What Will the 2024 Sprint Car Season Look Like?

With Brad Sweet wrapping up his World of Outlaw championship and Kyle Larson closing out his NASCAR season, they can now focus on what all sprint car teams and fans are waiting for. It has been reported that the Outlaws have nearly competed their 2024 schedule but there are still so many unanswered questions about what the High Limit series will do. Will they continue with a similar schedule that the All Stars have had for the last few seasons? Will they try to match a World of Outlaw style schedule? Will they split the series by region? Or will it be some kind of combination?

I think that the best option would be to have a similar schedule to the All Stars and add a few more benefits and big events to try and get more drivers signed full time. They then have a “premier” midweek series that lets Larson compete for a championship again. I would even be on board with splitting the series up regionally and have an end of season “East vs. West” championship weekend.

At the end of the day, one of the biggest questions remains: How many sprint car teams have the funds to run a full season on tour? The World of Outlaws had 15 “full time” drivers in 2023, a number that I do not see increasing in 2024. The All Stars only had 10 full time teams to start the year, a number that dropped as the year progressed. High Limit had just eight teams run the full schedule.

Based off of the 2023 season, I looked at the sprint car teams that have the potential to run a full touring season that did not run the Outlaw or All Star schedule.

Rico Abreu, Brent Marks, Anthony Macri, Brian Brown, Buddy Kofoid, Corey Day, Aaron Reutzel, Justin Peck, Brenham Crouch, Crouch no. 11, Bill Balog, Chase Randall, Cole Macedo, Sam Hafertepe Jr, Skylar Gee, Ryan Timms, and Riley Goodno were amongst the drivers and teams that competed in the most races in 2023. That is 17 teams that could potentially sign on to run an Outlaw style schedule. While we can’t know for sure, it is doubtful that all of these drivers and teams will want to adjust their schedule for 2024.

If the High Limit group did a regional split with a midweek high stakes angle, I think we could see a huge jump in full time competitors. With a region focused around Pennsylvania and Ohio, dozens of other teams could sign on.

Danny Dietrich, Lance Dewease, Brent Marks, Anthony Macri, Devon Borden, Parker Price Miller, Cap Henry, Chris Windom, Cale Thomas, Kyle Reinhardt, Justin Peck, Dylan Cisney, Sye Lynch, Lucas Wolfe, Greg Wilson and others could definitely be on board with a regional schedule that requires less travel. They would join the likes of Tyler Courtney and Zeb Wise to compete for a series championship.

In a Midwest region, Brian Brown, Austin McCarl, Chase Randall, Bill Balog, Aaron Reutzel, Joe B Miller, Ayrton Gennetten, Garet Williamson, Blake Hahn, Dusty Zomer, and others could make a full schedule work.

That leaves the question about the West Coast teams. How many California based teams have 410 engines? Corey Day, Justin Sanders, Trey Starks, Buddy Kofoid, Rico Abreu, Shane Golobic, Cole Macedo, Tanner Holmes, Chase Johnson, Joel Myers Jr, and Colby Copeland are a few names that could make it work. However, some of those guys rarely travel and others rarely stay on the West Coast.

There are too many unknowns to really figure out what the best format would be. I think it’s clear that one of the main focuses has to be to incentivize the local Pennsylvania and Ohio teams to get out of their comfort zone and travel a little bit. If Brad and Kyle can somehow figure out a way to highlight all of the talent this sport had that we all don’t get to see on a regular basis than that would be a huge win. A schedule focused primarily on Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, New York and New Jersey could do wonders for car counts.

It remains to be seen how many teams will leave the Outlaws, but I don’t see it being a huge number. There have been rumors about Spencer Bayston and CJB no. 5 being a candidate to follow Brad and Kasey Kahne over to the High Limit series. Bayston might not be the driver, but the team could still migrate over. Brock Zearfoss is another driver that makes sense. He had a rough 2023 with the Outlaws and could be looking for a change. Outside of that, I don’t think the Shark Racing team will part ways with the Outlaws and David Gravel and Carson Macedo will certainly want to battle it out to be the new champion with Sweet out of the picture.

Rico Abreu and Brent Marks seem to like their current “outlaw” schedules and they both made it work for them. Rico has a great relationship with Kyle and Brad, but I don’t know if that is enough to make him change his ways. Marks is certainly capable of winning a championship with a touring series, but why would he change the schedule that has worked so well for him the last two seasons?

Basically, there are enough 410 teams out there to make two full time touring series work, but there is no guarantee these teams will want to sign on. The regional series angle potentially provides more cars, but how many will truly run the full schedule? The closing weeks of 2023 will certainly be something to watch, as the entire landscape of sprint car racing is about to be changed forever. Stay tuned.