Thursday, January 4, 2024

Top Late Model Drivers of 2023 And A Few Other Thoughts

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!

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





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