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Hunt the Front series finalizes schedule, go behind the scenes this season with them... | Daily 1-25-2023

Hunt the Front has finalized their series schedule, the World of Outlaws full time field adds another, and Cole Macedo and Logan Seavey have new rides. Let's go!

It's Wednesday, January 25th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

Back around the PRI show in December, we found out that YouTubers and dirt late model racers Hunt the Front were going to start their own southeast based regional late model series for 2023. They had previously promoted events at Deep South Speedway and Southern Raceway, and now had decided to take the leap and go all in with their own series. As of yesterday, the final slate of races has been set, with 20 scheduled for this first season of competition. Races are going to pay at least $5000 to win, with several $7500 to win and $10,000 to win races mixed in. There are also some bigger pay days as well, including the finale at Deep South that is $23 grand to win. The series champion will earn an additional $20,000 at season's end. The schedule kicks off April 7th and 8th at All-Tech Raceway in Florida, and has other stops at Magnolia, the just added Swainsboro, Senoia, Cochran, Whynot, I-75, Boyd's, Duck River, North Georgia, East Alabama, Needmore, Talladega and Deep South. You can see the full schedule, including dates and to-win amounts over at htfseries.com. The full schedule will be streamed as well, but we are still waiting on their plans for a service. On top of this, if you are interested in the business of dirt racing, I wanted to highlight sort of an adjacent Hunt the Front YouTube channel. Joshua Joiner and his wife Liz have renamed their own channel to High Speed Hustle, and they are doing a bunch of content on the behind the scenes of the new Hunt the Front series, which Joshua is the director of. And Liz is an attorney, and she's been doing some videos around some important administrative things that racers need to think about. I've added High Speed Hustle to the channels section at youtube.com/dirtrackr if you want to check it out. Starting a series is a massive undertaking, and this could be a really neat opportunity to see how a lot of things go down to make it all work.

The World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series dominoes continue to fall in place with the public acknowledgement yesterday that Spencer Bayston and CJB Motorsports are back with the series for 2023. Bayston was a rookie one year ago, and ended up eighth in the standings with two wins, 17 top fives, and 41 top tens in 72 races. There were definitely some very strong stretches for the pairing, but also some stumbles along the way, but that's not unexpected for a driver trying to find their feet against the best sprint car racers in the business. I would fully expect Bayston to be improved in year two. The addition of Bayston takes us to 11 confirmed, joining Brad Sweet, Kasey Kahne, Gio Scelzi, Logan Schuchart, Jacob Allen, Brock Zearfoss, Noah Gass, Bill Rose, Robbie Price, and James McFadden. Like I said back on Monday though, I don't expect there to be any defections, and we should start the season with probably 16 full time teams. And as a sidenote, we know that Donny Schatz will start his 2023 season at Senoia with the All Stars. That was mentioned in a sponsorship release from TSR yesterday. I think we could see a really nice field there at Senoia to get things kicked off. That first race night for the All Stars is February 3rd.

Over the last several seasons, we've watched Carson Macedo rise to prominence on the national sprint car stage, becoming a yearly championship contender with the World of Outlaws. And since 2017, only five drivers have more Outlaw wins than does Macedo. But for 2023, we'll see another Macedo more often across the country, and that is Carson's 22 year old brother Cole. Another in a long, successful line of young drivers to come through the Linder pipeline in Ohio, Cole has a won a bunch at tracks like Fremont, Attica, and Wayne County. And along with running weekly there, has also made scattered starts with the Outlaws and All Stars, including picking up an All Star win at Fremont in 2021. We've seen Cole mostly with the Linders and the Ray Brooks Racing team, but he did get a shot in 2022 to drive Alex Bowman's car, including in some scattered All Stars races and at World Finals. That World Finals weekend was impressive, with two dash appearances, and a fourth on night two. He was probably in line for a good finish on the final night as well, but ended up crashed in the dash and being done for the night. For this season, Cole will split time between the Ray Brooks team in Ohio and the midwest, and a traveling schedule with the Tarlton team. The Tarlton 21 has traditionally been mostly confined to California and the west coast, so this will be a big step up for that organization to travel east and hit some big shows. Cole will start the year in California with Tarlton, then go to Ohio for the spring and into the early summer, and then spend the rest of the year mostly in the Tarlton car traveling with the Outlaws and hitting other big shows. He'll still make appearances with the Brooks team where possible. Sean Dyson and his Complete Parts and Equipment will sponsor the Tarlton effort, and Drew Warner will crew chief the team. When Macedo isn't in the 21, a release from the team says they will have a driver by committee situation, with that group yet to be named. This will be a big chance for Macedo to get some experience out on the road, led by a crew chief who's beaten the Outlaws before. He's definitely a young driver to keep an eye on this season.

Fresh off his big win at the Chili Bowl, we found out yesterday that Logan Seavey will run the full USAC National Midget schedule this year with Abacus Racing. It will be the first time that Abacus attempts the full national slate of races with USAC. The team had a pair of cars at the Chili Bowl with drivers Daniel Whitley and Dillon Welch, and they've previously run cars with Maria Cofer, and NASCAR driver Sheldon Creed raced for the team at the BC39. Seavey ran 26 times with the USAC midgets in 2022, grabbing four top fives and 13 top tens. His last national midget win came at Turkey Night back in 2021. We won't see the midget season start until April 21st at Kokomo, as there is no Florida trip this season for the USAC midget teams.

The Lucas season and their part of speedweeks doesn't officially start until tomorrow night at Golden Isles, but the series is slated for a practice night tonight. I don't know that I'd hold my breath for that one though, as it's a very rainy day today in the southeast. The rest of the weekend looks solid though in terms of weather. We'll go deep on the Lucas opener on tomorrow's show.

If you're looking for other dirt racing shows this week, LoudPedal has Logan Seavey, Passing Points has John Hunt, and Logan Seavey and Kevin Swindell. Quicktime has Billy Alley and Tyler Perry, All Gas No Brakes has Larry Dismukes and Chris Tilley, Hoogie's Garage has Tyler Swank, and there are new episodes of the Dirt Reporters, the Dirt Nerds, and Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks. To see the full list of shows and episodes, head over to dirtrackr.com/podcasts.

Four shows today across the streaming services. Clay Per View has sprint cars from Borderline and action from Kingaroy. There is also FloRacing 24/7 and DIRTVision Now. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.

Alright, that's it for the show today. Thanks everyone for tuning in. We'll be back here tomorrow for more DIRTRACKR Daily.