DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
Dirt racing news, results, discussion, analytics. Sprint cars, late models, modifieds, you name it. From national series, to top local shows. Brought to you five days a week. Email the show at info@dirtrackr.com.
Kyle Larson tweets lead to racers sharing their costs to compete | Daily 6-23-2023
A couple of Thursday Kyle Larson tweets set off some interesting discussions yesterday surrounding dirt racing economics, and we'll go full ham on that today, plus Thursday and results and what to watch this weekend. Let's go!
It's Friday, June 23rd, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
If you didn't see it yesterday, Kyle Larson had a couple of pretty good tweets regarding his position in the sport and money, and it kicked off some interesting threads about the economics of dirt racing. The funniest of the two was Larson quote tweeting a Walkapedia post about sprint car earnings per race. He talked about him and Paul Silva handing out money to other teams to please the angry fans and used a GIF of Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber. Always a fan of spicy drivers. The other tweet was in response to a reply where a fan said that Larson should share his winnings with the drivers who are racing for a living since it was money he didn't necessarily need. Yung Money pointed out that he too is a driver who races for a living. And obviously he's not wrong. Things got really interesting though when Kevin Swindell jumped in to respond, and that set off a number of other replies that gave us some insight into a lot of things we've talked about in the past. Towards the back half of 2022, I did several daily shows where we talked about the money around dirt racing, including what it costs a top Outlaw team to compete, we got into sprint car purses and how they've changed in recent years, and what full time teams are guaranteed in terms of bonus money and other payouts. It set off plenty of conversation elsewhere, and led to Brad Sweet coming on to talk to me, David Gravel commenting on his livestreams, and me getting bagged on a bit. I did the best I could with the information available to put together estimates on everything, and no doubt got some stuff incorrect. But I guarantee people learned more about the costs of the sport over those several videos and weeks then they ever had previously. Swindell gave us a breakdown of a $10,000 to win purse and how when his team wins, the best he can really do is break even as a team owner. Of the $10k, he's going to pay half to the driver, and spend the rest on tires, equipment maintenance, travel and passes, and other costs to run the business like rent and salaries. He says to make things viable for team owners, either purses have to go up a lot or there needs to be a lot more sponsorship coming in. Swindell went on to say that at the very bare minimum, its probably $1500 to run any decent 410 race. All of that is great information, and it turned into even more responses from other guys. Jamie Ball said after pit passes, methanol, two rear tires and engine maintenance, it costs him a little more than $1700 a week to run a 360 sprint car at Knoxville where it pays $2000 to win. Zach Hampton has no full time crew members, and he figures it costs him about $3000 to unload his 410 sprint car and race. Hampton has turned into a really great Twitter follow if you don't know about him. He's shared some cool videos and good insight in recent weeks and months. And Mike McGhee, part of the 11 car that Parker Price Miller is back in this week at Huset's, and that has run with the All Stars full time, says they figure it costs them $6500 a night to race. So back to Kevin Swindell's original numbers, you can see pretty quickly how living on $10,000 to win, $1000 to start purses is tough. The things we don't understand in this picture and I haven't seen anyone share a ton of detail on is sponsorship dollars and merch. If you're a top guy, merch can be a significant source of income, but it doesn't work for everyone. Buying, storing, shipping, and selling merch is expensive, and the margins are razor thin, even if you are somehow able to move a decent amount of volume. Drivers like Rico, or Larson, or Bloomquist, or Davenport all do well no doubt, but for teams lower down the order, merch is a risk. For DIRTRACKR, I started doing some small stuff last year for the first time, and have added along the way, selling small runs of hats, shirts, and stickers. To date, I've brought in maybe $6500 or $7000 from that merch which is great, but after you figure in sales tax, shipping, shipping supplies, admin costs like the Shopify fees, and the actual cost of getting the merch made, I've netted out just a few hundred bucks. I obviously only sell online, when selling at the track seems like it's a better driver. Fans are primed for it when they go to a race, but merch trailers are expensive, and not everyone has the luxury of getting one or has the priviledge of parking it in a midway at every show. On the sponsorship side, a full time World of Outlaws team might be able to get half a million or more a season for a primary deal on a top car based off what I've heard, but it falls off significantly after that. There are a number of teams around the sport that don't have a ton of sponsors, and big time corporate sponsors are few and far between. Brady Bacon and Hoffman Racing shared a marketing deck several months ago where they were asking for $95,000 for a full season primary that included branding on the armguard and hood side, or you could do a single race for $2500. That's the most concrete, down on paper example I've seen of sponsorship dollars being sought. In all of this, there are plenty of criticisms to launch at all parties, but if there were a magic bullet to fix things, someone would have used it. Racers are their own worst enemies and will always spend every available dollar to go faster and win. Speed is expensive. It would be nice if series and tracks had better payouts, but most are doing the absolute best they can. I promise you nobody is getting rich around the sport, even Brian Carter contrary to popular belief. The streaming dollars have certainly helped, but the fan base can only support so much, and that ground is constantly shifting and changing as we've seen. I don't know what the answers are, but I do appreciate the transparency from everyone that's jumped into those Twitter threads.
One other tweet I'll point you to, and I'm not going to run the video because of the language in it, but if you want an insight today into the intensity of the racing, there is a a video floating around of a verbal exchange between Brad Sweet and Tim Kaeding from Wednesday at Huset's. I'll link to it below in the video description. Make sure to watch it away from the kiddos.
Before we move on, I'm in the process of jump starting a weekly email newsletter for my DIRTRACKR audience and am looking for contributors. I'd very much like to use it to spotlight other creators and writers, so if you are interested in participating and pitching some story ideas, shoot me a DM or email. I know there are a bunch of media folks who tune into this show. I'm not looking for race recaps or anything time sensitive, and would like to have features, or cool interviews, or other creative stuff sent my way. I've already had some cool conversations with some writers and would like to get this launched maybe as soon as next week. Let me know.
Alright, that money discussion turned into a lot more words than I thought it would, but I do want to talk some racing from last night and coming up before we shut it down for the week. Last night at Huset's we did get big improvements from the guys that struggled on Wednesday night. The biggest swing was from James McFadden. He was 18th in the B the night before, but led the final 18 laps on Thursday and scored the $20,000 win. He about threw it away on the final lap, jumping the cushion, but he made the Roth 83 really wide down the backstretch and kept David Gravel behind him at the checkered. It was Gravel's fourth straight second place finish in Outlaw competition, and he is high point man after two nights. Buddy Kofoid ended up third after sitting on the pole and leading the first 17 laps, to make it two Roth cars in the top three. All the top guys made the night's feature, but several still have work to do tonight to try and improve their standing for Saturday. Kyle Larson wasn't nearly as strong on Thursday as he was the night before. He had a late spin and ended up 22nd after getting caught in the work area. He won't be racing tonight, as he's headed to Nashville for NASCAR stuff. He'll be back to Huset's on Saturday. Tonight's program is the same as the previous two, and then things get really serious on Saturday for $250,000 to win.
At Lernerville last night, the first of two Firecracker prelim nights was eventually postponed because of rain. They are running the Thursday features this afternoon before they start into the Friday program. Jonathan Davenport, Mason Zeigler, Brandon Overton, Tim McCreadie, Cody Overton, and Hudson O'Neal were last night's six heat race winners. So we still have four $5000 to win prelim features coming up, before Saturday's $50,000 to win Firecracker 100.
Other winners last night included Corey Day at Skagit. He got into a fun battle with Tanner Holmes and then held off Shane Golobic and Zeb Wise late to score the Dirt Cup prelim win. They have the same setup for tonight, with $62,000 on the line on Saturday. Jeffrey Newell got his first career ASCS National Tour win at Lawton, leading green to checkered and topping Matt Covington and Howard Moore. The ASCS is off tonight, and back racing tomorrow night at Caney Valley. And at Charleston, an early incident with Thomas Meseraull couldn't keep Cannon McIntosh down. He won the opening night of POWRi Illinois Midget week. Midget week is at Jacksonville tonight, Macon on Saturday, and Lincoln on Sunday.
Other racing to check out this weekend includes the World of Outlaws Late Models on a midwest swing. Points leader Chris Madden leads the series into stops at 81 Speedway tonight and tomorrow, and Off Road Speedway on Sunday. Brian Shirley is the most recent Outlaw winner, and he's coming off a week one Summer Nationals championship. And we've currently got a three way tie for second in the Outlaw standings between Kyle Bronson, Nick Hoffman, and Bobby Pierce.
The Summer Nationals are back tonight at Brownstown, with Pevely and Lincoln coming up over the weekend. Billy Moyer Jr. and Ashton Winger have wins this week and Jason Feger is the week two points leader.
The USAC Sprint Cars have a trip to Wisconsin coming up, with Wilmot on Saturday and Angell Park on Sunday. A fantastic Eastern Storm trip has pushed Emerson Axsom into the points lead over Jake Swanson and Kyle Cummins.
And finally, PA Speedweek was supposed to start tonight at Williams Grove, but rain has ruined the opener. They'll try again tomorrow night at Lincoln, with BAPS on tap for Sunday.
That's it for the Daily this week. Make sure to check out the streaming schedule this weekend over at dirtrackr.com.
Hope you guys have a good weekend out there, we'll see you right back here on Monday.