Login

DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

Dirt racing news, results, discussion, analytics. Sprint cars, late models, modifieds, you name it. From national series, to top local shows. Brought to you five days a week. Email the show at info@dirtrackr.com.

Point funds, tires, drama, and how today's dirt late model scene came to be | Daily 1-18-2024

Sheldon Haudenschild wins in Australia, the national touring dirt late model season begins tonight, and we go down a big rabbit hole of dirt late model history. Let's go!

It's Thursday, January 18th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

Very early this morning down under, Sheldon Haudenschild got a big weekend of sprint car racing going with the victory in the Kings Challenge at Borderline Speedway. He started sixth and was after Chase Randall for the lead before half way. Under a red for a big crash at lap 14, Chase Randall bowed out after he broke a front brake caliper. Sheldon led the rest of the way, lapping I think into the top ten. Kerry Madsen and Jy Corbert rounded out the podium. It was the first American win at the Kings Challenge since Jason Johnson in 2012, and Sheldon's first win of his Australia trip. With racing at Borderline done, the focus now shifts to Warrnambool and the Grand Annual Sprint Car Classic. The'll run split field prelim nights Friday and Saturday, with the Classic finale on Sunday. If you want to watch, like I said on the Daily yesterday, FloRacing has the coverage for US watchers, Clay Per View has action for the rest of the world. Here in the US, the Classic gets started at 1:30AM eastern late tonight, or early tomorrow, however you want to classify it. If you want to see highlights from Borderline, go find the Clay Per View YouTube channel or Facebook page.

Down at Volusia Speedway Park in Florida, the 2024 World of Outlaws Late Model Series season gets going tonight with the Sunshine Nationals. They should have a big field of cars, and the full timers list grew yet again. On Wednesday evening, the Outlaws announced that Iowa driver Daniel Hilsabeck has signed on as driver number 19. He brings his number 22 Capital chassis to the Outlaws after finishing fourth in the MLRA standings a year ago. Hilsabeck joins an already stout rookie class that includes Tristan Chamberlain, Parker Martin, Max McLaughlin, Cody Overton, and Dustin Sorensen. In looking at Kevin Kovac's preview piece at Dirt on Dirt, it looks like Tanner English is signed up as well, but as we talked about previously, he's clearly hedging his bets at the moment between the two national tours. A year ago at this event, Devin Moran swept the two races compeleted, while Bobby Pierce and Hudson O'Neal were winners during DIRTcar Nationals. Besides the newly signed on Outlaw regulars, some other names to expect this weekend include Jimmy Owens, Max Blair, Tim McCreadie, Ricky Thornton Jr., Ashton Winger, Moran, Mike Marlar, and a lot more. If you aren't headed for Volusia, as is true with all Outlaw races, you can watch live on DIRTVision.

Alright, with the current racing stuff done, join me down a dirt late model history rabbit hole, won't you? I know a lot of you probably remember this situation, but my knowledge of it was shaky at best. Those early to mid 2000's in dirt racing were probably the most pivotal in this current era we find ourselves in now. Almost everything we have at the moment, can be traced back to call it 2002 to 2006. We've talked on this show about the sprint car stuff, but I wanted to dive into the late model side of things that were happening at that time. Because I think there are a lot of parallels to what we see happening right now. Back last Thursday, Jeremy Elliott posted an interview video with World Racing Group CEO Brian Carter to his Sprint Car Unlimited YouTube channel. I tuned in, because I was curious, mostly, about what Carter had to say about the current state of sprint car racing. You know, all this High Limit/Outlaws stuff. About 14 and a half minutes deep, Jeremy asked Carter about the mistakes he's made at World Racing Group, and Carter said he may air some dirty laundry with his answer, but got into the story of the company's purchase of the Stacker2 Xtreme Series towards the end of the 2004 year. This actually happened before the company was World Racing Group, it was still Boundless at the time and Carter wasn't CEO yet. He was still CFO at that point. As Carter tells it, contractually, the year end point fund wasn't their responsibility to pay in the process of buying the dirt late model series, even though they did end up paying out the fund, he says, a month later. Earl Pearson Jr. was the 2004 Stacker2 champion, and the uncertainty at the time led Pearson to start looking elsewhere, and that move of not paying the point fund helped lead to the beginning of what was to become the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. Carter said quote "It was one of those mistakes like we probably should have paid it and we probably should have sorted it out behind the scenes. But at the same time you're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars and it it cost me the Lucas Oil Late Model series, I believe. Earl Pearson and the guys took 30 days to get their point fund money and that created a level of distrust. That's a pretty big mistake and that's airing out some real laundry people may not know now almost 20 years later" unquote. Hearing Carter talk about this story reminded me of listening to current Lucas series director Rick Schwallie on Michael Rigsby's podcast a few years ago, and Schwallie talked about the other side of this exact situation. After that season ended, and the point fund and banquet were in question, Schwallie got all the Stacker2 teams together at the Hyatt in Indy around the PRI show to talk about the future. With the issues around Boundless, they decided they could put something together on their own and eventually approached the very new NARA series about combining and putting a tour together for 2005. NARA and Earl Pearson Jr., with their Lucas connections, got Forrest Lucas and the company involved, and they eventually put a full season of races together. They went to Speedweeks in 05 as the Lucas Oil NARA, but by Charlotte in April, it had officially become Lucas owned and the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series that we know today. In that podcast with Schwallie, Rigsby also talked about Doug Bland, who owned the Stacker2 series before Boundless bought it, and I went back and listened to Rigsby's interview with him as well. Before 2004, the Xtreme DirtCar Series was effectively the top late model tour. Bland had purchased the UDTRA in 2002, brought Speed Channel in in 2003 for a nice TV deal, and signed the Stacker2 sponsorship deal. Bland had visions of turning dirt late model racing into a much bigger deal, having come from the NASCAR and IndyCar world, and he was well into his plan of doing so. 2003 though was effectively the final year we had just one series on top, because for 2004 the dirt late model world split over tires. Bland was looking to reign in the tire stuff and the costs, and he signed Goodyear to an exclusive deal for 04, while Hoosier partnered with Boundless to create the World of Outlaws Late Model Series, bringing in Scott Bloomquist, Steve Francis, Rick Eckert, and bunch of top guys to form the Dirty Dozen. Everyone picked a side, and things were pretty ugly from the sound of it. Quick sidenote here, if you haven't watched the 2004 season-in-review video for the World of Outlaws Late Models, I would recommend doing so. It's on DIRTVision in the vault. It's 20 minutes of race clips set to different songs, based on the driver, and there is no context. There's no speaking, there's no words, just music and late models. It's almost a tad unhinged. I'd show you a clip here, but I'd get dinged for copyright based on the songs, but go find it and watch. My apologies to anyone who had a hand in the making the video, this isn't an attack on you. Just looking at a 2004 video through a 2024 lens. Back to the drama. Later in 2004, in the midst of all this ugliness, Boundless and Bobby Hartslief approached Bland about acquiring the Stacker2 series. Boundless was trying really hard to effectively own all of dirt racing, and after buying DIRT from Glen Donnelly and the World of Outlaws from Ted Johnson, they could again unify late model racing with this deal. So late in 04, Bland sells the Stacker2 series and leaves dirt late model racing forever, and Boundless gets United Midwest Promoters, AKA UMP, from Bob Sargent and Kenny Schrader. So it would appear that they had it all again. But that was until the point fund wasn't paid immediately and the Stacker2 guys decide to strike out on their own, create a series, and here we are 20 years later with still two competing national tours on the late model side. And, we are on the precipice of watching the first season of two national sprint car tours since, you guessed it, 2005. It's just one big damn circle.

I hope you enjoyed the history lesson. That's the daily show this week. We'll see you guys back here on Sunday.