Welcome to 2024! It is going to be a wild and wooly year for our country as a whole with an unprecedented presidential election cycle and, on a much smaller scale, in our favorite sport of short track racing. The World of Outlaws will once again have a challenge for the supremacy of Winged Sprint Car racing and this time the challenge comes from an organization that is not only well funded, but that also has the current biggest name in the sport as one of its owners.
I have never had the impression that the goal was to take down the Outlaws, but instead to inject more money and to provide opportunities for more teams to get a share of that cash in Sprint Car racing. After all, the Late Models have had two national touring series for several years now and that seems to be working pretty well. However, with the roster that the High Limit series has put together for its first "national" tour, they just might overrun the Outlaws. It was huge when Carson Macedo announced that he was sticking with Team WoO on December 18th because that kept the top Outlaws, outside of Brad Sweet, in the fold again for 2024. What they need now is to get a commitment from a young up and coming driver in order to push the teeter totter back to even because let's face it, while I am sure that they are great people, Bill Rose and Noah Gass are not going to help you sell more tickets. The Outlaws should be actively recruiting Chase Randall to join Bill Balog and Landon Crawley in the Rookie-of-the-Year race.
Yes, it will definitely be an interesting year when it comes to big time Sprint Car racing.
I was reminiscing the other day back to the time when a couple of guys introduced a new racing series for a divisions that, back in the 1980's and early 90's, were racing for an average winner's purse of $300 to $400. These events would pay an amazing $2,000-to-win and a solid $200 to start, plus non-qualifiers would still walk away with a $75 paycheck! The drivers in that division were elated, finally somebody was going to pay them the money that they deserved and the car counts for the first few events were well over sixty. At first they didn't mind paying a $90 Entry Fee and a $30 pit pass for each of the two days, or perhaps for three if they showed up for practice, but when the reality set in that only twenty-four of them would make the A-Main for each event and that each driver entered had paid in either $150 or $180 for the weekend, that $75 check that a non-qualifier collected at the end of the weekend wasn't so great after all. Heck even the drivers who finished 16th through 24th started to do the math on what they had netted out for the weekend and over a period of time those car counts steadily decreased and those two guys eventually sold out.
It was a great promotion though, just not sustainable and the effect that it had on that division is still debated today. Did it take something that was developed to be a low budget class and turn it in to something completely different where drivers had to spend more and more money to be competitive even at their weekly shows? More importantly, was this the beginning of "back gate promoting" where the drivers themselves were funding the majority of the purse? I have heard that term used a lot over the past several years in a derogatory manner by drivers and fans alike, but it was the drivers who took the bait in the first place.
Why was I reminiscing about this time? Well it looks like we are going to go through the whole learning process again in 2024, but with even bigger and flashier numbers. There is no doubt that they will be grand events with a lot of hype and the opportunity for fans to live stream the action. And I have to hand it to the promoter who has realized that you might only be able to go to the well with a certain division once, so let's give three of them the chance to shine in 2024. My only hope is that it does not have similar long term effects on the sport as that first redistribution of wealth did so many years ago.
For some reason Facebook no longer allows me to post a link to the Special Events Calendar at Positively Racing, but I can do it here as we now have 533 nights logged in. And we will continue to update the calendar as those schedules come in, so bookmark that page and get ready for the 2024 season.
For the past few years I have had the honor of being one of the ten voters in Dirt On Dirt's weekly Top 25 poll for the Late Model division and, if you know me, you know that I like to do it in a statistical manner. For this I have used a point system that is determined by the winner's purse and the car count for each event, plus I include a "recency" factor as well so that a driver who has been on a hot streak over the past few weeks will poll higher that week than he would if we just looked at the sason point total. At the end of the year though I do like to share my Top 100 drivers from this system and, with the 2024 season set to kickoff this weekend with both the Ice Bowl and the Wild West Shootout, I had better do it now so that I can clear out the spreadsheet and get ready to tabulate the upcoming results.
Congratulations to Ricky Thornton Jr. on a phenomenal season! It has been fun to watch him come to Iowa from Arizona for an opportunity to race more and then earn his way to the top of the Late Model class!
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| Barry Johnson photo |
The 2023 Back Stretch Hot 100 for 2023
Pos. Driver Hometown Points
1 . Ricky Thornton Jr, Martinsville IN 517
2 . Bobby Pierce Oakwood IL 457
3 . Hudson O'Neal Martinsville IN 424
4 . Jonathan Davenport Blairsville GA 365
5 . Brandon Sheppard New Berlin IL 312
6 . Tim McCreadie Watertown NY 268
7 . Devin Moran Dresden OH 251
8 . Mike Marlar Winfield TN 240
9 . Brandon Overton Appling GA 224
10 . Chris Madden Gray Court SC 199
11 . Tanner English Benton KY 187
12 . Dale McDowell Chickamauga GA 186
13 . Brian Shirley Chatham IL 174
14 . Tyler Erb Magnolia TX 174
15 . Dennis Erb Jr. Carpentersville IL 161
16 . Kyle Bronson Brandon FL 153
17 . Ashton Winger Fayetteville GA 140
18 . Daulton Wilson Fayetteville NC 132
19 . Ryan Gustin Marshalltown IA 132
20 . Nick Hoffman Mooresville MC 122
21 . Ricky Weiss Winnipeg MAN 114
22 . Jimmy Owens Newport TN 106
23 . Carson Ferguson Charlotte NC 103
24 . Cory Hedgecock Louden TN 102
25 . Chris Ferguson Mount Holly NC 98
26 . Garrett Alberson Las Cruces NM 93
27 . Jason Feger Bloomington IL 93
28 . Josh Rice Verona KY 81
29 . Max Blair Centerville PA 70
30 . Spencer Hughes Meridian MS 64
31 . Ryan Unzicker El Paso IL 61
32 . Shannon Babb Mowequa IL 61
33 . Mason Zeigler Chalk Hill PA 58
34 . Gregg Satterlee Rochester Mills PA 56
35 . Joseph Joiner Milton FL 56
36 . Kyle Larson Elk Grove CA 55
37 . Shane Clanton Locust Grove GA 55
38 . Cody Overton Appling GA 53
39 . Cade Dillard Robeline LA 51
40 . Chad Simpson Marion IA 51
41 . Stormy Scott Las Cruces NM 51
42 . Earl Pearson Jr. Jacksonville FL 50
43 . Ben Watkins Rock Hill SC 47
44 . Zack Mitchell Enoree SC 47
45 . Wil Herrington Cochran GA 45
46 . Ross Bailes Clover SC 44
47 . Billy Moyer Jr. Batesville AR 41
48 . Chris Simpson Marion IA 41
49 . Kyle Hardy Stephens City VA 41
50 . Sam Seawright Rainsville AL 41
51 . Gordy Gundaker St. Charles MO 40
52 . Tyler Peterson Hickson ND 39
53 . Billy Moyer Batesville AR 38
54 . Tyler Carpenter Parkersburg WV 38
55 . Justin Zeitner Omaha NE 37
56 . Kyle Beard Trumann AR 37
57 . Nick Anvelink Navarino WI 37
58 . Tad Pospisil Norfolk NE 35
59 . Tyler Emory King George VA 35
60 . Drake Troutman Hyndman PA 34
61 . Ethan Dotson Bakersfield CA 34
62 . Josh Putnam Florence AL 34
63 . Cole Searing Huron SD 33
64 . Logan Roberson Waynesboro VA 33
65 . Michael Norris Sarver PA 33
66 . Dalton Cook Columbus GA 32
67 . Dillon McCowan Urbana MO 32
68 . Zack Dohm Cross Lanes WV 30
69 . Donald McIntosh Dawsonville GA 29
70 . Garrett Smith Eatonton GA 28
71 . Logan Martin West Plains MO 28
72 . Chase Junghans Manhattan KS 27
73 . Matt Cosner Ridgely WV 27
74 . Michael Chilton Salvisa KY 26
75 . Mike Harrison Highland IL 26
76 . Jesse Sobbing Malvern IA 25
77 . Mark Whitener Middleburg FL 25
78 . Pat Doar New Richmond WI 25
79 . Rusty Schlenk Jackson MI 25
80 . Trent Ivey Union SC 25
81 . Benji Hicks Mount Airy NC 24
82 . Tyler Millwood Kingston GA 24
83 . Frank Heckenast Jr. Orland Park IL 23
84 . Jake Redetzke Eau Claire WI 23
85 . Kyle Strickler Mooreville NC 22
86 . Christian Hanger Winchester TN 21
87 . Jacob Hawkins Fairmont WV 21
88 . Jadon Frame Winchester TN 21
89 . Chad Becker Aberdeen SD 20
90 . Darrell Nelson Hermanton MN 20
91 . Payton Freeman Commerce GA 20
92 . Austin Horton Grantsville GA 19
93 . B.J. Robinson Blanchard LA 19
94 . Dillon Brown Pageland SC 19
95 . Kenny Collins Colbert GA 19
96 . Tyler Stevens Searcy AR 19
97 . Rick Eckert York PA 18
98 . Dylan Yoder Selinsgrove PA 17
99 . Jeff Smith Dallas NC 17
100 . R.J. Conley Wheelersburg OH 17
101 . Shane Edginton Winnipeg MAN 17
102 . Tyler Bruening Decorah IA 17
