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The Big Cat goes out on his terms, who replaces Brad Sweet, a new driver officially official | Daily 10-20-2025

Brad Sweet calls it a career, the Stenhouse Marshall ride is officially filled, we'll talk Sunday racing, and more. Let's go!

It's Monday, October 20th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

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As expected, big news last night out of the High Limit sprint car season-ending banquet with Brad Sweet announcing his retirement from full time competition. The announcement came during Sweet's emotional banquet speech, where he was joined on stage by his daughter and team owner Kasey Kahne. Sweet joined Kasey Kahne Racing in 2007, and walks away after an incredible 18 year run that includes 92 World of Outlaws wins, 14 with High Limit, a Knoxville Nationals, two Kings Royals, five World of Outlaws championships and one with High Limit. Sweet is 10th all time in Outlaw wins, and will be an easy hall of famer. Going back to 2017, 2018, 2019, we really saw a shift at the top of sprint car racing, with things transitioning from a dominant Donny Schatz era, to the Brad Sweet era. Other drivers won big races, and took down big money, but nobody did it every single night like Sweet. Since winning the World of Outlaws championship in 2019 by a very narrow margin over Schatz, Sweet has really been THE guy at the top of sprint car racing. He won on the biggest stages, and was easily the most prolific championship racer we've seen in a while. His ability to just top five and top ten his competition into oblivion made him nearly impossible to beat over a season. Schatz and Steve Kinser are the only two drivers with more titles in a career than Sweet. That's good company. And he did it all driving for one team. Outside of racing, Sweet promoted events at Placerville, took over Silver Dollar with Kyle Larson and Colby Copeland, and obviously founded High Limit with Larson and FloRacing. He's built a solid portfolio of racing businesses, along with the addition of NARC, that will be his focus going forward. He'd said all along he wasn't going to race into old age, I know he said it to me and others, and it's nice to see a driver go out on their own terms. Going forward, I'm sure we'll still see him race from time to time, but whether that's five races, 10 races, 25 races in a season, I don't think even he knows. We watched guys like Daryn Pittman and Jason Meyers go from full time schedules to just a handful of races a year, and now Meyers doesn't race at all. I wouldn't be surprised to see something similar here. A few races just to scratch the itch, but maybe in a few years, that goes to zero. He's clearly been setting himself up for this eventuality, and now the drive and focus changes. This end has been coming for a while, but it's clear that the crash and injury from Eldora affected Sweet and maybe the timeline here. He told Jeremy Elliott that the crash was a quote "eye-opening experience." A young family, businesses to run, it's hard to blame him for thinking that way. But one of the best to ever sit in a sprint car, and contributions to the sport aplenty, with more to come.

Real quick before we move on, I did go back through my own photo archives to find the first photo I took of Brad Sweet. This is a crappy cell phone photo I took at DIRTcar Nationals in 2014 of the KKR pit area. Three cars, Kale Kahne hanging out. I'm assuming Brad is in the car, but it's hard to tell. This is clearly during engine heat, and I think that's Pittman we can see sitting in the nine with his helmet on.

Moving on to the future for Kasey Kahne Racing, the anticipated hire of Daison Pursley is clearly to replace Sweet in the team. Last night's announcement giving us that bit of public context. Whether it's the nine or 49 car, all signs are pointing towards Pursley full time with High Limit in a NAPA-sponsored ride. We talked not long ago about the team missing out on bringing Joe Mooney back into the fold as crew chief to lead Pursley's effort, with Mooney deciding to remain with Anthony Macri for 2026. A name to watch here for the crew chief role could be Jarrett Martin. Martin was previously with Keith Kunz Motorsports as a crew chief, and I believe spent time with Chad Boat's team before joining KKR around the time of the 49 crew being released at Knoxville. He's an up and comer, a former racer, has worked with Pursley before, and could end up being the guy. What happens with a second KKR ride I think is still up in the air. Maybe Kasey and Brad share it, or maybe it goes away completely and Sweet races elsewhere. I don't know that those things are worked out just yet. But word on the street is KKR already has it's next driver, likely it's next crew chief, and we're just waiting on official word.

While we wait for that silly season domino to become official, one other move did just today. Stenhouse Jr. Marshall Racing announced that Spencer Bayston will drive the NOS 17 sprint car next year full time on tour with the World of Outlaws. Bayston replacing the departing Sheldon Haudenschild. Bayston's team will be led by Kyle Pruitt, who took over the crew chief role on the 17 just a few weeks ago after the team moved on from Kyle Ripper. This was a move I first told you guys about last week, so if you watch this show regularly, today's news shouldn't have been a big surprise. I know the team talked to a number of possible replacements before landing on Bayston. As we've documented, Bayston's last couple of seasons haven't gone to plan, and he was ride searching after losing the Meyers 14 deal after the Knoxville Nationals. Since then, Bayston has made appearances with the Works Limited car and Paul Silva, and with Tarlton Motorsports. He's had good runs out west, including most recently finishing second to Tanner Holmes in the Trophy Cup finale. I said last week that I'll be curious to see which version of Bayston we get next year, the one who struggled with CJB and Meyers, or this most recent version where he runs up front and looks fast. If he wants his sprint car career to continue in any meaningful way, he has to stay where he's been lately. After he lost the Meyers deal, I didn't think there would be another opportunity like this available to him, but the sprint car silly season gods looked upon him with favor. The announcement from the team says the new pairing will debut at World Finals in a few weeks. SJMR will field a second car for Bayston alongside Haudenschild in the Outlaw season finale.

At Angell Park Speedway last night, that very same NOS 17 was sitting in victory lane, with Sheldon Haudenschild going third to the win on the famed Wisconsin short track. He outdueled Emerson Axsom, and kept control late when the surface started to rubber up. Axsom made a late charge but finished second after leading eight laps, and David Gravel was third. This 17 deal could have gone completely sideways down the stretch here after crew chief Kyle Ripper was released, but Sheldon has really stepped up and battled in a lame duck situation. Lincoln Park didn't go great, but with crew chief Kyle Pruitt, it's three top fives in four races, and now the win. Behind crew chief Kyle Pruitt, that 17 crew now includes Nate Repetz, who just recently left the Macri Motorsports team, and Cole Neuhalfen, who was one of the 49 crew guys who got released from KKR at Knoxville. I think all three crew guys probably felt pretty good about the win given their individual circumstances. I thought it was interesting too, Pruitt mentioned swapping the car to Penske shocks. Through these first few races, maybe something there with Pruitt and Sheldon. On the flip side, it sounds like Kyle Ripper is now helping out Emerson Axsom. Axsom mentioned him in the podium interviews. It's funny how it came down to those two cars battling for the win with all that's gone on. The Outlaws are back at it Friday and Saturday this week with races at 81 Speedway and Arrowhead Speedway, which is their last road trip before World Finals.

In other action yesterday, Matt Sheppard was a Short Track Super Series winner at Hagerstown. The win helped him cap off the south region title for the modified series. $7000 for the win and $10,000 for the title. Sheppard topped Alex Yankowski and Anthony Perrego. All that remains now for the Short Track Super Series is the Hard Clay Finale at Orange County Fair later this week.

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 Thursday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!