DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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High Limit makes a big play, two surprise silly season moves | Daily 11-18-2025

Two surprising ride changes to talk about today, including one in both sprint cars and late models. Plus we'll talk more High Limit franchise stuff, and their plans to try and draw more big names. Let's go!

It's Tuesday, November 18th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

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When I talked about the Billy Hicks Racing situation on the show yesterday, I certainly didn't expect it to be resolved so quickly, and I didn't expect the driver they made a deal with. And it sounds like several others didn't see it coming either. If you haven't been keeping up, the Billy Hicks 79 dirt late model team and 2025 Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series rookie of the year Donald McIntosh parted ways after Eldora. McIntosh is still on the hunt for a new deal, and it sounds like Hicks has had deals in place now with multiple drivers, before finally announcing today. I was told a deal was in place before World Finals for one drive but that they backed out of it for Cody Overton. Overton was on the hunt with the Steine team supposedly closing up. Overton and Hicks were supposed to get started this past weekend, but the deal ended before it started. The 79 didn't race, and Overton was back in the two for Steine. Suddenly today though, Hicks has a new driver, and it's not one that I, or apparently anyone else expected. But for 2026, Cory Hedgecock will be a full time Lucas driver in the Hicks machine. Hedgecock will run the 79 with Lucas, in select other shows, and fill in with his own car elsewhere. On the show yesterday I told you I'd heard maybe Kade Loudy or Wil Herrington, and FloRacing's Kyle McFadden tweeted that Hedgecock told him back around World Finals he was scaling back. In an article posted November 5th, Hedgecock said quote "“I think we're going to end up dialing back, honestly. I don't think I can, personally, as a dad. I cannot do a World of Outlaws or Lucas deal with my personal life now. I'm recently divorced, and it shook me to my core. And it's just a juggling act for me I ain't got figured out yet. And I care more about them kids that I'd burn this stuff to the ground" unquote. Dialing back, to then signing up for a full Lucas run is quite the shift in two weeks. Hedgecock has never previously run an entire national tour, and is winless with Lucas. He does have two Outlaw scores on his resume. The Hicks team with McIntosh had one top five and 11 top tens in 2025, en route to a 10th place points finish. Hedgecock recently picked up a Longhorn chassis for his family-owned team, and has had some success. Maybe he can continue that with Hicks, who also runs Longhorns. Definitely a surprising move though, and we'll see what they can get done with Lucas next year. With this deal now settled, that leaves us waiting to hear about McIntosh, Daulton Wilson, JCM Motorsports, and maybe Cody Overton. I've heard some interesting rumblings as well about Chris Madden, so we'll see if anything pops up with him.

On the sprint car silly season side, Hank Davis has a new deal. He'll tackle 2026 behind the wheel of the Michael Dutcher-owned 17GP. That car was driven this past season by Tim Shaffer. Davis had won three races towards the end of this season in the Beaver Racing 12X, including once with POWRi, and he swept the Short Track Nationals weekend at Texarkana 67. It sounds like Beaver though they had a deal with Davis for next year, but back on Friday both sides announced they'd split. Beaver shared to Facebook quote "We believed we had plans for next year settled. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. Beaver Racing has parted ways with Hank Davis Racing. Stay tuned for the details of Beaver Racing for the upcoming season" unquote. Davis has made just 34 career 410 sprint car starts, with the three wins, nine top fives, and 17 top tens. This is a bit of a reunion of sorts for Davis and Dutcher, who raced together at World Finals at the end of 2024. Besides Beaver not knowing their plans, this also leaves Shaffer's next step up in the air. He won four times in 60 starts in 2025, including twice at Lernerville, plus with the All Stars at Bloomington, and the IRA at Angell Park. Not an earth-shattering move here, but curious given Davis' recent runs with Beaver. And I hadn't heard that Dutcher was in the market for a new driver. I'd assume a similar schedule will be in the cards next year, including regional starts with series like POWRi and the IRA, plus scattered national tour appearances. We'll see Davis as well at the Chili Bowl in January.

Moving on. We talked last Thursday about the future of the High Limit franchise system, with the sprint car series announcing who's getting what payouts for 2026, along with some speculation on the sale price for the Jason Meyers franchise, and the path to a franchise for future teams. As I and others have talked about, you have to a think a team like the Jason Johnson Racing 41 with driver Carson Macedo has to be high on Brad Sweet's wish list for 2026. They are the one top level Outlaw team that feels like they could possibly be convinced to flip. That non-franchise team compensation was talked about on a higher level in last weeks' release, but now we know more details on exactly what it will look like for teams who join up for 2026. And before we dive in, something to consider here, is all teams that don't have a franchise at this point are back to square one. So that means Chase Randall, Sye Lynch, and Danny Sams have no advantage for running High Limit this past season. The path to a franchise for the 2028 season is now completely spelled out, and everything is even starting this year. As a quick recap, to get one of those future franchises, teams must have perfect attendance in 2026 and 2027, and either finish in the top three in the High Limit standings one season, or the top eight in both seasons. Given the field that High Limit has assembled going forward, that won't be an easy task. Starting next year, High Limit will support up to eight non franchise teams as full time members, and they'll be competing for effectively a point fund of up to $1.215 million dollars. They are calling this the Joker Fund, and they have a hole thing about cards. Don't get lost in those details though. Teams in this situation could earn has much as $350,000 if they win the title, or as little as $50,000. It's a bit of a sliding scale, and depends on on where you finish in points and how you do against the other non-franchise teams. The entire setup looks like this. You see the max values for each team in that middle column, and the necessary performances to earn the money in the right column. It is possible that a non-franchise team could earn more then a franchise team, but it will take a good run all season. These numbers are very similar to what the World of Outlaws paid in 2025 to their top ten points finishers. And the way this looks to me, is this is High Limit's attempt to draw in big teams for future franchise membership. You can still go this direction for the next two years and make very good money, before you get one of those guaranteed franchises for 2028. Meaning, you certainly wouldn't do worse over here without a franchise, versus an Outlaw run. Brad Sweet, Kyle Larson, and the FloRacing braintrust are hoping to lure in more stars, no doubt. That could literally mean anyone from David Gravel, to Buddy Kofoid, Carson Macedo, Logan Schuchart, or maybe even a guy like Anthony Macri. To be fair though, of that group, I think only Macedo MIGHT join. And I say might in all caps. I don't see Gravel, Kofoid, or Schuchart flipping, and I don't see a near future where Macri is on a tour. But High Limit has thrown their cards down (see what I did there) in hopes of a big pickup. And I say that because of the way the money is laid out, and the requirements for a future franchise. There aren't many teams that would be capable of joining for 2026 that could finish in the top eight both seasons. Randall, Sams, and Lynch are facing very long odds, as would any regional jumpers. Those teams could still make good money as non-franchise runners, but the path to a future franchise is difficult. This is the lure for more of those top guys. On a sidenote here, I don't understand why so many view this whole thing as complicated. Leave the cards and the gambling references out of it. It's actually a pretty simple setup. I keep seeing questions like where is this money coming from. It's coming from High Limit's streaming revenue from FloRacing. Not hard to understand. I saw something today where a commenter was likening this to debt. High Limit is paying out this year's point fund on next year's earnings. No, that is completely not true. High Limit paid a point fund for 2025. The dollar amounts shared last Thursday are effectively 2026's point fund, it's just that the teams know in advance what they are getting, and that money will be split up over the year, versus one payment at the end. The point fund, for lack of a better term, is decided before the season even starts based on the two previous year's results averaged together. This is very similar to how things are handled in NASCAR. Teams can plan for what they've got coming in for revenue. And that two year window will slide and change things for each year. 2026 is based on 2025 and 2024. 2027 will be based on 2025 and 2026. And so on and so forth. It is a very different setup than we've ever seen in dirt racing, and we won't really know if it works or not for several years. At the end of the day though, High Limit will still show up and put on races next year, and if you don't care about any of this, don't worry, it won't matter. Sprint cars will still be racing for trophies and big checks.

Things with USAC out in California continue to go sideways. We know the midgets aren't racing tomorrow at Plaza Park because of all the rain they've had there recently, and now we've lost Friday as well. The Tulare Thunderbowl announcing here just a bit ago that November 21st action is cancelled. USAC though yet to make the announcement on their end as I write this. With Plaza Park and Tulare off, that leaves us with just three more USAC midget races. That includes Saturday at Merced, November 25th at Kern, and November 29th at Ventura.

That's the show for today. Thanks for stopping by for a few minutes to hang out and get caught up on dirt racing stuff.

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