DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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It's been a busy (and wild) 24 hours in dirt racing | Daily 11-11-2025

It's been a busy day in dirt racing, and we'll dive in today on the World of Outlaws late model schedule, Skyline Motorsports' new driver, Cody Overton wasn't unemployed long, Kerry Madsen's new old sprint car ride, and a polarizing figure arrested. Let's go.

It's Tuesday, November 11th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

Things have been a bit quiet over on FloRacing the last few weeks, at least in terms of dirt stuff. But that changes this coming weekend with the Flo series late models at Senoia, and USAC beginning their California swing with the midgets. If you want to tune in, and don't have a Flo subscription, head over to dirtrackr.com/floracing and sign up. If you get in now, you'll get the races I just mentioned, plus the Dome in December, the Lucas banquet, and the Tulsa Shootout and Chili Bowl. And then you'll be ready to roll straight into the 2026 dirt racing season. I've been a paid FloRacing subscriber myself for a long time, I've got the app on my Roku, phone, and use the website itself regularly to watch. So if you want to join me and thousands of your dirt racing friends, that's dirtrackr.com/floracing.

A bunch of news over the last 24 hours to pick through, and a lot of stuff to talk about in dirt late model racing. Starting first with schedule news, the World of Outlaws late models released their 2026 slate today, and there are definitely some changes. It still starts at Volusia in January, and ends at World Finals in November, but along the way are some differences. It's officially 61 races at 37 tracks in 19 states. The season starts at Volusia for the Sunshine Nationals, they are back to the Florida track in February for DIRTcar Nationals, then it's that new stop at Hendry County that conflicts with the Lucas opener. There are six races in March through the south, which will all be risky given spring weather. The Illini 100 has it's typical April date, and Talladega returns in that same late April weekend. May starts in Wisconsin, then goes to Delaware, PA, and then to Ohio. June is mostly in the midwest, July is a bit all over the place, August is reserved for Iowa, Pevely joins in September, then it's Louisiana and South Carolina in October, before World Finals. New tracks include Hendry, Magnolia, Mansfield, 141, Southern Iowa, Adams County, Shelby County, and Little River. Gone are Swainsboro, Atomic, Raceway 7, Wilmot, Highland, Spoon River, Arrowhead, Needmore, Tri-City, Humboldt, and 81. Some of those were on the 2025 schedule, bit didn't run for weather or other reasons. This is a fairly significant rework, with some different trips, and some tracks returning. In the schedule announcement, it was also revealed that World Racing Group has spearheaded 18% in purse increases over 2025, with $4.9 million now up for grabs. Every full field feature will pay $10,000 to win, and each even twill pay a minimum of $2000 for a top ten finish. They mentioned their quote "commitment to offering the highest payouts through the field in Late Model racing" unquote. It looks like the point fund remains the same, with champion getting $225,000 out of a $1.1 million point fund, plus the Winner's Circle Fund, which is basically the tow money package. Schedules always seem to draw strong opinions, so feel free to comment your thoughts below. I have no idea when we'll get the Lucas schedule, but it's possible nothing happens until the PRI show in a few weeks.

On the late model ride front, there are multiple things to discuss here. First, a possibility we first talked about back on September 16th came true today. And that was Skyline Motorsports hiring Dallon Murty for their second car. The team hasn't run that second car since Mike Marlar departed back in September. There were rumblings then about Murty as a potential candidate, and it sure seemed like he was the driver choice the internet was rooting for. Murty has made his way up the IMCA ranks and was a late model rookie this year with the Malvern Bank series. He's only 20 years old, and one of the more interesting prospect-type drivers in the country. Murty will join teammate Tyler Bruening in driving cars out of Austin Kirkpatrick's shop. Skyline swapping to the AK Racecars REV1 later in 2025. The announcement from the team says Bruening and Murty will debut during Speedweeks in 2026, but a full schedule for both drivers has not yet been decided. Bruening started the year as a World of Outlaws full timer, but ended up pick and choose for 2025. The benefits that go along with a series, like the point fund and tow money, are great, but it might be smart to not throw Murty to the wolves just yet and let him get comfortable with a pick and choose deal himself.

On to the next silly season situation, we talked yesterday about Cody Overton needing a ride, and it sounds like maybe his future is already decided. The Billy Hicks 79, that was left vacant by Donald McIntosh leaving at the conclusion of the Lucas season, posted yesterday they are racing this weekend. The original post said both Senoia and Cherokee, but the post on their page currently just says Cherokee. The weather looks great for Senoia this week, so I'm not sure why they took that part out. But, I've been told from a few sources that this is where Overton is headed, and that he'll be in the car this weekend. What the plans are for 2026, I don't know, but we've seen the Hicks team do both the regional stuff and the full Lucas deal. So this could be an opportunity for Overton to stay out on a national tour. We know that McIntosh didn't have a ton of crew help in 2025, which sounded like it was one of the reasons he departed. That will definitely be something that needs sorted with Overton in the seat. The Flo series event at Senoia starts Thursday with practice, then there is racing Friday and Saturday. Sunday is the Freddy Smith Memorial at Cherokee, which ends their Cherokee Chief series season. It's co-sanctioned by the Carolina Clash and pays $15,000 to win.

In sprint car racing, right as I was posting the show last night, Jeremy Elliott was reporting that Kerry Madsen is indeed taking over the Vermeer 55 full time next year. That's a move that shouldn't have surprised anyone in this audience. It's something I've talked about multiple times, including yesterday, and first brought up back on the September 8th show. Madsen officially replaces driver Hunter Schuerenberg, who just completed his rookie campaign with the World of Outlaws. It was definitely a disappointing season for Schuerenberg, with just a single top five, and 15 top tens in 68 races. That left him outside the top ten in the standings. The 55 ended the season with Tye Wolfgang as crew chief, who came to Vermeer after being let go by Kasey Kahne Racing during the 360 Knoxville Nationals. For 2026, Wolfgang stays, and he'll lead the team with Madsen in the seat. Madsen coming off that fill-in role with Tony Stewart Racing after they fired Donny Schatz post-Knoxville Nationals. TSR going with Rico Abreu next season, and Madsen was going to need a deal. The Mad Man made 22 starts with TSR, with an average finish of 14.5. That included eight top tens, and a best finish of third at Vado. As Jeremy and others have reported, the team, owned by Tony Vermeer, hasn't decided yet which series they'll join. I'd heard previously they were staying Outlaws, but Vermeer said they'll look everything over in terms of schedules and benefits packages and decide at a later date. Like we talked about on the Monday show around Danny Sams' future, we don't know yet what the Outlaw platinum package looks like for 2026, and we don't know what High Limit is paying beyond the franchise teams. So it's not surprising to see a team like Vermeer wait until all details are available before they make a choice. And if Vermeer and Sams aren't sure, it's very possible others are waiting as well. And potentially some who we initially thought were settled. This will be something follow all the way to PRI for sure.

Closing out today, I've definitely heard just like many of you have about XR promoter Barry Braun being arrested in Lake County, Minnesota. I don't however, have any other details outside of what's listed on the jail report from the Sheriff's office. There are a bunch of things floating around on social media that aren't hard to find if you want to see some of the theories. Braun has been at the center of a lot of controversy in recent years around payouts for his XR events. There have been so many rounds of it, I gave up following the stories. Some racers were paid, others weren't, and the whole thing has caused a lot of strife. It's a shame things came to this for Braun, and despite all of the celebrating and victory laps that are happening today, the whole thing just bums me out.

That's the show for today. Hope you guys have a great Tuesday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!