Photo courtesy of World Racing Group

New midget & sprint car series are taking flight in the Midwest. Here’s a closer look at how organizers are working to ensure their short- and long-term success.

Belleville, Illinois’ Performance Open-Wheel Racing Inc. (POWRi) and Concord, North Carolina-based World Racing Group (WRG) have both launched new open wheel series for 2022. Designed around feedback from racers, tracks, and fans, these new series promise strong car counts and plenty of action. But it takes more than tight racing to keep interest high. Here’s what organizers are doing to make sure that POWRi’s 410-Wing Outlaw Sprint League and World Racing Group’s Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series and Xtreme Outlaw Sprint Car Series hit the ground running. 

POWRi 410-Wing Outlaw Sprint League

POWRi’s 410-Wing Outlaw Sprint League is a Missouri Valley-based series that calls Lake Ozark Speedway in Eldon, Missouri, its home track. The new series closely follows the World of Outlaws and All-Star rulebooks to keep things simple for competitors who are currently racing with existing touring sanctioning bodies. With nearly 30 events scheduled for the 2022 season, it’s clear that organizers have high expectations for the series. 

“In the Missouri Valley, where we’re trying to continue to expand and grow, we’ve noticed that it was getting tougher and tougher to keep the 360 sprints on that path over the past few years,” explained POWRi’s Kenny Brown. “But there was a clear opportunity with the 410s. The 410s seemed to be coming on a lot stronger in part because you can buy a motor for roughly the same cost as a 360 and race for more money.” 

Brown told us that the value proposition offered by these engines is just one of several factors that has contributed to the growth of 410-class racing. “It’s also the purses and the notoriety that they’ve been getting. The numbers seem to be heading in the right direction every year. We’ve co-partnered with the Outlaws on a lot of races—when the Outlaws and the All-Stars come to our area, I actually have them run at our race track. One of the things we’re trying to do is continue to grow the count so that, when they’re in the area, our guys can participate with them. But the main reason that this was put together is because we simply didn’t have a 410-wing series in the region.”

With appeal of sizable purses and a history of solid attendance numbers for 410-winged sprint car races, Brown said that this was the perfect time to create the new series. “The fans have been telling me what they want: sheer speed and good racing. They want to see a show. They want to see the best of the best, and the elite of open wheel dirt car racing tend to gravitate toward the 410-wing cars. Interest in 410 is just expanding all the time. It’s not a niche here and a small pocket there. If you have a 410-winged sprint car, you can pretty much run anywhere.”

The new series adopts an event program that includes a pill-draw for entry that sets the time-trial qualifying lineup. Qualifying times advance drivers into heat races that are followed by semi-feature races where applicable, a trophy dash, and a feature event. “So we’re not running it like the traditional pill-draw for a heat race,” said Brown. “With a 410 wing, I think you have to qualify to set the field because the competition is so close. Being a few tenths behind someone else doesn’t necessarily mean that one driver is slower than another, so it tends to promote the passing aspect of it. I think the fans really like the dashes as well.”

He also explained that POWRi has been working closely with teams and tracks to make sure the series came together in a way that appealed to all parties involved. “The drivers were the ones who expressed to us that they wanted to start the new 410 series, so we’ve been in close contact with them as this developed. The tracks clearly wanted the series, too. They were calling and asking for these events because they know that this is something that their fanbase is interested in.” 

Engine and chassis builders that have worked with POWRi in their other series have come on board to support the 410-Wing Outlaw Sprint League. “We’re getting support from all of them to do this, so that’s been great,” said Brown. “A lot of these relationships were already in place because of our non-wing 410 series, but there are also a few new builders that we’re working with. This is a great opportunity for them to expand their product offerings and grow as well.” 

Many of POWRi’s existing corporate sponsors were eager to get involved with the new series, but organizers also continue to seek out other potential opportunities. “Sponsorship is important,” he emphasized. “And we have picked up a few new sponsors for the series. I think it has helped immensely to have the continued support of Lucas Oil and all of the others that we currently have.” 

POWRi’s marketing strategy includes newspaper coverage and a strong social media presence across the major platforms. But with an existing fanbase that’s already eager to check out the new series, Brown said that the race schedule is perhaps even more vital to its popularity. 

“In order to grow the car counts initially, we’ve purposely chosen Lake Ozark Speedway as our home track. We have eight to ten races there this season, and that gives the drivers some assurance that if they invest in their car, they have a place to go racing. We’re not going to take them further than four to six hours away from our home track because we don’t want them to spend huge amounts of time on the road just to get to the next race. The idea is to drive once, race twice.” 

The POWRi team has also taken steps to make sure that their schedule doesn’t force would-be competitors to choose one series over another on a given weekend. “When it comes to the 410s, obviously the biggest series are with the Outlaws and the All-Stars, and we’re working with both of them,” said Brown. “If the Outlaws come into town, for example, we’ll take that weekend off so our drivers can run and aren’t forced to chase points.”

Looking into next year, Brown expects the race calendar to keep competitors just as busy as its inaugural season, if not more so. “I think we’ll stay in the range of 30 to 40 events—that’s our goal. We’ll probably lose a few events to rain-outs, so that means at least 25 good races. That number of events should allow a racer to run the entire season with two motors; I think you can get a dozen or so races out of a motor before it’s ready for a rebuild. A lot of it depends on the size of the tracks that you’re running, and the good thing here is that we’re running on three-eighth and quarter-mile tracks rather than half-mile ones, so that should improve longevity.” 

World Racing Group Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series AND Xtreme Outlaw Sprint Car Series

With the introduction of its new midget and sprint car series, World Racing Group is looking to inject some new life into open wheel racing in the Midwest and Eastern regions. Xtreme Outlaw Series Director Casey Shuman told us that while car counts are generally growing as new teams continue to enter the fray, some aspects of the sport seemed to be stuck in the past and were ripe for a revamp. 

“Part of it was about bringing some of the aspects of what we’re doing with our national series like World of Outlaws Late Models to open wheel. Format-wise, some of the series haven’t really evolved very much over the years, and that’s something we want to address with these new series. It’s a mixture of the traditional format and some newer elements—it’s something unique. Any time you can do something new and different, I think that piques some interest and gets people excited about checking it out.”

Shuman said that the level of competition is fiercer than ever, and that’s led to some creative solutions that are designed to promote good racing on a level playing field. “If you do straight-up, single-car qualifying and line up with the fast cars up front, I think the racing isn’t as good as it could be. So we’re qualifying within our heat race: You draw for a heat, qualify within that heat, and you get points for that. Then when we go line up for a heat race, we invert the field a bit and put the fast driver fourth,
but you also earn passing points in that heat race. So if you’re fast and you’re passing race cars, you’re still going to end up where you need to be. We want to give all of these drivers opportunities to gather points and move forward every time they get on the race track.”

Several different factors contributed to WRG’s desire to bring both series into the fold this year, but perhaps the biggest push came from the drivers. “I grew up with non-wing sprint cars and midgets—I raced them for 20 years, so my heart is very much in that type of racing,” Shuman explained. “As a racer, there were so many things that I wanted to see improved or handled in a different way. Teams have talked to us about how they wanted to have another option aside from USAC and POWRi, and this was an opportunity to bring that to them, especially on the sprint car side. I think the competition is going to raise the bar for everybody.”

WRG has looked to various incentives to help bolster interest in the new Xtreme Outlaw series as well. “With our payouts, purses, and tow money, we’re elevating things beyond what these teams are used to getting,” Shuman said. “We’re offering tow money to our top 10 in points, and that encourages them to follow the series. But we also concentrated on elevating the purses for third through tenth finishers. That’s one place where I felt like other series were kind of lacking.”

WRG has also paired roughly half of the events scheduled for 2022 with World of Outlaws Late Models races to bring more attention to the new series. “That will get this in front of some folks who might not normally see it,” Shuman said. “When we ran the non-wing sprint cars with Late Models for the season opener at Volusia, I had a ton of Late Model guys come up to me and say, ‘Man, I’ve never really watched these things before—these are awesome.’ A big part of the idea here was to get this in front of some new eyes and bring it to some new regions. And, of course, it adds to DIRTVision’s content as well. If we can add more forms of racing and more dates throughout the year to our broadcasts, that adds value and improves the experience for our viewers.”

Both the Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series presented by Toyota and the Xtreme Outlaw Sprint Car Series will leverage existing relationships with engine and chassis builders from other series within the group, and sponsor support is already in full swing. “Low-E Insulation has been involved with us for the past few years, and they jumped on board with the sprint car program immediately after we announced it, which was awesome,” said Shuman. “We’ve also secured a similar agreement with another partner on the midget side. Having two partners step up like that during our first year is very cool. There are also a lot of contingency sponsors that were excited to get involved right out of the gate. I think part of it goes back to the idea of offering something new and unique.” 

Alongside promotion on DIRTVision, World Racing Group’s marketing team is getting the word out to local markets through radio, billboard ads, social media, and other platforms. 

Shuman noted that waiting until December of last year to announce their schedule allowed them to plan the dates more strategically. “We wanted to make sure we weren’t stepping on any toes. We want to give all of these teams the opportunity to come try these new series without having to sacrifice what they might be doing in other series. Scheduling on top of another race splits the field, and that doesn’t do anyone any good.”

The 2022 race calendar brings 12 midget races and 14 sprint car races among the two new series, and how things shake out this year will largely determine the number of dates for next season. “We just need to see where it goes. It may be that these work well with 16 to 18 events that are kind of spread out, or it could very well end up being 30 events next year. I believe there’s a ton of interest out there, but we still need to figure out what’s best for the series—and best for the sport in general.” 

Sources

POWRi
powri.com

World Racing Group
xtremeoutlawseries.com