Kyle Bronson promised he and his team owned by Wayne and Shirlene Hammond will return to a national touring series in 2026.
Bronson and the team announced at the beginning of May that they would be stepping away from chasing a national touring series. The team had been following the World of Outlaws, but decided not to follow the tour to Mississippi Thunder Speedway at the beginning of the month.
In a post to Facebook, the team explained, “Kyle, Wayne, Shirlene and the KB40 crew have made the decision to take a step back this year from a national touring series. We started this year off having some bad luck and Kyle has come to the conclusion he is still not satisfied with his results. Kyle took this week/weekend off to do some much needed testing at several different tracks. Kyle and crew are going to take this year to really focus on familiarizing themselves with their cars, testing as much as physically possible, and just really bettering their program as a whole. They believe taking a step back from the expectation of a national touring series will allow them to have the extra time to do all of the above.”
“These past two years we have been so blessed to run with the World of Outlaws,” the team added. “Finishing 4th in overall points two years in a row with some of the best in the country, has been an absolute dream. It also makes this team realize what we are capable of and what we expect as a whole for ourselves. Thank you to everyone associated with World of Outlaws for having us, it was a pleasure traveling up and down the road with you guys for two years.”
Bronson would return to action during Illinois Speedweek and would struggle with a 20th place DNF at LaSalle and a 23rd DNF at Spoon River. At Lincoln he finished 17th. At Farmer City, he finished 25th with another DNF. He did not make it out of his B-Main at Fairbury and finished 14th. At Marshalltown he suffered another DNF and finished 24th.
However, he rebounded from two straight podium appearances at Eagle Raceway with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. He finished third on both Thursday and Friday night and closed the weekend out with a 10th place finish.
Speaking to DirtonDirt.com’s Todd Turner, Bronson admitted that leaving the World of Outlaws hit his pride, “It definitely hurts your pride because all the best racers want to be out there racing every week with the best racers, but as bad as we’ve been — I had a couple of motor issues earlier in the year — it was the best thing we could do for our team.”
However, it appears he’s put that ego hit behind him and leaving the tour has seemingly freed him up. He explained, “Now we could just go race every race, win or wear it, it don’t really matter. Just driving 120 percent. We ain’t got to worry about points.”
Nevertheless, he did share that he plans to chase a national tour next year, “Next year, I’m looking forward to be back on a tour again, but right now we’re just enjoying racing and we’re gonna race all we can and do the best we can.”
As for his recent success, Bronson revealed that it’s a relatively new Longhorn chassis that he hasn’t even raced 10 times yet. He previously ran it during the Georgia-Florida Speedweeks at Ocala where he finished 6th and 3rd back on February 6th and 7th. “This is a different car I’ve been racing and it’s been really good right out of the box here. So, we’re just getting our program going and getting a little bit of mojo here.”
Bronson will be back in action tonight with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series for the Show Me 100 at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Missouri. He will then head to Swainsboro to compete with the Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series on May 30 and 31st. He then heads to Eldora for the FloRacing Night in America Series and will stay there for the Dirt Late Model Dream.
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