Michael Rigsby, the VP of Motorsports for FloRacing, shared his thoughts on the World of Outlaws scheduling the Swamp Cabbage 100 at Hendry County Motorsports that conflicts with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series’ races at All-Tech Raceway.
Back in May, the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series announced a change to its Georgia-Florida Speedweeks schedule by moving the start of racing to the middle of February at All-Tech Raceway. The series announced it would have three races at All-Tech Raceway on Thursday, February 19th through Saturday February 21st. From there it would head to Ocala Speedway for racing on Tuesday February 24th through Saturday February 27th. Finally, their Speedweeks will conclude at Golden Isles Speedway on Wednesday, March 4 and goes through Saturday, March 7th.
Earlier this week, the World of Outlaws announced that it would hold the Swamp Cabbage 100 at Hendry County Motorsports Park on February 20th and 21st. That means the two series will be going head-to-head during Speedweeks rather than later in the year at the end of March.
Rigsby reacted to the announcement writing on Facebook, “My take has always been pretty simple. Dirt Late Model racing is 100% better when these tours don’t race on top of each other in Georgia and Florida.”
“The argument being made in this case is that this allows the series to ‘split sooner and properly allocate tow money’ … I get that, but that doesn’t outweigh to me the star power that’s present for BOTH series and elevates BOTH tour’s events,” he said. “This is short-sighted to me and doesn’t elevate dirt late model racing as a whole. (And before anyone makes the ‘yeah you like it for streaming’ argument) … We don’t stream all the races at Speedweeks!”
“And even if we did I wouldn’t like it. It splits the car count, audience, and attention spans of the sport at the ONE time of year the world is focused on dirt late model racing,” he continued. “Is it a huge deal? Maybe more of a ‘medium-deal’, and I do wish Hendry County luck by all accounts they’re great folks … but overall I think it’s going backward not forward.”
Ryan Gustin’s team owner Todd Cooney had a different perspective when he shared his thoughts to Facebook, “it makes perfect sense because of the travel money and everything.”
He explained, “Like the last few years Lucas guys can come in and run speed weeks and take the travel money when that’s meant for people that’s going to run the whole series. It shouldn’t affect the car count very much maybe four or five cars all that would be at the Lucas shows anyways.”
“This is something that should’ve been done a long time ago and it’s only two nights and they can go right back on the Lucas tour if they want to,” he concluded.
0 Comments