DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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What does a failed Texas F1 track have to do with the World of Outlaws? | Daily 10-26-2023
If at first you don't succeed with Formula 1, try try again with the World of Outlaws. On the show today I've got a crazy story for you about the early days of Boundless Motorsports and what they were doing before they bought the Outlaws from Ted Johnson. Plus news from Mike Marlar and Kaylee Bryson, and what to watch this weekend. Let's go!
It's Thursday, October 26th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
I'm going to kick this final show of the week off with a little bit of history and story time for you. In the midst of all of this sprint car unrest, I've done a bunch of research this year around the history of the sport, and that includes the history of the World of Outlaws. You've seen snippets of my research pulled into various daily shows, including a little bit about the Gumout series from two weeks ago. And I did a daily back in January about the two previous attempts by competing sprint car series to overturn the Outlaws' reign at the top. I'll link to that Daily below if you haven't seen it. When researching the World of Outlaws, an obviously pivotal point in history is the Paul Kruger slash Boundless slash DIRT Motorsports period that ultimately morphed into World Racing Group which we still have today. That point with Kruger in charge is what set off that second attempt to create a competing national sprint car series, because so many were unhappy with how things were playing out. That was the NST in 2006, which eventually folded after one season. But the story I have for you today is about Boundless and the motorsports project they attempted even before they went head-first into trying to build a unified, vertically integrated, dirt racing organization. Before DIRT Motorsports and Boundless, there was a precursor organization called GPX Partners LLC. GPX was a Texas based LLC that listed Paul Kruger and Bobby Hartslief as directors. For those of you that remember back to Boundless and DIRT, Hartslief was at one point the COO of Boundless under Kruger before resigning his position in 2005. And in the recent history of motorsports, Hartslief is an interesting character. He promoted the Formula 1 Grands Prix at the South African Kyalami Circuit between 1981 and 1985, and later was the manager for three time Formula 1 world champion Nelson Piquet. Hartslief even popped up recently, as he was involved in efforts to try and bring Formula 1 back to South Africa for the 2023 season, but that deal never materialized. And where this story is going, is before they were interested in the World of Outlaws and dirt racing, Kruger and Hartslief first attempted to build a full on Formula 1 track near Dallas. We are obviously coming off of a weekend where Formula 1 just completed the USGP at a Texas based track, but not near Dallas, the Circuit of the Americas is in Austin. Late in 2002, GPX issued a press release announcing the acquisition of more than 1400 acres in Waxahachie, Texas, just south of Dallas, where they had plans to build, wait for it, Boundless Motorplex. The facility was going to include a 3.2 mile FIA and FIM approved road course, plus motorcross village, and a 50-acre jet ski and boat racing lake. That FIA and FIM approval would have allowed them to pursue both Formula 1 and MOTOGP. Their plans included 100,000 grandstand seats, track side condos, sky boxes, an RV resort, racing schools, a business park, and even an 18 hole golf course. The estimated project cost was $100 million, and they initially planned on being operational by 2004. But outside of the press release, and some paperwork, nothing else ever happened and the track was never built. A year later, Kruger, Hartslief, Leslie Wulf and the rest of the Boundless founders had shifted their attention to dirt racing, and their pursuit of Ted Johnson's World of Outlaws and Glenn Donnelly's DIRT in the northeast. As a sidenote here, Hartslief's connection with Nelson Piquet even turned into an attempt by a Brazilian driver to transition to the World of Outlaws in 2004. Past Formula 3 racer Ricardo Mauricio raced at Las Vegas in 2004 in a car owned by Doug Lippincott. He didn't make the feature, but to this day still competes, including in Stock Car Brasil.
Alright, let's move on to some current day dirt racing stuff.
In what is probably the biggest dirt late model driver change we've had so far in 2023, it was announced yesterday that Mike Marlar is departing the Ronnie Delk owned team after a 10 year run together. Something like almost 75 wins for the pairing, plus the 2018 World of Outlaws Late Model Series championship. In 74 races in 2023, Marlar had 11 victories, including three with the Outlaws, three with Lucas, and a Flo series score at Eldora. He was also a prelim night winner back at the Dirt Late Model Dream in June. No future plans for either side were included in the release, but Marlar's name has been floating around in the rumor mill for a while tied to another team, so I'm sure we'll have more on that shortly. Things have been fairly quiet for the dirt late model silly season this year. We had the Wil Herrington to Barry Wright move, Spencer Hughes from PCC to JCM, Ryan Gustin pairing with Todd Cooney, and the Longhorn house car change with Tim McCreadie out and Brandon Sheppard in. I'm sure there are other moves coming, but the bigger intrigue for 2024 might be who decides to race with which series or go with a pick and choose schedule. Will the Lucas chase convince more teams to jump in next year, or will it turn drivers off after what happened at Eldora. Can Steve Francis again build a sizeable field of full time Outlaws, and hold on to a bunch of them by World Finals like he did this year? Will some of the regional racing draw guys back in, especially with tours like Hunt the Front bumping up to a $50,000 payout for their champion. There will again be no lack of options.
Looking around for the weekend in late model racing, the Outlaws are off until World Finals, and Lucas is done for 2023. A bunch of heavy hitters are headed for East Alabama and the National 100, with that finale paying a very nice $49,000 to win. If you missed it earlier this week, we had Hunt the Front's Joshua Joiner on DIRTRACKR Conversations, and he clued us in on the big name drivers they are expecting there. Check out that interview if you haven't watched it yet.
The MLRA wraps up it's season on Saturday at Wheatland, Missouri with a $10,000 to win show and they will crown their champion, with Chad Simpson in line for the title over brother Chris. Chad has three wins and 10 top tens in 16 races, and has a 270 point lead. You've also got supers at places like Georgetown and Thunderbird. That Thunderbird show will feature the late model debut for usual open wheel racer Kaylee Bryson. Bryson won the Silver Crown rookie of the year award this season, and has a midget resume that includes multiple Chili Bowl feature appearances. She also made scattered sprint car starts this year, including with the USCS and in ASCS regional competition. She posted a video to social media last night that shows her getting some laps in, and she looked pretty sporty.
We were supposed to get a pair of season ending weekends for two other series, but rain has ruined both of those and prematurely ended those seasons. First was the USAC Sprint Cars at Red Dirt Raceway in Oklahoma. Their two nights are cancelled and Justin Grant is officially the national sprint car champion. This is JG's second consecutive title, and he got it done with an insane run to the finish that started in late July. After two nights outside the top 15 at Macon, Grant ran wild over the last 17 races, finishing eighth or better in 16 of them, which included eight wins. He swept the Smackdown at Kokomo, and won two of the last three races on the calendar. He topped multi-time champ Brady Bacon and Emerson Axsom in the final rundown. With Silver Crown and the sprint car seasons done, the only thing left for USAC is the midgets. Their west coast swing to close the year starts on November 14th at Bakersfield. Logan Seavey has a sizeable lead for that championship.
Also, with the Grant Junghans Memorial washed out for Friday at Lakeside, the USMTS modified season is complete. We already knew that Rodney Sanders was the series champion. He got it done with five wins and 27 top tens in 33 races. The USMTS will hold their banquet in January in Kansas City.
As for some racing we will get to see, the ASCS Short Track Nationals kick off tonight at Texarkana 67 Speedway. Saturday is $20,000 to win, and they've got 60 plus 360 sprint cars on the entry list. Sam Hafertepe Jr. is the defending event winner, but that happened at the I-30 Speedway which is now closed for good. The ASCS title has already been awarded to Jason Martin, and you can watch the Short Track Nationals all weekend over on Flo.
The Short Track Super Series south region has their final event of the year this weekend at Georgetown Speedway. $7000 to win on Saturday night, plus a full card of other divisions including 602 sportsman and the aforementioned super late models.
Out in California, the NARC sprint cars are at Kern County, with just two races left in their season. After Saturday, their final show is November 4th at the Stockton Dirt Track. Corey Day continues to lead the NARC standings, with Justin Sanders and Dominic Scelzi still very much in the fight.
At Bridgeport Speedway, it's SprintOberfest weekend, with 410s, NEWS, and the USAC East Coast sprint cars all on the card. The 410 field looks like it will be very solid. I've seen names like Justin Peck, Danny Dietrich and Kyle Reinhardt will be there. And I'm sure other Central PA guys will make the tow.
And not too far from where I sit currently, the DIRTcar World Short Track Championship is going on today through Saturday at Charlotte. I haven't heard a total car count, but it's big for sure. They'll have packed days of action for pro modifieds, pro late models, sport compacts, 602 late models, pro stocks, sportsman, mini stocks, and crate sportsman.
Alright, that's it for today's daily. Streaming schedule, analytics, news and more at dirtrackr.com. Social media everywhere @dirtrackr. Merch at shop.dirtrackr.com.
Hope you have a great Thursday out there, we'll see you back here on Sunday.