DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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BONUS DAILY: High Limit's official plans for 2024 | Daily 11-7-2023

The High Limit announcement is out, and we're going through everything to give you a full rundown on what we know, and what's still to come. Let's go!

It's still Tuesday, November 7th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

Welcome into a bonus episode of the show for today. Obviously if you watched the show I put out earlier, you knew this was a possibility. As expected, High Limit has dropped some details on their plans for 2024 in a release posted to floracing.com and highlimitracing.com. There is a bunch of stuff in here to unpack, and I would also recommend checking out Jeremy's two stories over at sprintcarunlimited.com. One of them is free, the other you will need a subscription for. I'll link to the free story below in the video description.

Looking through the official release, there's not really a lot in here that we didn't expect, and most of it we've talked about at various points on this show. They'll run 50 plus races, live on FloRacing, and it will be a national schedule with a west coast trip. Flo does have a minority stake in ownership, and they confirmed that Brad Sweet will run High Limit full time, with Kyle Larson racing when it fits his schedule. Sidenote here, I don't understand those who questioned whether or not Sweet would race on this side. Why in the world would he start a full national series, but run with the Outlaws? This was obviously always going to be the case, and everyone in the industry already knew this. It's been interesting reading those comments calling me out for talking about Brad leaving, as if it weren't true or wrong somehow. There is even one on my show from earlier today. As a whole, High Limit will have a million dollar point fund, with the champion earning $250,000, and the midweek series will have a $100k point fund. As I said in the Daily show earlier, High Limit would find ways to differentiate themselves from the Outlaws, and that includes no restrictions on full time competitors. Teams will be able to race away from High Limit as they want according to the release, but I'm sure there will be some stipulations in that contract. And yes, there will be a contract for full time High Limit teams just like there was in 2023. This season for example, teams only got the points fund payouts if they had perfect attendance. I would assume that will carry over.

As for purse money, don't expect what you saw this season in terms of payouts to be for every show next year. According to Jeremy Elliott, the midweek races will again pay over $20,000 to win, but regular weekend shows will look similar to the Outlaws. Standard High Limit shows will pay $12k and $15k to win, and $1200 and $1500 to start. With the 20% increase on the Outlaw side, these two will very much be in line. High Limit will also offer tow money to teams on a tiered system, with $600, $500, and $400 available depending on standing. That will be less than the Outlaws offer, as is the points fund. Looking at the total package on offer, the big selling point for High Limit will be that freedom to also race elsewhere, plus the addition of some off weekends.

Looking at what we know about the schedule, that wasn't released today, but there are plenty of details sprinkled throughout the release and Jeremy's stories. The High Limit year will start in Florida at East Bay, supposedly the week after DIRTcar Nationals. And just like we talked about here on the show, it will end at the Dirt Track at Texas Motor Speedway in October. There will also be a High Limit show at Texas in April in conjunction with the NASCAR weekend. Jeremy also mentions an alliance with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series for some joint shows, and you can expect that partnership to start early. This isn't apart of the release, but I've heard after East Bay, High Limit will join Lucas at Golden Isles in Georgia. An alliance between High Limit and Lucas makes sense with the FloRacing connection. I actually like this a lot, especially for race fans who will get to see two big time series on the same night a few times this year. After that early season run down south, High Limit is expected to take several weeks off, similar to what the All Stars did, before restarting their season into the spring. That's also not in the release, but what I've heard. The release does mention big shows for High Limit, including the Weikert and Tusky 50 at Port Royal, the Dean Knittel Memorial at Portsmough, and the Rayce Rudeen Foundation race. Those were all previously main events for the All Stars. We'll also have Lakeside and Eagle back on the schedule, with Eagle supposedly paying big money. Also as expected, the Gold Cup at Silver Dollar and the Skagit Nationals flip from Outlaw sanction to High Limit. Those two events will be the cornerstones of the High Limit west coast swing. With Skagit and the Rudeen race going High Limit, I think it's also a safe assumption here to say that the Rudeen 26 and Zeb Wise will most likely be High Limit full timers next year joining Brad Sweet. Keep an eye on that west coast swing too when the schedule drops, as it apppears as though they'll go from California straight to Port Royal the next week for the Tuscarora 50. That will be a tough week for the teams and the highway miles, and could end up being a small deterrent for those looking to go full time. Both the release and Jeremy's stories point towards a High Limit takeover of the 4-Crown weekend for the winged races, and Kings Royal week will now be split. Wednesday and Thursday will be High Limit sanctioned races, with Thursday paying $100k to win, while the Kings Royal Friday and Saturday will remain with the Outlaws. Jeremy says by the time the schedule is released, we could be into the low 60s for total race count. I do think it's interesting that High Limit did not get a Knoxville race, and I know that because if they had, it would have been included in their announcement today.

Some other interesting things to point out here. First, long time racing and marketing operator Kendra Jacobs is moving from her role at FloRacing over to High Limit to manage events and marketing. She's previously been at Knoxville, Hendrick Motorsports, and co-hosted Winged Nation at MRN. She will join the High Limit leadership that already includes Brad and Kyle, plus Mike Hess who will move over to a full time position for next year. Larson's business manager in Josh Peterman is also in the mix here, but I would expect him to focus more on Larson's career going forward, and step back a bit from High Limit behind the scenes. Also, Jeremy mentions that High Limit will use MedStar's safety team at all events next year, giving them a dedicated safety crew all season. Something like this is what I'd like to see from the Outlaws. I know they've made strides with their officials on the safety side, but an official, named safety team traveling to every race is the right move. Also, I know this one will bother a lot of folks, but the All Star name is officially going away. Everything will be High Limit branded going forward. That's a shame, especially since the All Stars have been around since 1970, but I do understand the reasoning behind the move. It doesn't confuse anything, and they can now build their own brand going forward. I will point out too that it's not the High Limit Sprint Car Series anymore, but instead just High Limit Racing as the official name.

I know this is a lot of information to digest, so feel free to go back through this, and the full show script will be posted at dirtrackr.com if you want to read it all. I'll also link below to the official release and Jeremy's free story. Clearly there is a lot more to come here, including schedules for both High Limit and the Outlaws, and also decisions from teams about who goes which direction. The comment section is now open, so feel free to leave your thoughts on everything we learned, or didn't learn today.

Appreciate you guys coming back through for a second daily show today.

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