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Sprint car power struggle spills into the open with key personnel change | Daily 9-28-2023

It's on like Donkey Kong. High Limit appears to have taken a big step towards setting off a big power struggle in sprint car racing, and we've got the details today. Let's go!

It's Thursday, September 28th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

I was all set to do a bunch of late model stuff today, I've got some purse numbers that I was working on, but after this morning's breaking news, we'll save that stuff and maybe do a bonus Friday Daily show. If you missed it, Jeremy Elliott dropped news this morning at sprintcarunlimited.com that World of Outlaws race director Mike Hess is no longer an employee of World Racing Group. His employment status with the company suddenly changed on Wednesday. Heading into this weekend's National Open at Williams Grove, past race director Don Grabey will slide back into the seat and be in charge under series director Carlton Reimers. Hess had been the race director, leading driver's meetings and the voice on the Race Monitor, since 2015. Mike is a guy I'd call a friend, we interviewed him on Open Red when I worked at WRG, and we did a neat episode where I recorded all of the driver radio for a night at World Finals where he was featured prominently. He's really good at what he does, maybe the best in the business right now, and this is some measure of a loss for the World of Outlaws. It's not a loss they can't absorb, but even with Grabey's experience, he'll need some time to readjust back into the role. So the question is why now is Hess out? Well, back on Tuesday night at Lernerville, Mike was in the chair calling things for the High Limit series. There are photos of him in the booth floating around, and his voice can be heard on the driver radio in a video posted to Twitter from the other night. I started to get messages about this early yesterday, and it was only a matter of time before it became public knowledge. I'm just speculating here, but you have to think that the Outlaws' race director showing up and running things for what is quickly becoming a rival series probably didn't go over well with WRG management. Jeremy's story says that at this moment Mike Hess is not a full-time employee of the High Limit series, but you have to think that will probably change soon. Officiating is something High Limit has needed to shore up all season, and this gives Mike three opportunities to put things in place ahead of what could very likely be a much larger role for 2024. He called Lernerville, and Bridgeport and Lincoln Park are still to come. If I was a betting man, I'd say Hess will be at those races in a High Limit shirt. Pulling back a bit to see the larger picture, if you were going to start a big time, national sprint car series at this moment, you'd want a guy like Mike Hess in charge. He was a successful racer in his own right, has been in this spot for years, and the drivers all know him. He would bring immediate credibility to High Limit, and I would go out on a limb and say that Brad Sweet has probably been using his time on the road this season to make this deal happen. I also think this appears to be a pretty clear indication that High Limit is set to ramp up well beyond a 12 race, midweek series for 2024. To this point, they've used a cobbled together group of officials at each event, including some from USAC, and grabbing a guy like Hess starts to solve some of those infrastructure problems I talked about on yesterday's show. So in the past year, we've seen the High Limit group snag the Outlaws' PR guy in Brian Walker, and we are potentially heading towards a hire of their race director as well. Publicly, Brad Sweet has been non-committal very recently about what is to come for High Limit next year, but I don't see why you bring in a guy like Hess for a part time series. Hess showing up at Lernerville for High Limit was obviously not going to go unnoticed, and this just might be the first public aggression in what is to become a serious tug-of-war over the future of sprint car racing. Brad Sweet, Kyle Larson, FloRacing on one side, and the World of Outlaws, owned by World Racing Group with DIRTVision on the other. Throw down those lawn chairs, get the popcorn hot and drinks cold, we are all about to be in for a showdown.

A couple of other things for you today. Bobby Pierce went back-to-back last night with the FloRacing series late models. He won a few weeks ago at Fairbury, and backed it up last night at Tyler County, leading all 50 laps and topping championship rival Hudson O'Neal and Tim McCreadie. It was a pretty wild night from start to finish. The first heat race was a mess with Ricky Thornton Jr. and Tim McCreadie tangling early. And their Longhorn on Longhorn crime continued even after that caution. We also had some fireworks between Logan Roberson and Daulton Wilson in heat three. And then we had Shane Hitt barrel rolling his late model during the feature. Plenty of bent metal and tempers by the time the night was over. Looking ahead, the national dirt late model scene is split this weekend, with Lucas in Ohio and Pennsylvania to decide the final championship four. And the World of Outlaws late models are back after several weeks off with two nights set for Atomic Speedway. Ten races are left for the Outlaws, and Pierce seems to be on his way to his first series title.

At Indy last night, the Stoops Pursuit event for the USAC Midgets was rained out. The BC39 continues tonight with the first of two, split field prelim nights. Hopefully the weather will play nice the next three days so we can see some fun racing inside the big track. This one is live on Flo tonight, and is one of several options you have for viewing on this Thursday. Stop by dirtrackr.com/watchtonight to see the full streaming schedule today.

Another late model event to pay attention to this weekend is the Hunt the Front Series down at the Talladega Short Track. They've got just a few nights left to decide the championship, and Josh Putnam and Wil Herrington are trying to track down Joseph Joiner for the first ever series title. The event at Talladega is paying $5k to win Friday, and $9700 on Saturday for the supers, and the event also includes Crate Racin USA 604 late models. If you aren't aware, this is happening in conjunction with the NASCAR Cup Series weekend at Talladega, and it sounds like there may be a driver or two who crosses the street to trade the pavement for a dirt late model. After this weekend, two October dates at Swainsboro are all that's left for the Hunt the Front championship season. You can find more series details at htfseries.com.

That's it for the show today. There is a very good chance I'll throw in a bonus Friday episode, so stay tuned for that tomorrow. There is obviously no lack of things to talk about at this moment.

Hope you guys have a great Thursday out there, we'll probably see you back here tomorrow.