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High Limit tension builds as racing ends, Chili Bowl raises purse | Daily 10-11-2023

The first ever High Limit season is done, and we'll talk champion, some numbers, and what's ahead for High Limit's future. Plus the Chili Bowl adds purse money, and updates on the Short Track Super Series and POWRi and Xtreme Midgets. Let's go!

It's Wednesday, October 11th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

The inaugural High Limit season is in the books, and despite Rico Abreu leading all 40 laps en route to his fourth win of the season and third in four races, Kyle Larson was crowned the series champion last night. Lincoln Park got pretty technical, and had a nice curb, and you'd expect guys like Rico and Larson to shine on that type of surface. Larson needed to finish sixth or better, and that's what he did, charging to the podium late after starting seventh. He actually ran second in the closing laps, but got nipped by Tyler Courtney at the end. The final margin in the standings was seven points between Larson and Rico. Yung Money still has not finished outside the top ten in any High Limit race going back to the first in 2022. So $23,000 to Rico for the win, plus another $20k for finishing second in the championship. Larson bagged $30 grand for the title. Looking back over the 12 race history, 194 drivers have competed with High Limit. They started this first season with an insane 26 full time drivers declared, but as of last night, just six attempted every event. They were Larson, Rico, Cory Eliason, Chase Randall, Ryan Timms, and Dusty Zomer. And I believe the Macri Motorsports car was at all of them, between Anthony, Justin Sanders and Lance Dewease. It was not shocking to see Larson pick up the title, as this schedule was really put together for him to run a somewhat full season in a sprint car. Midweek shows fit perfectly with his other racing, and the tracks were basically hand picked. Regardless of where you stand on that, this first year appears to have been a pretty big success. It's my understanding that all the High Limit events, except for maybe one made money, so that's always good. Now that the racing is done though, don't expect High Limit to disappear from the headlines in the coming weeks and months. Regardless of what we've seen and heard from All Star folks, the rumors persist that a deal between Tony Stewart and Brad and Kyle is still on the table for High Limit to acquire the series. The All Stars getting absorbed would clear out some schedule hurdles and make it easier for High Limit to lock in some dates for their larger national tour next year. It would also be a consolidation for FloRacing on the streaming side. It would mean just one 410 sprint car series to focus on, instead of possibly two. One thing I will be curious about is where the midweek races fit for next year. Larson's place in High Limit will change dramatically when the series starts running Friday and Saturday nights and he isn't around as much to race. I could see a scenario where High Limit is actually two things: a full national schedule similar to the All Stars and Outlaws, plus a midweek component to keep eyes on the series when there is less competition and allow Larson to stay in the mix. That keeps Flo happy with midweek content, and Larson can continue to chase some sort of championship. Behind the scenes, the battle is on for tracks and certain dates right now between High Limit and World Racing Group. So we have and will continue to see clashes over tracks, personnel, and teams for 2024.

A couple of other notes from last night. It's been a rough stretch for Buddy Kofoid in the Roth 83JR. Mechanical issues knocked him out of last night's High Limit main event, and he had problems over this past weekend at Port Royal. He's not got four straight finishes of 19th or worse in that car, and it seems as though there are still gremlins in the TRD engine. Also, there was drama in the work area last night at Lincoln Park. There was an on track incident that was started when Cap Henry spun trying to get around Kerry Madsen. It sent several cars to the work area for repairs, including Justin Sanders and Cory Eliason. Henry's car was eventually brought in as well, and we watched live on Flo as the two machine did not come to a stop and actually hit the 39M and a mule. Macri crew chief Joe Mooney did not react well, as you might expect, and he was seen smacking the wing on Henry's car before being shoved by a nearby crew member. I certainly don't blame Joe for his reaction, that would piss me off too. But thanks to a tweet from Henry, we now know that his car had damage to front brake lines and he couldn't get the car stopped. He admitted to trying to find the best place to hit to avoid as many people as possible. It's a good reminder that pit areas at race tracks are still dangerous, and everyone needs to keep their heads on a swivel.

Before we move on a quick merch update for you. I have just a single modified sticker left, and no plans to order more. So don't delay if you want it. I did recently reorder the late model stickers, those should be here next week along with a new sprint car sticker design. Also, I have 12 of the late model t-shirts left, and I've dropped the price on them to $7. Only smalls and mediums remain though. On top of the price drop, I'll throw in a free koozie if you order one. I am toying around with some hoodie and new shirt designs as well. You can grab merch any time over at shop.dirtrackr.com.

In the recent conversation about dirt racing purses, the Chili Bowl has been a contentious event, and the payouts have drawn the ire of plenty of high profile competitors. Obviously in 2023 Kyle Larson was at the center of the talk with his decision to go late model racing that week instead. Yesterday though, the event announced a significant bump to the payouts for the week long event coming up in January. The Saturday night main event is going from $10,000 to win, to $20,000 to win and will be $2000 to start. They will also pay $150 per lap led and $50 per lap for whoever runs second. That would bring the total possible winners share to more than $28,000. There is also money being added down through the Saturday alphabet, and prelim features are now $3000 to win and $300 to start. I'm sure competitors will welcome the added cash, and it should help to at least quiet some of the complaints. They won't go away entirely, but regardless of how much you think it should pay, this is defintely a solid step. You can see the full release over at chilibowl.com.

We were supposed to have back-to-back weekends of big time modified racing in the northeast, but as of yesterday afternoon, the Speed Showcase for the Short Track Super Series has been called off. A poor forecast around Port Royal Speedway forced officials to push things to March of 2024. In a release, Brett Deyo said running a shortened version this week didn't make sense, and the track has a resurfacing project coming up that will prevent a 2023 reschedule date. It sets up a weird situation, in that the 2023 Elite Series champion won't be decided until next spring. I also know some folks are not happy that things like camping are not being refunded, and instead just carried through to the date next year. With the event being called off, I'm assuming the rest of the racing is off as well, although the release does not mention anything about Friday's 410 show. Lincoln's Saturday $20,000 to win show is still on at this moment, but that could change in the coming days.

For the midget fans out there we are going to settle a pair of championships this weekend. The POWRi season wraps up basically in conjunction with the end of the Xtreme Outlaw year. POWRi gets things kicked off tonight at Creek County, and then Thursday through Saturday are co-sanctions with Xtreme at Port City and I-44 Riverside. With POWRi, Cannon McIntosh looks to be on his way to the national midget championship, with Karter Sarff and Corbin Rueschenberg in tow. Rueschenberg had spent much of 2023 driving for Mounce Stout Motorsports, but starting this weekend, he's shifting over to run a car prepared by Tanner Thorson. On the Xtreme side, Jade Avedisian enters the final weekend leading the standings by just 11 points over McIntosh, with Gavin Miller and Zach Daum both still very much in play as well. This could be a slugfest all weekend. Of the four, Daum really seems to have the momentum right now. Ten straight finishes of eighth or better, including two wins. He's been incredibly strong since joining up with the 7U team. And we'll see if McIntosh is better moving over to Chad Boat for the rest of the season. The whole weekend is live on DIRTVision if you want to tune in, and that includes tonight's POWRi only show at Creek County.

In dirt racing podcast land this week there are a bunch of new episodes. Winged Nation has Zeb Wise, Brian Brown, and Rico Abreu. Open Red has Jade Avedisian and Cannon McIntosh, Passing Points has ALlen Staley, Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks has Ricky Peterson, Hoogie's Garage has Dylan Waxdahl, Dunewich on Dirt has Jacob Todd, and there are new episodes of the Dirt Reporters, the Dirt Nerds, Quicktime, Dirt Track Confessions, and Dirt Track Weekly. I do have a new addition this week as well. The Turn 2 Terribles show is now available on the site. They do podcasts and live shows around the dirt racing scene in Central Pennsylvania. They've got Ashley Cappetta from their most recent episodes. You can see all these shows and episodes over at dirtrackr.com/podcasts.

That's it for today's Daily. dirtrackr.com is your place for the streaming schedule, updated news throughout the day and more, so make sure to add it to your list of daily internet stops.

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