DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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A sprint car ride off the market, maybe bigger isn't better | Daily 10-14-2025
Some sprint car names to watch at Trophy Cup, Spencer Bayston's future coming into focus, a cool dirt late model photo, big money down under, and maybe bigger isn't better. Let's go!
It's Tuesday, October 14th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.
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Back on Saturday, West Virginia Motor Speedway hosted their first big racing event on the new, smaller configuration, and I'd say the new setup was a hit. 230 or 240 cars in attendance across four divisions, and a packed crowd on hand. The new track operators are calling this the action era at WVMS, and if they can continue to draw even a percentage of what they had on Saturday, they are going to do just fine. I saw some of Zach Yost's drone shots, and for a track operator it doesn't get better than that. Nice weather, lotta race cars, the hillside was packed, and good racing. A couple of things to point out too, this was live on FloRacing. Give people something worth attending at the track, and they'll show up. Don't let streaming be a crutch. And this wasn't a pit area filled with national touring guys, big names, crown jewel winners, or the like. Don't get me wrong, this was a solid regional field. But a well run show, some good promotion, a solid track surface, and affordable family entertainment still looks like it matters these days. This will definitely be a facility to keep an eye on next year, especially when a big touring series does come through. We know the World of Outlaws late models will be there in June. Does this prove that short tracks are better? I don't know, but it certainly didn't hurt WVMS.
Later this week, Trophy Cup 31 gets rolling at the Tulare Thunderbowl, and I wanted to talk about the entry list just a bit. In the past, we've seen some national guys go to California to race this one, but this year, Trophy Cup falls on the same weekend as the High Limit finale, and the World of Outlaws are at Lincoln Park, LaSalle, and Angell Park. That will keep some of the big names away, but as of today, they've got 63 cars pre-entered. That obviously includes most of the main California guys, Shane Golobic, Dominic Scelzi, Ryan Bernal, the Kaedings, DJ Netto, Sean Becker, and more. We'll also get some other west coast travelers including Tanner Holmes, Trey Starks, Levi Hillier, Jesse Schlotfeldt, and Tyler Thompson. There are two more nationally known names though that are making the trip. One is Anthony Macri, and the other is Spencer Bayston. Macri will run for Tiner Hirst, in one of their 94 machines. It will be the second time for Macri at Trophy Cup, with the first appearance coming in 2021. As for Bayston, he'll be back in the Works Limited ride with Paul Silva. It's on the entry list as the 57W, but we'll see if it's just the W again like it was during the national tour races on the west coast a few weeks ago. If you listen or watch this show regularly, you knew already that Bayston with Silva for Trophy Cup was something I'd been hearing from before. The Trophy Cup purse this year is over $300,000, with $7500 to win and $1000 to start Thursday and Friday, and $10,000 to win on Saturday. An added bonus this year, Trophy Cup will be streamed live on FloRacing. If you need a Flo subscription, hit up dirtrackr.com/floracing. That gets you Flo and helps out DIRTRACKR.
Sticking with Spencer Bayston, it's sounding more and more likely that he'll be the driver for the Stenhouse Jr. Marshall Racing NOS 17 next season. Rumblings were that SJMR took a run at Daison Pursley, but when that didn't work out, they were back on the market for a driver and have had conversations with a bunch of different names. We know they have their crew chief of the future in Kyle Pruitt. He's running the team now after that dramatic ending with Kyle Ripper after the National Open win two weekends ago. I wondered how Sheldon would do without Ripper, and how motivated he would be knowing it's not his guy leading the way and he's out at season's end. But he had solid runs this past weekend with the Outlaws. Seven to five at New Egypt on Friday, and a nice 12 to four run at Lincoln on Saturday. That was Sheldon's best finish at Lincoln since a win there in 2020. Back to SJMR and Bayston though, I heard several days ago he was the choice. Then I heard maybe he wasn't, or maybe he'd turned it down. But here we are on October 14th, and now it sounds like he's the guy. I've had a few different sources tell me that, including one who said it was going around actually at the High Limit weekend at Lakeside that Bayston's deal was done. I don't know when we'll get announcements on all these different driver and team deals, but Ricky Stenhouse Jr. did tell Connor Wade last week it wouldn't be long. I haven't heard a confirmation on series choice, but my guess is this car stays Outlaws for 2026. If that happens, that would bring Bayston back to the Outlaws full time after two seasons away. Remember he was an Outlaw regular in 2022 and 2023 with CJB. If and when this does get announced, the big question will be which version of Bayston will we get. The one that struggled on tour with High Limit at CJB and Meyers, or the Bayston who looked great with Paul Silva and Tarlton out west. The second version is capable of a long, successful sprint car career. The CJB/Meyers version might have a short run.
Down under, the 2025/2026 sprint car season has been off and running now for a few weeks. There have been 410 shows at places like Northline, Toowoomba, Murray Bridge, and Sydney so far. As we get deeper into October and November, things will really start to ramp up. We know there are a number of American drivers headed that way this offseason, especially with High Limit back for year two. We'll cover all of that in the future. I did want to mention today though, there was an article over at speedcafe today that talked about the NAPA Sprintcar Invitational getting an upgrade for this year. This event happens on a temporary track built inside the Adelaide Street Circuit, with this year's edition running November 28th through the 30th. These nights will run alongside the Supercars' season finale at Adelaide. 40 sprint cars will race the three nights with a total purse of $140,000 on the line. An early look at entries shows a stout list, with James McFadden highlighting the field. Kerry Madsen won the finale at Adelaide last year, he's entered. Others include Callum Williamson, Lockie McHugh, Jock Goodyer, plus Americans Riley Goodno and Thomas Meseraull. We'll toss in more sprint car talk from the other side of the world as the US season starts to wind down.
Finally today, I know we've talked a bunch about the dirt late model bodies these days and how skewed they are. But I got tagged in and sent this photo today and I wanted to share, because I though it was cool. A really great illustration of where late models are right now. This is Luke Morey's Longhorn, he posted it to his Facebook page, and the photo was taken by Zack Kloosterman. Zack does a great job shooting racing all over the southeast. Luke's Facebook post with this photo said quote "How much more skewed are these things going to get" unquote. I don't know how much more room there is in the rules to get more skew, but if they can, they will.
That's the show for today. Don't forget, if you want even more dirt racing content, make sure to follow DIRTRACKR across social media. That means Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and more. Wherever you are, so is DIRTRACKR.
Hope you guys have a great Tuesday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!