Brad Sweet and Kyle Larson have been adamant from Day One that High Limit Racing isn’t a declaration of war against the World of Outlaws and the historical structure of Sprint Car racing in the United States but rather a business opportunity and one that could strengthen the discipline from an overall standpoint.
It will be a challenging narrative to overcome as purchasing the All Stars Circuit of Champions from Tony Stewart and expanding High Limit as an alternative coast-to-coast national championship feels very much like it is encroaching on World of Outlaws territory.
That’s certainly how people within the World Racing Group office in Concord, North Carolina view it.
But again, it’s important to understand that this developed from team owners within the discipline simply not agreeing with the financial status quo but also because digital streaming partner FloSports wanted a marquee Sprint Car series to pair alongside its NASCAR, USAC and Dirt Late Model properties.
FloSports, through its FloRacing vertical, has also become a minority stakeholder in the series alongside Sweet and Larson.
Ultimately, the decision to purchase a preexisting regional series and taking it national under the High Limit moniker will be judged by how much growth Sprint Car racing experiences holistically over the next several years.
“The Outlaws have been in business for a really long time, and they’re going to be continue to be in business,” Sweet said on Wednesday during a High Limit teleconference,
“I can’t really speak on what they’re going to do. All I can focus on is what we’re trying to do. We want to have big events and we have a completely different business model than what they have. We’re not asking our drivers to be exclusive. We’re not trying to run 95 nights.”
Sweet says they are basically taking the All Stars Circuit of Champions infrastructure and adding a handful of stops in Texas and a west coast swing. He knows that hasn’t been well received by the World Racing Group office, including quotes published on Sportsnaut, but feels strongly that this is a growth opportunity for both the discipline and his own person future.
“I felt like they were just taking it kind of like a personal thing, like a personal attack, but I assured them it was more of a business decision on my end and that I have no ill feelings towards them. They don’t love what we’re doing and it’s pretty obvious by some of the comments they’ve made, but at the end of the day, we have to do what’s best for us.”
Larson hopes to entice current World of Outlaws teams to make the switch, while also keeping current All Stars on the expanded tour, and even attracting true outlaw racers like Rico Abreu and Anthony Macri to sign up.
What’s his pitch?
“I try not to look at it like a sales pitch but more of just providing the information,” Sweet said. “I know a lot of teams are making decisions and trying to sell sponsorship and a lot of times, you align your sponsorship with the series that you’re going to run with. So, some of it is just providing owners and drivers with answers to their questions and concerns.
“You know, it’s a big move for Sprint car racing and we know that there are a lot of questions as to what we’re trying to accomplish with High Limit. So, it’s just trying to answer questions like ‘how many days on the schedules,’ what our purses are look like, ‘what are point funds going to look like,’ you know, the things that are really important for sustainability for the race teams.”
A list of things we learned on Tuesday can be found below.
The Schedule
The full schedule should come out before the Performance Racing Industry trade show in Indianapolis in early December. A release on Monday confirmed marquee events at Texas Motor Speedway, once during the NASCAR weekend in April and then to crown its champion and again for the season finale.
“If you want to do a large-scale event, you get pretty limited on where you can go and Texas Motor Speedway (Dirt Track) seats over 12,000 fans has 22 suites.
“It’s a facility that’s kind of sitting there unused. We love the market. Kyle has a relationship with the NASCAR fans and being able to go there on Cup weekend in April was really important to get that facility back opened up. We have a long-term goal of making Texas Motor Speedway our year-end event and something that can grow, become sustainable and big. Hopefully fans can travel there too.”
What isn’t on the schedule, at all, is Knoxville Raceway, which historically hosted All Stars Circuit of Champion events but just wasn’t going to schedule High Limit due to its relationship with World Racing Group.
“We were disappointed,” Sweet said. “We thought we would keep an event date there. They definitely showed their loyalty, which we can appreciate. They have a relationship with World of Outlaws and DirtVision.”
Sweet says High Limit will not schedule against the major races at the track, or for any major that isn’t on their schedule for that matter, and maybe the topic can be revisited.
“I think that we’ll be able to have a relationship in the future with Knoxville and we’re definitely still very friendly with them,” Sweet added.
World Racing Group CEO Brian Carter told Sportsnaut last week at World Finals that he did not receive a date request from High Limit for the DIRTCar Nationals in February at Volusia, a track the company owns, and he didn’t see how the previous relationship with the All Stars could continue with recent developments.
The Pollard owned Senoia Speedway in Georgia had tried to schedule a January All Stars event the past two years but got rained out each time and have not applied for a date given the southern swing is once again in the winter months.
Tentpole events have been scheduled for Eldora, both as part of the Kings Royal week and then the 4-Crown Nationals, but also races at Port Royal, Skagit Speedway, Silver Dollar, Lakeside, Eagle, East Bay and Portsmouth.
Sweet says he is still talking to tracks, ‘hundreds of promoters,’ and is looking forward to releasing the final schedule.
“I think everybody’s encouraged that the sport is going to be bigger no matter what,” Sweet said. “No matter how you view it in 2024, there’s going to be way more money out there to race for, which helps the teams out with wherever they choose to race.
“So sure, there’s been negative comments that I’m sure we’ve all seen on social media but the overall fact is that the sport is going to be healthier. There is a lot more money out there to be raced for so again, in the short term, we all understand concerns that fans, tracks, and promoters and teams might have but once we get full information out to the teams, track and fans, I think everyone will be more accepting and will understand where we want to head.”
The Larson Effect
The Larson Effect
Make no mistake, so much of what makes this opportunity viable begins with Larson, who inked a partnership with FloRacing in 2021 and has built on it the past two years by constantly racing on the vertical in a Midget, Late Model and Sprint Car.
The first version of this series, a 12-race big money, midweek series worked because Larson could race for the championship. He won it, in fact. It was a lesson they first learned with the midweek FloRacing Night in America Late Model Series that Larson participated in during the 2021 season.
Larson, who will also make his Indianapolis 500 debut next May, is a major draw for motorsports fans across every discipline. He doesn’t plan on shunning the World of Outlaws either, and wants to race as much as ever next year as much as his NASCAR schedule permits.
“I think you guys have seen that with my schedule over the last few years,” Larson said. “I don’t miss too many events, whether it be Late Model or sprint Cars if my schedule allows so that’s still the plan, not only in High Limit, but Outlaw races, Late Models, USAC.
“My brand is to race, and grow the sport that I love, so I plan on racing as much as I can without burning myself out, or obviously, the NASCAR stuff takes priority over everything. I ran about 100 races this year, 96 I think, and I want to be around that same number next year.”
Midweek Money
The best way to look at the High Limit Series is that the national tour is basically an expanded All Stars Circuit of Champions. The footprint will remain the same but they have added the west coast and Texas trips to the slate.
Meanwhile, the Midweek Money series is a championship within a championship, the 8-10 midweek races counting for points in both the national tour and within its own championship. It will allow for Larson to compete for a second straight championship and maybe even teams that are on the fence about running the full national schedule.
“It seemed like a lot of teams couldn’t quite make all 12,” Sweet said. “So we’ve shrank that down to more like an eight or 10 race series that’ll fit inside of all of our big events.
“Obviously, it allows guys like Kyle and the teams that don’t want to sign up for the full national series to still have that midweek money series that they can compete for those bigger shows. It worked really well last year and we’ll certainly have a lot of those same tracks, and some different tracks as well.”
The national champion will make $250,000 while the Midweek Money champion will earn $100,000.
Ohio Sprint Week, ASCoC legacy
One of the pillars of the All Stars Circuit of Champions was Ohio Sprint Week, which will return next year but not under High Limit sanctioning as Sweet says that has been outsourced with FloRacing support to the FAST on DIRT series.
FAST will schedule, manage and execute all Ohio Sprint Speedweek events with the support of High Limit and its resources. The two series will also work together to build schedules that complement each other and maximize opportunities for drivers and teams in the region.
“Hopefully the Ohio fans and drivers will still get to compete in that week and all the fans will still be able to enjoy that tradition that they’ve had for many, many years,” Sweet said.
FAST on DIRT will also potentially get to pick up part of the regional racers that just cannot commit to a national series, all with scheduling alignment with High Limit.
“For the last five years, I’ve worked to steer the FAST on Dirt Series to closely mirror the original All Star Circuit of Champions Series that was primarily Ohio based. Everyone at FAST is excited that High Limit Racing has aligned with us to move closer toward that goal,” said Aaron Fry, CEO of FAST on Dirt in a series press release.
Sweet and Larson do not have any current plans for the All Stars Circuit of Champions branding.
Sweet says he’s not opposed to resurrecting it at some point if that is best for ‘the overall health of the ecosystem of Sprint Car racing…’
“The All Star name is still there, it’s just tabled for 2024 at this point, just so we can focus on trying to get the High Limit Series off the ground.”
Lucas Oil Late Model partnership
High Limit will have a partnership with the Lucas Oil Dirt Late Model Series.
“We don’t want to let the cat out of the bag, but I think that you’ll see multiple events with the High Limit Sprint Car Series and the Lucas Oil late models on the same track on the same weekend,” Sweet said.
The partnership is a natural one as both events air on the FloRacing vertical and both are the alternative tours to both the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars and Late Model divisions. It would make a lot of sense for Larson to race double duty for events he can attend as well.
Leadership developments
Two of the bigger hires and additions to the High Limit Racing staff come in the form of competition director and race director Mike Hess and Kendra Jacobs as chief marketing and events officer, who have served at the highest levels of the discipline and beyond.
Hess is a respected racer who spent the past seven years at the World of Outlaws race director. Jacobs is from a third-generation racing family who has served as Knoxville Raceway marketing director, marketing director for STP’s NASCAR activations and now works at FloRacing as an events and tracks liaison.
Their hires will allow Sweet and Larson to participate as competitors, despite their ownership status, while having impartial arbiters running the competition and event departments.
“Obviously, finding really good people and putting a really good team together will obviously help us accomplish that,” Sweet said. “So, hopefully when we get to the track, Mike can do his job, which we all know he can and will do at really high level.
“Kendra will have her staff … so once we’re at the track, and especially once we strap in the car, it’s 100 percent all racing.”
There was an incident in May at Tri-City Speedway where Larson was consulted from inside the car before a restart over the series blend rule and how it should be enforced against Rico Abreu. Sweet was part of that process from the infield too.
It was a bad look that both Sweet and Larson have learned from.
“I was going to say, I learned my lesson really quick at Tri City not to get involved in that,” Larson said with a laugh.
Now they won’t have to.
FloRacing production value
For High Limit Racing and FloRacing to compete against World Racing Group, DirtVision and the World of Outlaws, there is a long way to go to reach their production values.
Anyone who has watched a World of Outlaws or Xtreme Outlaws broadcast knows these are industry leading production values. It looks like a broadcast on par, if not exceeding, those in mainstream motorsports like NASCAR, IndyCar and NHRA.
FloSports EVP Phil Wendler says they intend to invest accordingly.
“Yeah, a hundred percent,” Wendler said. “You know, we want to invest into this series and have it be one of our flagship properties, right, and so that’s across the board.
“With FloSports, we are in 25 different sports and that allows us to also have some larger resources on the production side but also on the product and engineering side.
“We’ve got a lot of exciting, innovation and evolution to our consumer product. We ask ourselves all the time how do we elevate the live stream inside of that product, as well as all the other content to make sure that fans can get the content they want as soon as possible on any device.”
Big picture stuff
‘Vision,’ ‘growth’ and ‘fan experience’ were frequently cited in almost every response to every question during the 45-minute press conference.
“Obviously growth is the most important thing,” Sweet said. “And then, just providing more teams, more resources, growing our stars, creating larger events, keep increasing purses, keep pushing the limits on the fan experience.”
Wendler echoed that experience.
“From our side, it’s just that sustained growth, right,” he said. “And that’s not just for the High Limit Series, it’s for the sport, right?
“We’ve got to figure out how do we get more talent coming up and create bigger stars and celebrities earlier on so that there’s greater appeal at the track, within the live stream and there’s a better economy for the athletes, right?
“I think that’s one of the things, and why we’re so excited to go into this partnership. It’s like, how can we work together with this growing audience, not just on FloRacing, but all the streaming platforms that are streaming the product.
“There aren’t a lot of mainstream sponsors in the sport, right? We want to improve their economy, make it more sustainable, make it more bulletproof so that more drivers can get involved, stay involved, and we get a better product at the end of the day.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.