DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Six years of dirt late model cooperation ends | Daily 10-27-2025

The World of Outlaws make a schedule addition, and it breaks a six year streak of cooperation. We'll talk through that, plus Cody Sommer goes testing with Nick Hoffman to decide Dome tires, and Hoffman weighs in on the differences between Hoosier and American Racer. Let's go.

It's Monday, October 27th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

We haven't seen the full 2026 schedules yet for any major dirt racing series, but there have been a number of event releases in recent weeks. Some have certainly drawn my attention more than others. And one of those that peaked my interest happened this morning with the World of Outlaws late model series. Several weeks ago, Ken Kinney, who is the promoter at Hendry County Motorsports Park in Florida, posted to Facebook that he'd been offered the opportunity to host a two day World of Outlaws event during speedweeks. He was looking for feedback and talked about how many one day and two day passes he'd need to sell to make it work. If you're curious, the math came out to $115,000. In recent days and weeks, other posts had made it pretty clear that this event was likely to happen, and the announcement came this morning. Following DIRTcar Nationals at Volusia, the late model teams will about head about four hours south and run Friday and Saturday at Hendry for $12,000 and $20,000 to win, with Thursday slated as a practice night. Hendry is located west of West Palm Beach, on the southwest side of Lake Okeechobee, not far from Clewiston, Florida. The event has been dubbed the Swamp Cabbage 100, and it was run previously as a crate late model show. The reason this caught my attention though, is this event is scheduled directly on top of the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series opener at All-Tech Raceway. Way back in May, Lucas announced a complete shift of their speedweeks schedule, where instead of starting early and finishing before Volusia, they shifted everything until after Volusia and the Daytona 500. They're hosting practice at All-Tech on Wednesday, with racing then Thursday through Saturday. From there it's on to Ocala, then Golden Isles in early March. Until this morning, it was status quo for the Outlaws, with the Sunshine Nationals at Volusia later in January, followed by DCN in mid February. No longer will teams be able to run the entirety of speedweeks, and then wait until the spring and that first conflict in March or April to make their series choices. Instead of playing both sides and seeing where they land in the standings post speedweeks, teams with national tour aspirations will have to make their decisions immediately after DIRTcar Nationals. This will be the first time the two late model national tours are running opposite each other during speedweeks since 2019. That year, the Outlaws ran at Screven in Georgia up against the final two nights at East Bay. Since then though, everyone has played nice. Ryan Gustin team owner Todd Cooney said in comment post quote "it makes perfect sense because of the travel money and everything like the last few years Lucas guys can come in and run speed weeks and take the travel money when that's meant for people that's going to run the whole series. It shouldn't affect the car count very much maybe four or five cars all that would be at the Lucas shows anyways. This is something that should've been done a long time ago and it's only two nights and they can go right back on the Lucas tour if they want to" unquote. Not everyone feels that way though, including FloRacing GM and Dirt on Dirt founder Michael Rigsby. He shared on X today that quote "Dirt Late Model racing is 100% better when these tours don't race on top of each other in Georgia and Florida. The argument being made in this case is that this allows the series to "split sooner and properly allocate tow money" ... I get that, but that doesn't outweigh to me the star power that's present for BOTH series and elevates BOTH tour's events. This is short-sighted to me and doesn't elevate dirt late model racing as a whole" unquote. He went on to say quote "It splits the car count, audience, and attention spans of the sport at the ONE time of year the world is focused on dirt late model racing." I can certainly see both sides on this one, and to be fair, neither series is under any sort of obligation to play nice with the other. It seems at times over the last several years that things were more cordial between Lucas and the Outlaws, but more recently it seems as though maybe they've shifted back to being more competitive. I have a hard time believing this move will split the at-track audience in a major way, with the two tracks being so far apart, something like 300 miles, but those streaming at home will need to either make the choice, or double box. The bigger teams though will certainly be split. That means those making full tour runs, and the teams who pick and choose. Three nights at the bigger All-Tech against a slightly weakened field, or drive four or five hours south for two nights on a smaller track? I'm glad I don't have to make that choice. One thing is for sure, there won't be any games this year about who is running what series. We'll know rosters likely by that All-Tech practice night on February 18. Let me know what you think about all of this in the comment section below.

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Those of you hoping to see the return of open tire rules will get at least a peek at a version of it during this year's Gateway Dirt Nationals. Back in August, the event announced they would allow both Hoosiers and American Racers, and yesterday afternoon they posted a video of recent testing they completed to make final decisions on what tire options would be allowed. Nick Hoffman was the driver, East Lincoln Speedway was the track, and Hoffman tried out tires from both brands on both a super late model and a modified. In the video, Hoffman said lap times were consistent, and he couldn't feel a difference between the two. At one point in the test, he didn't know which tires he was rolling out on. In response to the test, the event is allowing either the Hoosier NLMT3 or the American Racer Pro3 on the right rear, and the Hoosier NLMT2 or American Racer 44 on all other corners. Those right rears the harder compound of the two. Competitors must use the same brand on all four corners, and they are limited to the VCB tread pattern on the Hoosiers, and the spec block pattern on the American Racers. They are allowing grooving and siping, and teams must run at least eight PSI in the left rear. So, obviously not a completely open situation, but two different tire brands are being allowed. My hunch is that you'll see teams stick to what they're used to, given inventory and setup packages built around known quantities. The example of a series I can think of off the top of my head that has similar rules allowing both Hoosiers and American Racers is the Spring and Southern Nationals. I believe only Ross Bailes won a race on either tour this year on American Racers. All other wins came on Hoosiers. If you want to see that testing video for yourself, it's available over on the Gateway Dirt Nationals Facebook page.

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