will be official for the 2026 season, and Sweet and Rudeen will bring in a new series director to run the day to day operations. Allen told Sprint Car Unlimited today that since he took over the series in 2017, his goal has been to build it up, and then get it ready to sell to the next group who could continue the legacy started in 1960 by Louie Vermeil. The release from NARC says quote "Brent Kaeding and Kaeding Performance Center will continue their involvement with NARC as the official parts vendor and as a heat race sponsor. Jim Allen will transition into a NARC historian role, focusing on accumulating missing information from the organization's early years" unquote. Acquiring NARC fits nicely into the plans for Sweet and Rudeen, who have been at the center of trying to rebuild 410 sprint car racing on the west coast. That's included Sweet's part in operating the Silver Dollar Speedway, and Rudeen taking over Skagit Speedway. Both tracks hosting big 410 events, with Gold Cup and Dirt Cup. Rudeen as well is now in control of the Trophy Cup, and there have been rumblings that the event could end up as a 410 event, in the coming years. It's been a 360 show in it's most recent iteration. Sweet said as much today, saying quote "Kevin's got the Dirt Cup, which is a big event for NARC, and now he has the Trophy Cup, which down the road could be something NARC looks at" unquote. We just found out as well in recent days that Trophy Cup will be live on FloRacing next month. For the sprint car teams and fans out west, I think this is good news, and hopefully it will lead to more cohesiveness in the area. The first thing I thought of, and I know others did as well, was we won't have to worry about NARC scheduling on top of High Limit at Skagit in 2026. After the announcement, I did see as well a smattering of comments about Sweet's future, including a poll on the over under of how many years he has left driving full time. I also had a few messages about the subject and rumors going around. Brad continues to expand his business portfolio, and it leads to natural questions about his future behind the wheel. Between High Limit, Chico, and whatever responsibilities he'll have with NARC, where does driving a sprint car fall in. Not that I think he'll be super deep on NARC day-to-day next year, I'm sure they'll have people in place for that. His future status though could be an open question over the next few weeks headed towards the High Limit finale at Texas. If he's staying, it's likely we wouldn't get an announcement about it anyway. I don't think I ever remember releases about him staying each season at KKR. Also, I don't know that I believe this NARC acquisition is a sign of anything, and that if he is getting out, those decisions would be made independent of a move like this. Remember they first started the High Limit series in the midst of an Outlaw title run, and he won the championship with High Limit last year while running everything. I think Sweet's tried hard where appropriate to keep the businesses and his driving career separate. Definitely another storyline to keep an eye on though, and just add all of this though to the wild last couple of weeks and months that saw Gio Scelzi quit a ride mid-event, Donny Schatz and Spencer Bayston get fired after the Knoxville Nationals, Tony Stewart hiring Rico Abreu, Sheldon Haudenschild quitting the 17, and all sorts of rumors about more driver changes, series flips, franchise purchases and leases, and plenty more changes to come.

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In other 2026 news, West Virginia Motor Speedway and it's new operators announced their first big series event for next season. The newly configured track will host the World of Outlaws late models June 12th and 13th for $12,000 and $30,000 to win. These races will happen just two weeks after the Mansfield Speedway shows we found out about around a week ago. The Outlaws moving quickly here to add some new tracks and new events to their slate. WVMS will host their first event in just a little under two weeks, on October 11th. That race program will feature late models, modifieds, sport mods and pro late models. The links are broken, but the website also has the Historic 100 scheduled for June 2nd and 3rd next year, along with flat track motorcycles in July. WVMS was previously a big 5/8 mile dirt track, but the new operators have shrunk it down to a new 3/8 configuration. The group shared in a reply on Facebook that their other track, Elkins Raceway, needs safety and facility upgrades before it could host any big tourin series. In that area, we are still waiting on what will happen with two other big late model events, including the Hillbilly 100 that was at Lernerville this year, and the future of the Dirt Track World Championship. Both of those are Carl Short-owned events.

At Path Valley last night, the Pennsylvania bull ring hosted the High Limit sprint cars for the first time, and things were a bit messy. Lots of cautions in that feature, an early open red, and some tough nights for a few top runners. That included Ryan Timms out early, Rico Abreu and Aaron Reutzel 15th and 17th, and Brent Marks battling to 14th after early issues. Tanner Thorson got around Gio Scelzi with 14 to go to to grab his second series win in the last seven races. Brady Bacon battled back from nose wing damage to finish second, and Gio settled for third. Brad Sweet and the KKR 49 did gain some ground on Rico in the standings, but Reutzel and RSR did not. Headed for Lakeside in a little less than two weeks, Rico's leads are 34 and 52 points in the drivers and owners standings. With no High Limit this week, I think it's likely you'll see at least some of the teams stick around PA and run the National Open this coming weekend at Williams Grove. Interesting to note that Hunter Schuerenberg was in attendance last night. He's an Outlaw full timer, and burned his third freebie of the season. Not a bad run finishing eighth. Also, it looks like Gio Scelzi is starting to find some speed with Clauson Marshall in that fill-in role for Tyler Courtney. He was up and down on the west coast, and wasn't great at Port Royal. He had eight finishes outside the top ten in his first 14 starts for CMR, but since Eldora, has been better. Eighth and second at the 4-Crown, and second and third this weekend at Bridgeport and Path Valley, leading laps in both races.

Speaking of CMR, they posted to social media in recent days a call for resumes saying quote "we are growing, join our team." That certainly adds fuel to the fire around the rumors of them expanding to a second team for 2026. The overwhelming sentiment is a second sprint car, with NASCAR's Spire Motorsports involved, and a franchise acquisition or lease for a High Limit run. This move would likely pair Gio Scelzi with Tyler Courtney for next season, and I've heard the team could operate out of the Charlotte area, which is where Spire is. The team supposedly already has a veteran crew chief lined up. If you are looking for a job in sprint car racing, you can send your resume to timclauson@me.com. And no, I didn't just reveal Tim Clauson's email. That was in the social post.

In other Sunday racing action, Mike Spatola won the Road to the Dome show at Coles County Speedway. He topped Brandon Sheppard and Jason Feger. Coles County hosted some testing last year for teams racing the Gateway Dirt Nationals, and this year decided to make it an actual race. They ended up with 15 super late models, and I don't know that the little bull ring could have had more than that on track for the feature. BShepp actually took the lead at one point, but this bid was undone by a caution. Others that raced included Chris Ferguson, the Gundakers, Steve Sheppard, and Bob Gardner.

Finally today, I saw a Facebook post by racer Brian Ruhlman that I wanted to mention. If you don't know Brian, he's not afraid to race any car, basically anywhere. This season, he's run UMP modifieds, 360 and 410 sprint cars, winged and non, Silver Crown series, and we've seen him race late models in the past. Ruhlman was most recently at Eldora for 4-Crown running three of the five divisions. A few days ago, he posted about big time sprint car teams dumping their used tires at the track after races, but cutting into the sidewalls so they couldn't be used by other racers. It's not uncommon for budget teams to go round up those tires from the bigger teams post event, because even though they might not be usable for a national level team any more, other guys can still get laps out of them. I did a Daily show last year where we talked about Trey Osborne and had photos of him loading up his pickup after an Eldora show with used tires. In his post, Ruhlman said quote "Either sell them to the lower budget teams or if you’re going to leave them at the racetrack after you leave, at least leave them useable for the guys who pick up your trash tires" unquote. I don't know the circumstances behind cutting these tires, but it does seem like a bit of a low blow. Tires are expensive, as we all know, and cutting tires to keep other guys from using them just feels crappy. It wouldn't take much effort to sell them if it was really a problem. It would be nice to see there be more cooperation and awareness of the community as a whole in these instances.

We'll shut it down right there for today.

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