DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Rico Abreu talks 2024 sprint car decision, Lucas champion loses deal | Daily 11-28-2023

On the show today, a Lucas regular loses his ride, more 2024 World of Outlaws dates, we get a look at the first 100 Chili Bowl entries, and what Rico Abreu has to say about this sprint car plans for next season. Let's go!

It's Tuesday, November 28th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

I want to start the show off today with a question for you, especially those who have been around the sport a very long time. Have we ever had a more intriguing time in sprint car racing? The last several months have been a wild ride with the addition of High Limit into the landscape, and things will remain very, very interesting as we go forward. I talked yesterday on the show about Gio Scelzi signing on to be a full time Outlaw team, and at this moment we have three confirmed Outlaws and one confirmed High Limit team. Following this ongoing saga of who will go where feels a little bit like free agency in the NBA or NFL. It's a short period of time, rumors run rampant, and even smaller moves feel significant. There is a ton of speculation about what decisions could get made, and honestly, stuff like this is why I started doing DIRTRACKR in the first place. These conversations are happening between friends, let's just make the scale a little bit bigger. The choices that get made over the next few weeks will shape the 2024 season of racing, and I personally want each one to feel significant. Because they are. Whether it's championship contenders like David Gravel, or smaller teams who will be battling a little further down the order. I think this stuff is fun, and I hope you guys do too.

One of the names at the center of much of the sprint car series speculation is Rico Abreu, I've certainly talked about him here on this show. And for good reason. He's coming off a career season, he's built an incredible brand and is a fan favorite, and he is a notorious pick and choose guy. He's never run a full sprint car series, outside of the midweek High Limit schedule this year, and in terms of free agency talk, would be a massive pickup if he could be convinced to join. For a series like High Limit that won't have Kyle Larson at every event, the marketability of a guy like Rico, could fill that promotional void. And he'd be a serious contender for multiple race wins and the championship. What he ultimately decides for next season is still a mystery, but according to him, the decision will come soon. He sent me a message yesterday, and I want to share that full text here so you can get an idea of where he's at in the process. Rico said quote "I have not yet finalized our racing schedule. I am still considering all of my options. With the current vibe of sprint car racing I would like to release my schedule this next week! It's important to me considering all of the options that exist in sprint car racing now more then ever my fans and tracks know where I'm going to be. Trying to have a decision before PRI preferably so that everyone knows" unquote. PRI starts in just nine days, so it won't be long before we know. Also, I believe Rico is scheduled to be on David Gravel's livestream later this week, and I'm sure this will come up there as well. Regardless of what direction he goes, I do like that Rico wants to put out a schedule for the tracks and fans. We need more of that on the sprint car side of dirt racing where available. I feel like the late model guys do a decent job of this with their websites, and letting fans know where they will be well in advance. Outside of series regulars, and guys that run their weekly tracks all through the season, it's a massive help for tracks and fans when they know what to expect, especially in a day and age where tickets are not getting cheaper.

On the sprint car schedule front, we've got more confirmed dates for the World of Outlaws. They will start their season in February at DIRTcar Nationals, take a few weeks off, then come back to Volusia for racing around Daytona Bike Week. They did this same thing in 2023. After that Bike Week event, they attempted a swing through Pennsylvania that ended up having some rainouts. This season though, they are going to stay south, and following those March races at Volusia, which are the third and fourth, they'll head west. One track on that trip west will be Cotton Bowl Speedway in Texas. The track released their 2024 schedule yesterday, and the Outlaws will be there on March 15th and 16th. Their last trip to Cotton Bowl was in 2022, when Carson Macedo and Sheldon Haudenschild picked up wins. Some other southern tracks will be in play as well along that stretch, similarly to what we saw this year.

Moving over to some late model news, one of the staples of the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series has a very uncertain future. On his Facebook page yesterday, Earl Pearson Jr. announced that the Jason Papich owned team that he'd been driving for is shuttering. The reasons cited included the rising costs of the sport, and Papich being busy with his growing businesses. EPJ partnered with Papich late in 2021 after leaving the Black Diamond house car program, and he was much improved during the 2022 season. A four position pickup in average feature finish from 2021, and that big $50,000 win at Port Royal. He was fifth in the final standings that year behind Tim McCreadie's championship. But things did not go so well in 2023. 10th in the final points rundown, no wins, no laps led, and just three top five finishes in 54 races. Not exactly a season up to the standards for a driver who's won the series title four times and has been on tour for 19 straight years. It's important to note here too, just like the World of Outlaws Late Models, the Lucas field was tougher this season than the year before, thanks to the addition of names like Brandon Overton, Devin Moran, and Jonathan Davenport. The Facebook post says they will have an official release soon, and it sounds like they will be putting some equipment for sale. No word yet on what EPJ will do, but this feels like a significant blow to his career, especially at the national touring level.

In some regional late model news, we've got two series merging for 2024. The American Late Model Series, which hasn't run in a few years and is owned by Sam Driggers and DIRTcar sanctioned, will be folded into Chris Tilley's Iron-Man Series and become the Valvoline American Late Model Iron-Man Series for 2024. The split region series will cover Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Northern Kentucky, plus Southern Kentucky, East Tennessee, North Georgia, and Alabama. Shows will be $5000 and $10,000 to win, like the Summer Nationals, and Tilley and Michael Despain will continue in their current roles running shows. A tweet from Tilley said the schedule is still being put together.

Finally today, we got our first look at the early Chili Bowl entries late last night. This first update has 107 cars, and according to Bryan Hulbert, has one event winner and 15 other previous feature starters. The past winner is Sammy Swindell. Other notables I see include Corey Day, and as expected he's listed in Willie Kahne's car. We saw Day run with Kahne during the final USAC midget west coast swing. JJ Yeley is listed driving for Jerry Petty, Josh Baughman is here, as is Noah Gass, Zach Hampton, Jacob Denney, 2023 prelim night winner Hank Davis, Dillon Welch, and Jerry Coons Jr. I also see my guy George Loux on the list. George was a regular on the Carolina Sprint Tour this season, and previously was a crew member at Kasey Kahne Racing. That should be fun to watch. This list will obviously grow massively in the coming weeks, but you can see this first round of entries over at chilibowl.com.

That's it for the Daily today. Thanks everyone for tuning in. Hope you guys have a great Tuesday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow.