DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Reacting to the Outlaw schedule, already drama at the Dome, the best appearing car is easy | Daily 12-4-2025

The Dome starts and there was chaos before cars even hit the track. We'll also talk best wraps, including my absolute favorite. Then we'll dive into the freshly revealed World of Outlaws sprint car schedule for 2026, talk about those west coast TBAs, and where High Limit fits in here. Let's go!

It's Thursday, December 4th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

Your dirt racing viewing options are getting fewer and further between as we head towards the offseason, but one place you can still catch some action this weekend is FloRacing. They've got the Gateway Dirt Nationals live from the Dome in St. Louis for the next three nights. 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 Lucas banquet, High Limit in Australia, 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.

As I write this, and as you watch or listen, cars are already on track inside the Dome in St. Louis to kick off the first night of the Gateway Dirt Nationals. We've already seen plenty of spoilers and rear quarters knocked off, and sponsor banners torn down. Thursday and Friday are split field prelim nights with full programs happening in each, and then things culminate on Saturday night with the $70,000 to win feature. Modifieds are the undercard all weekend. This race is always a tough one to preview and handicap, because that tiny track is an equalizer. Big horsepower and perfect aerodynamics don't matter on a track that size, and you'll see local and regional guys run well, and some national touring guys miss the big show. This is year nine for the event promoted by Cody Sommer, and your past winners are Scott Bloomquist, Bobby Pierce, Tyler Carpenter, Tyler Erb, and Brandon Sheppard. Shepp is the defending winner, and has won the last two. This event has become known for chaos, and I would expect the unexpected over the next three days. We've seen plenty of hurt feelings, cars through the fences, fights, and other wild stuff. It's an extremely unique event on the dirt late model calendar, and it's a perfect time. No real competition, the weather outside doesn't matter, and all the big names are there. The teams went hard on the wraps this season, and there is a competition from FloRacing for best appearing car. A few favorites of mine are Jason Feger's Kenny Schrader throwback. Those guys have matching uniforms as well, very well done. I like Carson Ferguson's Stroker Ace scheme, Brandon Overton's Bud car, and Justin Shaw's CJ Rayburn throwback. All should be in the mix for that award. For me though, there is a cleary favorite and one that went above and beyond, and that's Garrett Alberson's 58. The throwback bodywork, the camaro nose, the scheme itself, all amazing. He easily gets my vote for best looking car. Enjoy the racing the next few days, and we'll dive into the happenings on the Sunday show post-event.

Going back to the chaos theme, Cody Sommer did have to have a big meeting today with teams and vendors, as apparently some folks were taking advantage of the space, and expanding their vendor area footprints beyond what was allowed. Sommer told FloRacing that the building's management was not pleased. All seems fine now though, Sommer said the meeting with everyone went well, and hopefully there aren't issues the rest of the weekend. It's clear that a lot of vendors and drivers do well selling merch at the Dome, and it's become a big draw because of that. It's also a reason behind the different wraps, and all those teams can make fresh, Dome specific gear to sell. It's quite the economy they've created.

The big sprint car news of the day is the World of Outlaws finally releasing their 2026 schedule. It was another creative announcement, with Ross Wece and his team using the old World of Outlaws video game as the theme. Given what we'd heard from World Racing Group CEO Brian Carter a few weeks ago, I'm surprised it took this long to be revealed, but it's all out there now, except five TBAs. There are four reserved for west coast races in September, and one more on October 17th. I figured the reason we hadn't seen the schedule yet was to square away those west coast races, so I was also surprised to see they are still TBAs. Given all the uproar we saw a few weeks ago about the Outlaws and California, I do think there is a case to be made that the series should have just waited on the schedule release until those Cali shows were secured. I've already seen reactions today about how some can't believe there are no California races, but I think it's pretty clear those four dates are for California shows. Series director Carlton Reimers also quoted in the release talking about the quote "coast-to-coast campaign." I don't have any super great info on those dates and where they could be, but two tracks I've heard floated are Stockton and Calistoga. Calistoga a potential option for the Dennis Roth Classic. That event can't be at the Tulare Thunderbowl this year because of an expanded fair on those grounds during those weeks the Outlaws head west. We already knew most of the major dates on this schedule, because the Outlaws have done several announcements already. What we saw today just fills in the gaps. Everything here though really as expected. Two Volusia events to start, all the regular Ohio and PA stops, the midwest, Knoxville Nationals, Kings Royal, National Open, High Bank Nationals, Ironman 55, Cedar Lake, World Finals, etc. The Jason Johnson Classic next year moves to Texarkana 67 Speedway. That's one notable change. Creek County joins as a new track, and Nodak, Hartford, Belleville, Dodge City, and Mansfield all return after years away. An interesting High Limit conflict is the late March weekend. On that Saturday, March 28th, the Outlaws are at 81 Speedway, with High Limit at Dodge City. Those two tracks are less than three hours and 170 miles apart. Area teams will definitely have a choice to make, and I think both car counts will suffer. As for potential races we could see Outlaw drivers use freebies, I kind of thought there'd be less chances, especially given the dustup over the Outlaws scheduling in the midwest versus the Weikert at Port Royal. But I count a bunch of chances here, even outside of the Kings Royal week at Eldora. That includes both Eagle races, Arrowhead, two midwest trips in June, and Fremont in July before the Doty. Nothing super earth shattering here with the Outlaws, and that wasn't expected anyway. They've got their main setup that works, so no real reason to make wholesale changes. Fill in some of the other stuff, rinse and repeat. Let me know your thoughts below.

Moving on, some interesting news from USAC today, with Kody Swanson being named series director for the USAC Silver Crown Series. It means he's stepping away from USAC competition as a driver, but will still race non-USAC events in sprint cars and midgets. Swanson has an incredible eight Silver Crown titles on his resume, along with 49 race wins. He takes over from Tommie Estes, who'd been series director since 2023. Estes is transitioning over to promoting Lincoln Park Speedway full time. Estes a veteran promoter and official. Swanson didn't run Silver Crown full time in 2025 after winning the title the year before, instead running eight of a possible 14 races. He did have four wins in those eight races, along with six top fives and six top tens. This feels like a bit of a changing of the guard for the series and Swanson. He's still only 37, but I think he's a solid addition here for USAC.

That's the Daily show for this week. Enjoy some of the last dirt racing we'll get for 2025, even though this offseason thing gets shorter and shorter.

Hope you guys have a great Thursday and weekend out there, we'll see you back here on Sunday!