DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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No Lincoln flagger, McFadden confirmed; Where did these 29 High Limit and Outlaw teams come from? | Daily 1-25-2024

James McFadden's status and the Lincoln flagging situation are official. We'll talk about those stories, plus where all these sprint car teams came from for the Outlaws and High Limit, and what's ahead this weekend. Let's go!

It's Thursday, January 25th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

Wednesday around dirt racing was the day for news to drop that we've been talking about around here for a few weeks. We'll start first with the flagging situation at Lincoln Speedway in Central Pennsylvania. This was the main topic on the January 2nd daily show, and yesterday the move was made official. Starting at the Ice Breaker in February, Lincoln will quote "implement a state of the art virtual flagman system that will include lighting and message boards around the speedway to alert drivers and fans of important situations on the track" unquote. They also said "In addition to the virtual system, there will be flaggers and safety personnel on the inside of the track in the corners and on the front straightaway. The virtual system will be run from the scoring tower." The plan for now is to continue having a flagger in the stand for the first few weeks to aid in the adjustment. Just like when we talked about this a few weeks ago, the reactions were again incredibly mixed. Some are incensed at the notion, with one poster claiming they are never coming back to Lincoln. And yet others are applauding the move. I don't think this is nearly as big a deal as some are making it out to be, but some are very attached to the flag man. An electronic flagging system has been used effectively at Perth Motorplex, and in other forms of motorsports, I don't see why it can't work at Lincoln. And if for some reason it doesn't work out, they can always switch back.

Also, with High Limit, we got the official announcement of James McFadden signing on full time with the series driving again for Roth Motorsports. This had been the rumor for a while, plus the series accidently leaked it last week in a promotional poster for the upcoming Red Dirt Raceway show. That social media post was quickly deleted. JMac being official means now we are at 17 High Limit teams headed to East Bay in a few weeks. The full list includes McFadden, Brad Sweet, Rico Abreu, Jacob Allen, Kasey Kahne, Spencer Bayston, Tyler Courtney, Zeb Wise, Conner Morrell, Parker Price Miller, Tanner Thorson, Brent Marks, Justin Peck, Corey Eliason, Corey Day, Brenham Crouch, and Chris Windom. Roth joins Shark Racing as splitting their operation between the Outlaws and High Limit, with Buddy Kofoid going Outlaws. Just like with Shark, I think splitting makes a ton of sense. Hedge your bets, and hope to grab one of those early High Limit charters. 2023 was a career year for McFadden, picking up seven wins in 78 races, including six with the Outlaws plus the Front Row Challenge at Osky. Just like I said with Kofoid, if Toyota can work out some more of the bugs with their 410 engine, and get some more consistency, Roth will be a formidable team in 2024 across both national series. When things are right, we know McFadden can win anywhere. Looking ahead, I haven't heard any more names as possible High Limit pickups, so I'd say we are pretty close to set at 17, barring any last minute surprises. The High Limit season starts in about two and a half weeks at East Bay, Monday and Tuesday, February 12th and 13th. That is right after the Outlaw portion of DIRTcar Nationals, and I'd expect a lot of the High Limit teams to also race at Volusia to maximize their trip south.

To expand a bit on the total size of the High Limit field, Kyle Larson said recently in an interview with Jeremy Elliott that they were a bit surprised they had so many signed up, and they also acknowledge that probably not all will make it the full season. Along that same vein, I wanted to circle back to the the idea of having enough cars across the country to support two national sprint car series. I did a daily show back in October about this very topic, and I've seen Brad Sweet make several comments in various articles about the skepticism that there are indeed enough cars. At the moment between the Outlaws and High Limit, we are at 29 total traveling teams. 17 with High Limit and 12 with the Outlaws. Back in October, I wondered, based on their histories, if there were even 20 cars that could do this without a significant step up in their program. I think it was a pretty fair question, and now that things are mostly settled, I went through the list to see where exactly these 29 teams have come from. Of the 12 Outlaw teams, ten are effectively returners from 2023, including Bill Rose and the Sides car, even though it's Landon Crawley now and not Robbie Price. Bill Balog is new, and this is both a massive step up for that team in terms of commitment, and it was a surprise. Not one we were expecting, and it sounds like they weren't really expecting it either. We can call Kofoid a new addition as well, because that team was a pick and chooser a year ago. So ten back, two new teams for the Outlaws. With High Limit, they sort of flipped five Outlaw teams to their side, including Sweet, Spencer Bayston, McFadden, Jacob Allen, and Kahne. I say sort of, because Kasey's status has been up and down in recent seasons. They also signed up four All Star teams from a year ago, and I think Zeb and Sunshine were the easy ones there. This is a big step for Morrell and the Marc Dailey team, not one I thought would happen, and the Vermeer car with Chris Windom will be well outside their usual areas, but I'm sure the NOS sponsorship is helping. They convinced three past pick and choosers to sign, with Justin Peck, Brent Marks, and PPM. Marks was previously an Outlaw, and Peck an All Star, so not huge leaps there. PPM has been an Outlaw and All Star regular before as well, but he's again trying to ramp up his own team. And then come the new teams. Rico had never previously run a sprint car series, but we knew he was in play pretty early on. His team was already effectively a national touring team, so no surprise here. He would have been high on my priority list if I was running one of these series. The other four new pickups are all significant steps for these teams. Ridge and Sons goes from mostly regional with Aaron Reutzel, to national with Eliason. Brenham Crouch is jumping from the IRA, again a big step. Corey Day's Jason Meyers' owned team is Outlaw caliber, but based on comments about him finishing school and them being California based, this was a team not initially on the radar. And Tanner Thorson with this new Rod Gross team is one of the bigger surprises. So overall, the two series split the 15ish Outlaw teams, pulled in four All Star drivers, convinced four pick and choosers to sign on, and elevated six new teams to national series competition. Clearly the added opportunity, and the dilution between the two sides was attractive to a bunch of these teams, but three months ago, a lot of these guys were on nobody's radar. Several of these drivers were never going Outlaw racing, and some on the Outlaw side wouldn't be signed if others hadn't left. At some point in the coming weeks, I do want to talk championship chances for both series, and who's really in the hunt for a High Limit charter during this first season.

Looking ahead to the weekend, the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series season gets rolling tonight at Golden Isles. Looking through practice results last night, it appears we were just shy 50 cars, and Ricky Thornton Jr. I believe was fastest, running a 14.942. Lucas will run through Saturday night at Golden Isles, before heading south to Bubba for practice on Monday, and racing Tuesday and Wednesday. You can tune in all weekend live over on FloRacing if you aren't going to the track.

At Volusia, they are set for three straight nights of the Southern Sprint Car Shootout for the USCS 360 sprint cars. They should draw a healthy field of cars, and some big names are expected to race, including Ryan Timms, new Outlaw rookie Landon Crawley, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Justin Peck, Terry McCarl, Austin McCarl, and many more. Thursday and Friday are both $2500 to win, and Saturday is a nice $10,000 to win. 3/4 modifieds are also on the card, and if you aren't near Volusia in Florida, you can watch live on DIRTVision.

That's it for the daily show this week. Make sure to hit up the streaming schedule at dirtrackr.com/watchtonight to see your viewing options and follow DIRTRACKR across the various social media platforms, including Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and Threads.

Hope you guys have a great Thursday out there, we'll see you back here on Sunday!