DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Buddy Kofoid wins High Limit Sprint Car Series debut; why all the spite for the World of Outlaws? | Daily 8-17-2022

Today we'll talk the High Limit debut, Justin Sanders, World of Outlaws hate and more. Let's go!

It's Wednesday, August 17th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

The debut of the High Limit Sprint Car Series has come and gone and last night it was Buddy Kofoid earning more than $22,000 with the debut win for the series. Kofoid topped Justin Sanders and Cory Eliason in a race that also saw Sanders and Brady Bacon lead laps. It was a fun show at Lincoln Park, and I feel like 410 winged sprint cars on bullrings is usually a winning combination. They had 35 cars in attendance, and as expected no full time Outlaw drivers. Brad Sweet was there, but with his promoter and official hat on versus his driving suit. It was kind of an eclectic field of cars. You had All Star guys, NASCAR guys, non-wing guys making winged starts. Drivers from California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the midwest. CJ Leary talked about dusting off his winged car, and it was clear that piece hadn't been out in a while. It still had the World of Outlaws decals on it from the Craftsman days. We know Parker Price Miller is out for a while with his injuries from Knoxville, but the McGhee car was there with Cale Thomas in the seat. We've seen Cale drive that car before, and he might be the fill in moving forward. Another interesting note from last night was the officials. The race directing was done by USAC's Kirk Spridgeon, and there was very much a USAC feel to things with lineup sheets and the easy up for the drivers meeting even had the USAC logo on it. Not a bad direction to go for that stuff for Larson and Sweet, and I wouldn't be surprised to see that USAC connection continue in the future. I joked with a few people that it's interesting to see this season with World Racing Group going non-wing racing, and now USAC getting involved in the new winged series. It's been a fun plot twist to watch. It looked like they had a good crowd, the track was in great shape, things ran smoothly, so definitely a successful opening night. Now we'll have to wait until 2023 to see this series really get going with a full schedule, but the future looks bright.

Before we move on, I did want to bring up Justin Sanders and this foray into the midwest he's had over the last few weeks. On my Monday show wrapping Knoxville, Mark was in the YouTube comments bringing up the fact that I didn't mention Sanders enough following his week at the Nationals. And then last night, Joseph Terrell on Twitter, who chases races out on the west coast, tweeted that he felt like the 410 world didn't take Sanders seriously until recently. He said the narrative was that all Sanders did was stack up 360 wins. I pushed back on him on that one because I don't think that's accurate. Sanders is a guy who's obviously won a lot in a 360, but he's won in 410 competition also with multiple NARC victories. And against the Outlaws since 2017 has six top tens between Silver Dollar and Placerville. During the Gold Cup weekend in 2017, he led laps before eventually finishing second to Shane Stewart. I think if you pay any regular attention to sprint cars in this country, you know about Justin Sanders. Even if he does run sprint cars after dark out in California mostly. I started putting my show transcripts on dirtrackr.com in February of 2021, so I have 380 shows in the database. A quick search showed I've mentioned Sanders 76 times between February 8th, 2021 and today. The deal for Sanders to come east and race with the Swindell SpeedLab team didn't come together until later in July, and it's paid dividends. The team struggled a bit during the 360 Nationals, but they earned enough points on their prelim night last week to earn a start in the Saturday main event, which made Sanders one of three Nationals rookies in the feature, joining Buddy Kofoid and JJ Hickle. Mechanical issues forced them out early, but it was a strong showing. And then last night, to lead laps and eventually finish second, was a successful race against that field of drivers. When Kevin and Jordan announced him as their driver, I didn't see anyone question the move, and if you look at their replies on Twitter, everything is super positive. Sanders is one of those guys out there right now who, if given the right opportunities, could succeed all the way to the top. Sanders wasn't a darkhorse or super crazy pick. It was a shrewd move and not shockingly, its worked out pretty well.

As for yesterday's show, thanks to everyone that tuned in and commented about the future between the full time Outlaw drivers and racing outside events like the High Limit Series. I do think it's important for both sides to continue to work towards a mutually beneficial solution. We need both the series and the teams to continue to be strong and funded properly. In all the comments, it's pretty wild how negatively some of you view the World of Outlaws as a series and World Racing Group as a company. I saw words like greed, stale, survive, folks mentioning they won't attend their races, and other negative comments. I'd be curious to know where all this disdain comes from. Like it or not, the World of Outlaws as a series is the biggest thing going in dirt racing. I know that there are late model shows that pay more than big Outlaw shows, and there are more late models as a whole in this country, but on a name recognition basis and just general popularity, the Outlaws are it. And don't just take my word for it. A quick look at Google Trends shows way more search traffic for the World of Outlaws than, for example, the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. For World Racing Group as a company, the rise of streaming has made the organization probably as healthy as it's ever been, which is fantastic, and this comes on the heels of periods in the early 2000s and into the 2010s where things were very touch and go. The whole thing could have gone away very easily. I believe the sport of dirt racing is better with WRG and the Outlaws healthy, because not only does that mean big sprint car and late model racing, but also all they do for local racing through the DIRTcar program. And I'm not saying through all of this that they haven't made mistakes or do everything perfectly, that's basically impossible, but I do wonder why it seems like some hope for the demise of the series. Remember that a rising tide raises all boats.

Something else I've been thinking about, and I know I've mentioned this a bit before, but let me know if you guys would like some sort of dedicated mailbag episodes. I feel like I'm always open to answer questions, and mix those in here and there, but if you want something more formal, maybe once a week or once a month, let me know. I'm certainly not opposed to dedicating an entire episode to questions and answers.

SummerFast for the Super DIRTcar Series continued last night at Brewerton for night two. Jimmy Phelps won the opener on Monday, and last night it was a dominating run for series points leader Matt Sheppard. He started on the pole and led all 60 laps to earn the $7500 victory. Tom Sears Jr. and Peter Britten rounded out the podium. Those of you who are northeast modified fans are going to rip me for this one, but I didn't know until today that we have Tim Sears Jr. and Tom Sears Jr. running modifieds. I wonder how many times I've screwed that one up in the past. Half way through this mini speedweek now, Matt Sheppard has extended his championship advantage to 85 over Mat Williamson. Fulton is next up tonight with another $7500 winner's share up for grabs. Tonight will again be live over on DIRTVision.

If you're looking for other dirt racing podcasts this week, LoudPedal has Buddy Kofoid, Passing Points has Daison Pursley, Forward Bite has Cameron Goldsworthy, TJSlideways has Dan McCarron, and there is a new episode of Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks. To see the full list of shows and episodes, head over to dirtrackr.com/podcasts.

Not a bad day today for streaming with eight shows on the schedule. DIRTVision has the Super DIRTcar Series from Fulton and micros from Millbridge. FloRacing has the weekly show from Action Track USA, sport mods from 141 Speedway and Flo 24/7. We've also got regional action on Speed Sport. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.

That's it for the show today, have a good Wednesday. If you have thoughts about the topics on today's show, leave them in the comments below or tweet at me.

Thanks everybody for tuning in, I'll see you tomorrow for more DIRTRACKR Daily!