The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series announced a significant change to its Georgia-Florida Speedweeks for 2026 by shifting all of its races to after the Daytona 500.
The racing will begin at All-Tech Speedway on Wednesday, February 18th with an open-practice session. There will then be three nights of racing at the track between Thursday February 19th through Saturday February 20th. The races will pay $10,000, $12,000, and $15,000 to win, respectively.
After All-Tech, the tour heads to Ocala Speedway with a practice session on Monday, February 23rd. There will then be five nights of racing from Tuesday through Saturday. On Tuesday and Wednesday $7,000 will be on the line for the win. That top prize increases to $10,000 on Thursday. Friday sees a $12,000 to-win top prize. On Saturday they will be racing for $15,000 to win.
Speedweeks will wrap up at Golden Isles Speedway. There will be an open practice on March 3rd. There will then be four nights of racing beginning on Wednesday, March 4th, where they will race for $7,000 to-win. On Thursday, the prize money increases to $10,000-to-win. On Friday, they will compete for $12,000-to-win. It then ends on Saturday with a $25,000-to-win feature. Throughout all of Speedweeks there will be $650,000 in purse money up for grabs.
Lucas Oil series director Rick Schwallie explained the change, “Teams have been looking for a change to Speedweeks; we listened. Racing in mid-January has become too daunting for everyone. The off-season isn’t long enough, and the gap between Speedweeks and the regular season is too much. The weather is also very unpredictable. If teams and fans are going to travel for Speedweeks, we want to provide them with a sure bet and give them an experience they can enjoy.”
This is a significant change from this year as Speedweeks started at Golden Isles on January 15th, but suffered multiple rain outs. It then shifted to All-Tech Raceway and closed out at Ocala on February 8th.
It is unclear if the World of Outlaws will follow suit. Its Speedweeks events started at Volusia Speedway Park on January 23rd, but saw its first night rained out. It did get in its January 24th and January 25th events. The series would return to Volusia on February 13th for three nights concluding on February 15th. Additionally, it’s unclear if there will be a break throughout much of March given Lucas’ portion of Speedweeks won’t end until March 7th.
What do you make of Lucas Oil shifting its Speedweeks events to the middle of February and going into the beginning of March?
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