DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Hunt the Front did it! Overton's series choice. It's always silly season. | Daily 1-29-2026
We were on here just a few days back talking about Brandon Overton’s potential 2026 plans. If you don’t remember that chat, it was with FloRacing and Dirt on Dirt’s Kyle McFadden. He said then that he didn’t know what Overton and the Riggs Motorsports team were planning, but his suggestion was that they pull back to a pick-and-choose Dirt Late Model schedule for 2026. Everything with that team is different outside of Overton and the Longhorn chassis, and McFadden thought this could be a good reset year. Remember, this team was a Lucas full-timer in 2025 as the Longhorn factory team with Anthony Burroughs as crew chief. They finished seventh in the standings, weren’t in championship contention, and didn’t make the Chase. They only had a single series win and 11 top fives in 47 races. And let’s not forget, this team won the World of Outlaws title in 2024 with Brandon Sheppard. But now the factory team affiliation is gone, Burroughs has moved on to Koehler Motorsports to reunite with Ricky Thornton Jr., and Riggs Motorsports is now being run out of Georgia near Overton’s home. It was previously based on the Longhorn campus. Given all of that, McFadden’s idea made a lot of sense. They can get back to square one, find some confidence again regionally, obviously still hit all the big shows and crown jewels, and then maybe go hard on the road again in 2027. That McFadden video we released was on January 23rd. Three days later, on January 26th, Overton and the team announced they’d be back with Lucas full-time. The social post read, “Full dig. Raise hell.” This is the first show I’ve done since that announcement, so I wanted to talk about this a bit. Look, Lucas next year is the same at the top, with Devin Moran and RTJ back. There’s a big hole where Jonathan Davenport was, but it’s important to remember he’s still going to run a lot of races with the series. So can Overton really contend beyond those two? Hudson O’Neal, Brandon Sheppard, and Garrett Alberson all finished ahead of him in the standings, and I’m wondering if maybe our expectations, or maybe just my expectations of Overton are too high. I remember 2021 and 2022 when he was unstoppable at Eldora, and I think I just assume he’s supposed to do that everywhere, all the time. I want to put him in the same conversation as Bobby Pierce, Jonathan Davenport, and Ricky Thornton Jr., but he’s dropped out of that group. Every year I think, “This is when he’s going to be back.” It’s important to remember he hasn’t won at Eldora since 2022. He hasn’t had multiple national touring series wins in a season since 2023. His only top-five points finish with a series was with the Outlaws in 2016. If you’re curious, he’s run a tour start-to-finish four times — twice with Lucas and twice with the Outlaws. We see guys like Pierce and RTJ continue to melt faces for years on end, but I think we forget how hard all of this is. Racing is cyclical, and Overton is still trying to find his way back to the top of the mountain. Even though they’re going Lucas racing, I still hope this is a reset year, that they can get back on solid ground, find some speed again, some confidence, and win. And why do I care? Because I think Late Model racing is better with Overton in the mix. He’s a talented driver and a great personality. How many times on this show have we had really good Overton quotes from some silly situation or something crazy happening? He’s a good character for the sport, and I think it’ll be better when he’s back at the top.
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Earlier today came an announcement many in dirt racing have been expecting for weeks: Hunt the Front has officially purchased Southern Raceway near their shop in Milton, Florida. Word of this first surfaced during the Gateway Dirt Nationals broadcast, when Ben Shelton and Dustin Jarrett kind of slipped it in. At the time, the Joiners wouldn’t confirm anything, saying they’d love to do something like that someday. Since then, the rumors continued, and now it’s official. As expected, Hunt the Front announced the move with a video on their YouTube and social channels, and someone you might recognize makes a cameo in that video. The Joiners take over the track from the Arnold family, who owned it since 2000. They said they’ve been trying to acquire the track for years, and that this deal has been in the works since October. The Hunt the Front portfolio now includes their media operation, the Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series, their streaming service, and now a racetrack. The track is in the Florida panhandle near Pensacola, just outside Milton, where their shop is located. They’ve got a lot of work to do. The video showed plans to reconfigure parts of the track and address infrastructure issues like broken boards and bleachers. A full schedule is already announced starting mid-February, so they’re not shutting it down for major renovations. They’ve got a short window to do what they can, and then it’ll be an ongoing project. The Hunt the Front series races this weekend, Friday and Saturday at Needmore, then Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday at Swainsboro. The track is open tonight at Needmore for practice. Some teams are going, some aren’t. It’s going to be cold in the Southeast with snow chances, so I’d keep an eye on the weather. Swainsboro should be good to go.
Two recent news items show that silly season never ends, it’s basically January through December now. First, Caleb Johnson has departed the DGRD Sprint Car team just days before they were set to start their season. They originally planned to run 100-plus races, starting in Florida and traveling heavily. Team owner Dennis Gainey had to scale that back after what Jeremy Elliott reported as “unfortunate news that changed his income stream.” That led Johnson to leave the team and start looking for a new ride, while Gainey now needs a driver. Gainey still plans to run Dustin Selvage weekly in 360 action at Knoxville and also compete regularly in 410 racing there. But what was once a 120-race schedule is now closer to 40, and for someone like Johnson trying to do this full-time, that just doesn’t work.
Also as expected, and as we’ve discussed on the show, Coleman Farms has brought in Luke Mooney as a development driver. He’ll drive with Coleman support this season, and when he’s not driving, he’ll serve as a crew member for their national touring team. I’m assuming that team is Donald McIntosh’s. McIntosh isn’t listed as a World of Outlaws driver after the first event, so I’m assuming he’s either going Lucas full-time or picking and choosing. I haven’t seen that confirmed, if you have, let me know. Coleman Farms had been looking for a second driver after splitting with Zach Mitchell at the end of 2025. What we’d heard was they wanted both cars full-time on a national tour. They moved on from Mitchell, picked up McIntosh, and also moved on from Tanner English when he didn’t want to relocate the shop to Georgia. I’m not sure if there will still be another full-time car, or if Mooney is it, with McIntosh going full-time on Lucas. We’ll see how that shakes out.
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Hope you guys have a great Thursday out there, we'll see you back here in the next one!