Fresh off two victories over the weekend with the World of Outlaws, Tim McCreadie shared why he decided to switch from Rocket to Longhorn.
McCreadie switched from a Rocket chassis back to a Longhorn during the Illini 100 weekend in the middle of April at Farmer City Raceway. He started the season in a Rocket for the Briggs Transport Racing team. In fact, when Rocket1 announced that Brandon Sheppard would be replacing McCreadie in the Rocket1 house car, it also revealed that McCreadie would move to the Briggs Transport Team and that Richards would be supporting them.
Richards said at the time, “Tim took on a tall task this year, joining our team after the year started, and he did a great job for us. We’re very grateful for his hard work, and and as he moves over to Briggs Transport Racing, he’ll continue to be an important part of the growth and development we have in motion here at Rocket Chassis. In fact, Rocket1 Racing will work in alliance with Briggs Racing Transport throughout the 2025 campaign.”
Tim McCreadie celebrates a win at the Topless 100. Photo Credit: Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series.
Speaking to DirtonDirt.com about the switch back to Longhorn, McCreadie said, “This car just seems to suit me, and how could it not suit me? I was an intricate part of their program for probably almost a decade. All the stuff we would do with all the people that were there, it was just kind of easy to fall back into that mode of trying this and trying that. Just for me, I know the car is a lot better. I thought that the minute we got it, it had really good speed.”
“It’s no secret Boom and I go way back, and it’s no secret Boom and [Rocket Chassis owner] Mark [Richards] have a great relationship, too, and it was all of us putting this together,” he continued. “The hardest part for me, why I’m not doing stuff with Rocket, is that I just wasn’t good enough. Listen, it’s part of it. I thought we had a very good year [in 2024],” he continued. “And it’s not a lie that I don’t believe we did as good as we should’ve, and neither does [Richards]. You make changes based off that, and that’s OK. Driving with Boom, we wrap everything together and basically, he’s like me. We’ve just raced a lot where you try to get better.”
McCreadie did not have the best finishes when he initially switched to Longhorn. He finished 21st and 19th in the Illini 100 weekend. However, two weeks later at the Talladega Short Track he clicked off a 7th place finish. He then followed that up with a 4th and 5th place finish at Mississippi Thunder Speedway. During Illinois Speedweek, he finished 12th at LaSalle, 7th at Spoon River, and 7th at Lincoln Speedway.
He notched his first win of the season this past weekend at Raceway 7 and then followed it up with a second win at Bedford. He finished 19th in between the two at Marion Center albeit he was the victim of a wreck. He’s moved up to fifth in the points standings just 220 points behind current leader Bobby Pierce. At the beginning of April, he was in 8th with just 1 top 5 and 2 Top 10s.
Tim McCreadie via FloRacing.com
McCreadie also provided more details about why he chose to compete with the World of Outlaws over the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. He had previously told the World of Outlaws’ Spence Smithback, “It’s exciting, it’s always nice to shake things up. Sometimes you’ve got to look at doing different things and see if you can jumpstart some success. I just looked around at what I’ve been doing and thought this seemed interesting. Kind of had our minds made up well before we decided to do it that we were looking to do something different, and here we are.”
He told DirtonDirt.com, “It was more of, doing things a little different isn’t a bad thing. I left the Outlaws years ago [after the 2015 season] for the same reason. It’s not like I don’t dislike anybody, but sometimes you need something to put life if your people. Plus, like I said, you get into ruts. If you run with the same guys every night, and you’re on that tour for 10 years, you’re in a ru and it’s hard to climb out of it.”
What do you make of McCreadie’s explanation for his return to Longhorn?
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