DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Where does Paul Silva fit in with High Limit's charter plans? | Daily 12-13-2023
On the show today, we'll talk the ninth World of Outlaws sprint car driver, High Limit fills a TBA, a $100,000 to win modified race, and High Limit's possible Paul Silva situation. Let's go!
It's Wednesday, December 14th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
In the never ending world of sprint car news we are in currently, the Tuesday highlight was another signee for the World of Outlaws. Becoming the ninth driver to commit for 2024, Noah Gass was announced as returning for his third season. Gass ended up 2023 12th in the Outlaw standings, with a best finish of seventh, which came on the opening night of the Ironman 55 weekend at Pevely. That was the feature that was shortened to 21 laps because of track conditions if you might remember, and Corey Day getting up into the fence and causing some damage. Gass added top five finishes in weekly competition at Huset's and in the two POWRi shows at Tri-State in Oklahoma at the end of the year. Looking at the statistics, very similar looking season from 2022, his rookie year. But what really stands out to me as an improvement is feature appearances. In 2022, it was 32, but this past season it was 43. So that similar average finish actually was better, since he was making more shows, and hence more money. Gass was a guy we'd heard was looking at potentially going to a pick and choose schedule for 2024, but this is the type of team that will be helped by this split and fewer full time Outlaw teams. I'm sure the doubling of tow money and the bump in purses will help this team, and their chances are better for a higher points finish. Gass joins David Gravel, Gio Scelzi, Logan Schuchart, Donny Schatz, Sheldon Haudenschild, Brock Zearfoss, Landon Crawley, and Bill Rose as full time Outlaws. The addition of a Roth car would be ten, which there is a lot of chatter about, and if the JJR 41 goes Outlaws, that would be 11. With so many cars likely headed for High Limit, you have to wonder if any of these other teams are re-considering given the environment. An 11 or 12 car Outlaw field might be easier to take down some cash versus a 16 or 18 car High Limit group. Especially for teams lower down the order.
High Limit did fill another TBA on Tuesday with the announcement that Lawrenceburg is on their schedule for 2024. High Limit will go there on May 31st, in between stops at Grandview on May 28th, and Butler Motor Speedway on June 1st. Lawrenceburg is transitioning to new promoters for next year, and were initially left off the national winged sprint car calendars. I believe the one remaining TBA for High Limit is September 25th, in between Eldora and Florence.
While we are talking High Limit, something I thought about around the charter discussion, and have brought up with a few industry friends, is the Paul Silva situation. Brad Sweet clearly has his car owner, Kasey Kahne, in mind when he talks charters. Trying to create something of value for a guy like Kahne, who has been involved in ownership for so long, is a big focus for them in creating the charter system. If the 49 team runs top five in 2024 in High Limit points, which seems like a foregone conclusion, that would mean at least one charter spot for Kahne. But the other High Limit owner in Kyle Larson, won't necessarily have his car owner guaranteed a seat at the table. Larson is set for probably less than half the schedule, and that would mean the Silva 57 wouldn't be eligible to get a charter, even if Larson won the midweek championship. The High Limit docs do say perfect attendance. So does that mean Silva is okay not benefitting from this different model? We know he hasn't run a full series in a very long time, so maybe it doesn't matter. Or would he campaign a second driver in the seat to keep the attendance up and hope that that driver, combined with Larson would be good enough to stay up in the standings? You'd think if these guys were setting up a system like this, the first to benefit would be their car owners, but maybe that's not in the cards for Silva. It's an interesting thought experiment, and would be a great question for the elusive car owner and crew chief. Just something fun to chew on today.
We talked yesterday on the show about the World of Outlaws Late Model rookie class for 2024, and two additions from PRI. Late in the day yesterday though, thanks to a Facebook post, we got word about the return of a driver from last season. Cade Dillard is looking for marketing partners for their 97 cars, with plans to start the year at the Wild West Shootout, then follow the Outlaws again. He was 10th in the 2023 series standings, with two top fives and 17 top tens during the year. I believe the addition of Dillard would take the Outlaws to ten currently. He joins Bobby Pierce, Nick Hoffman, Ryan Gustin, Todd Cooney, Max McLaughlin, Dustin Sorensen, Tristan Chamberlain, Cody Overton, and Parker Martin. I think there are still quite a few more to come for the Outlaws over the next month or so.
Another topic I hadn't gotten a chance to hit on yet was the $100,000 to win modified race that's coming to Mississippi Thunder Speedway in 2024, being promoted by XR. It's called The Big Deal, and they'll run it May 30th through June 1st, with the event open to all modified sanctions. Outside of the $100k to win, it's also $2500 to start, with a total $300,000 purse. They opened up the entry process, and sold out more than 200 spots in just day or two. At last check, they had 212 modifieds and 61 B-mods entered. That entry list is quite the mix of drivers, and includes names like Longhorn Chassis owner Steve Arpin, Scott Bloomquist, Brandon Sheppard, Shannon Babb, Ricky Thornton Jr., Jimmy Owens, plus modified standouts from the USMTS, UMP, and many more. The number of wins and championships on that entry list is substantial to put it lightly. You can see the full entry list and more details over at onumdm.com.
Here in North Carolina, we found out late last week that Ray Cook will not open the Tri-County Racetrack in Brasstown for the 2024 season. Tri-County was home to a regular weekly program, plus it hosted traveling series like Cook's Spring and Southern Nationals late model tours, the SCDRA, the Carolina Sprint Tour, and the FloRacing Night in America Late Models. Cook doesn't own the speedway, and was informed by the owners, the Wimpey family, that they plan to put it for sale. The hope is that it remains a race track, but the future is ambiguous. I looked around a bit online to find the details on the track's real estate listing, but couldn't find it anywhere. So I'm not sure what the price is and what they are looking to get. Cook's schedules for his late model series were released at PRI, and the Spring Nationals will get started February 29th at Waycross. The 15 race schedule will end May 26th at Duck River, and then the Southern Nationals series will start in July. You can find more information over at southernnationalsseries.com.
On the dirt racing podcast front this week, Hoogie's Garage has Bill Balog and Joe Roe, Dunewich on Dirt has Ben McCall, Racing Roundup has Devon Borden, and there are new episodes of Quicktime, Dirt Tracks and Ribs Racks, Dirt Track Confessions, and TJSlideways' Open Wheel Spectacular. We've also added two new shows to the podcast page this week. One is the Plum Wild podcast and they focus on dirt sim racing. Their most recent guest was Hunt the Front's Jesse Enterkin. The other is Ben Deatherage's Getting Up to Speed podcast. Ben is involved in the NARC sprint car series, and posts a few episodes a week, featuring interviews with all sorts of different racing people. Recent guests include Shane Hopkins, Jake Andreotti, and Brian Liskai. To see all of these shows and episodes, head over to dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
That's it for the show today. Don't forget all merch is on sale over at shop.dirtrackr.com. I'll get orders out quickly so as to guarantee delivery by Christmas.
Hope you guys have a great Wednesday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow.