DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Are there enough sprint cars to support two national series?

Can the current sprint car ecosystem support two national series like the late model side does? We'll dive into some numbers today and talk a few hypotheticals, plus an Ohio Speedweek mainstay announces it's intentions for next year, and more. Let's go!

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

Let's giveaway these BAPS tickets right off the top today, shall we. Back on the Monday emergency Daily show about the High Limit All Star acquisition, we gave folks the chance to enter by just leaving a comment to have a chance at two free general admission tickets and two souvenir t-shirts for the November 11th Les Stewart Sprint Showdown at BAPS Motor Speedway in Pennsylvania. That 410 sprint car race will pay $25,000 to the winner, and it's the largest purse in track history. The winner of the tickets is Shane McDonald. He commented that work has kept him away from sprint car shows this year, so let's fix that. Drop me an email Shane at info@dirtrackr.com and we'll get you hooked up. Thanks to everyone who participated in the contest, and hopefully we'll get to do it again soon. You can grab tickets for November 11th at bapsmotorspeedway.com.

Now that we know officially that High Limit has acquired the All Stars, the attention is going to shift to things like the schedule and what teams will compete. And until further notice, when we have a better idea of what things are going to be called, I'm just going to refer to this whole thing as High Limit. So if you hear me say that, I'm referring to this new merged sprint car thing. I do have a High Limit schedule new items to get to today, so we'll do that in a bit. But first, I want to talk through a few things and go stream of consciousness when it comes to teams and cars. One of the things we've heard through some of this High Limit conversation is the comparison to the late model side of the sport. The late models have more high paying races, and that community has found a way to support two national tours. And that is true. Like I said on the Monday show, there are some other things at play on the late model side that don't get talked about enough, like how the Lucas Oil Company has subsidized that national tour for so long. With a new regime in charge at Lucas though, we've seen that company really pare down their motorsport involvement, and you have to wonder what it means for the future of the late model series. We'll leave that conversation for another day though. For this show, something I've had a bunch of conversations with industry friends about, is the difference in the number of available teams on the sprint car side versus the late model one, and if sprint car racing really can support two big series. Late model racing as a whole just seems bigger and more pervasive, but I wanted to look at a few numbers to see if that's true at the national level. First, using heat race stats, I pulled a list together of the total number of drivers that competed between Lucas and the Outlaws, versus the All Stars and the Outlaws. And the numbers overall are pretty similar. 524 late model drivers, versus 510 sprint car drivers. 180 guys ran with both late model series, and 201 ran with both sprint car series. That would seem to suggest that at least on a nightly basis, you'll have decent fields regardless. Looking at average field size for every race I have in the dirtrackr.com analytics database, things do look a bit better on the late model side. Since 2020, Lucas has averaged around 45 cars per night, while since 2019 the Outlaw late models have averaged around 38 per night. Since 2017, the Outlaw sprint cars are averaging around 35.5 cars a night, and going back through 2019, the All Stars averaged 36. So by average, the late models do better on a per night basis for total field size. Where this goes a bit awry though, is the full timers. Lucas had basically 14 full time teams in 2023, while the Outlaw late models had 15. So that's nearly 30 full time between the two. This isn't a straight comparison though on the sprint car side, because the All Stars were not national. It's not great though, becuase the full time list is much smaller. The Outlaws have had 13 or 14, depending on Bill Rose's status. But the All Star field was smaller at around 7ish. And that seven included JJ Hickle and Tim Shaffer, who ran most of the races, but in different cars. So a bit more ambiguous. If you add that up, that's only 20 cars. And of those 20, not all are capable of running a larger schedule, and one that will potentially include trips to the west coast. Rumors are that the Outlaws are trying to keep a west coast swing on their 2024 slate of races, and you have to believe that High Limit is looking at one as well. I have a hard time believing that the Gold Cup won't flip from Outlaw sanction to High Limit with Brad Sweet and Kyle Larson and Colby Copeland in charge at Silver Dollar. That will mean two, coast-to-coast series. And how many sprint car teams are prepared and have the resources to do that type of run? The list is pretty small. Obviously the 13 or so Outlaw drivers did it in 2023. And you can add in a few others, like Rico Abreu (but that's if you can convince him to join a full tour which I'm not sure of), Zeb Wise with Rudeen, and probably the Crouch deal. From there, anyone else you add to that list would be a significant jump up. We've seen others travel west like Ryan Timms, Chase Randall and Austin McCarl, but not as series full timers. And Tyler Courtney has raced in California, but not with the 7BC. There are others who could do it, like Brent Marks or Anthony Macri back in the 39M, but that would be outside their usual territory and comfort zone. I'm not sure we can talk ourselves into a list of 20 sprint car teams who are ready to go California to Pennsylvania to Florida for 60 or 70 races. Hypothetically, if it's say 16 teams, that would mean eight each side if they were somehow able to split them evenly. Are we good with two national tours that have eight full time drivers, and maybe three on each side who will be seriously competing nightly for victories. Drop me a comment on this one, let me know your thoughts.

As for the schedule, a big question at least on the All Star side, is what happens with Ohio Sprint Speedweek. And at least one race we know will go with High Limit. Jeff Knittel posted to Facebook yesterday that the Dean Knittel Memorial, which has closed out speedweek with a big payday will be sanctioned High Limit for 2024. The race has been at Portsmouth, but Knittel didn't share any other details, like the track or a specific date on the calendar. I have heard rumors of Ohio tracks talking amongst themselves about the future of speedweek, so we'll see if this move by the Knittel will pull the others in that direction.

A couple of other news items for you. We talked yesterday about Wil Herrington's move to the Barry Wright house car on the late model side of things, and it didn't take JCM Motorsports long to announce Herrington's replacement. Spencer Hughes will be the new driver of the team's number 19 cars starting this weekend at the National 100 at East Alabama. Hughes had spent the past few seasons as the PCC Motorsports driver out full time with Lucas, but that team announced here not long ago that they would be scaling back following the Dirt Track World Championship and that Hughes was a free agent. JCM is an Alabama based team, and while we have seen them make scattered national touring starts, they remained mostly around the southeast in 2023, running full time with the Hunt the Front series. Nothing was announced in terms of a schedule for next year, but I would venture a guess and say they'll stick to something similar to what they did this season.

Also, we now know that Jeff Struck is the new promoter for Davenport Speedway in Iowa. It was announced last night via a Done Right TV podcast that Struck is taking over and he'll handle the weekly racing which will remain IMCA sanctioned. Struck is a local businessman and street stock racer, and he's taking over after the departure of Ricky and Brenda Kay. The Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds general manager Shawn Loter is working on late model special events, and facility improvements like a new sound system and scoreboard.

Around the other dirt racing podcasts this week, Winged Nation has David Gravel, Tim Crawley, and Lance Dewease. Passing Points also has Tim Crawley, Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks has Zane Devault, Hoogies Garage has Jade Avedisian and Tod Quiring, Dunewich on Dirt has Jackson Wellman, and there are new episodes of LoudPedal, the Dirt Reporters, the Dirt Nerds, Dirt Track Confessions, and Dirt Track Weekly. To see a full rundown of all these shows with links to listen, head over to dirtrackr.com/podcasts.

That's it for the Daily today. Stop by dirtrackr.com to see today's news, plus the streaming schedule and more.

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