A new season of dirt racing brings many things along with it. New teams, new partnerships, new winners, and new controversies. While tire doping and penalties are nothing new to the sport, the process around it seems to always be at the center of attention when it happens. Each time a driver is penalized, new theories, new information, outdated information and new flaws are presented.

Before we dive in to the facts, rumors, and possibilities, I highly recommend reading and watching all of these articles and videos. Doing so will allow you to form your own opinion on the matter.

It is also important to eliminate whatever conspiracy theories that we can. The most obvious being that WRG is out to get these drivers. That legitimately makes no sense for so many reasons. To keep it simple, Bobby Pierce is their champion and puts fans in the seats. There are multiple competing late model series, why give one of the sport’s most popular drivers an incentive to race with them instead? WRG has been sued in court for this process, yet they still follow it and defend it.

Now that we have all of that out of the way, let’s dive into the rest.

Most recently, the penalty handed out to the 2023 World of Outlaws Late Model champion, Bobby Pierce, has turned the dirt racing world upside down. Pierce was fined and suspended, and any chance he had at repeating as the champion has been ruined. Looking at the big picture, this could potentially be a six figure suspension for Pierce when you factor in missed races and points fund earnings.

Like many others who have been penalized in the past, Pierce has adamantly maintained his innocence. He took to Facebook to defend himself and call out the testing process. His post made some great points, but they were all essentially debunked by World Racing Group CEO, Brian Carter. In a move that I can get behind, Carter has been very transparent about the process, appearing on DirtVision and Kenny Wallace’s YouTube channel to break it all down.

In reality, there are four scenarios that could have taken place:

  • These drivers altered their tires and got caught
  • The Lab results were inaccurate
  • The tires were purchased as new and still did not match the benchmark at the time of purchase
  • These drivers were using new, “undetectable” products and got caught

So that’s it, right? Carter has explained the process and Pierce, Kyle Bronson and Devin Moran have been suspended for altering their tires. Well…not exactly.

While Carter was openly transparent about the process, a few things remain unclear. If you are open to being transparent, why not release the actual results with the chemical breakdowns to the public? It would immediately bring peace to the situation at hand. Not doing this has only caused a stir of rumors about the process, leading many to believe that the test doesn’t even provide chemical breakdowns and only compares it to a benchmark sample provided by Hoosier Tire. Carter did reveal that they do have access to the chemical breakdown, so why are you holding that back? A few drivers who have been penalized in the past have claimed that they didn’t even see the results. If that is true, than that is absolutely a flaw in the process.

In recent years, NASCAR has been praised to fining and suspending teams for using illegal parts. After they announce the suspensions, they literally display the illegal part for all members of the media and sport to see first hand. This is a move that all major sanctioning bodies need to make if they are serious about tech inspection and holding up penalties.

Back in 2018/2019, James Morris was penalized at the Tulsa Shootout for tire violations. The paperwork from Blue Ridge Labs was posted on the Tulsa Shootout social media accounts for everyone to see. While the paperwork doesn’t reveal the actual chemicals in the breakdown, it at least shows the public something.

The next issue with the testing process is that how are competitors and teams supposed to trust that the tire they purchased as “new” from Hoosier or a distributor hasn’t been altered in any way? Carter stated that they have tested thousands of tires and have even tried tricking the lab, but the lab remains 100% accurate. Still, how can everyone be sure that the benchmark samples are all consistent with tires that are purchased by teams and drivers. Sure, I’m sure multiple benchmarks exist, but are they all identical every single time?

According to late model driver, Jason Feger, Hoosier Tires do not have a serial number. They have date codes. So, are the benchmark samples provided using the same batch of tires with that date code? I can’t be certain, but I doubt that’s the case. Feger’s argument was that these tires do not have tamper proof seals or tracking codes on them, so there is no way to know if they have been tampered with before they arrive at the shop or the trailer.

With recent tire shortages and production issues, are we certain that every tire is made up of the exact same chemical composition? I’m no scientist, but this seems like a legitimate concern. While Hoosier Tire is compliant in the testing process by providing benchmarks, they are not necessarily involved in the process. When you buy a tire from Hoosier, there is no written guarantee that the tire will pass a lab test.

The final important argument from Feger is that he claims that each driver who was suspended had multiple tires tested throughout the week. Only one of those samples failed for each. That’s strange, but there could be an easy explanation. In most tire testing cases, the tire in question is from the feature. Teams and drivers are well aware of this and could easily feel more comfortable using a “doped” tire for qualifying. However, Carter indicated that one of these failed tires was from qualifying. Yes, it does seem unusual that these teams who have been consistently tested over the years would try anything with so much on the line this early in the season.

Tire penalties at Volusia are nothing new. You can form your own opinion on that one but I think the most logical explanation is that teams are trying new things that they believe won’t be detected.

What about the USAC tire debacle of 2022

In 2022, after Florida Speedweeks, USAC and WRG announced tire penalties. For WRG, it was Justin Grant and Chase Stockton from the Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series. For USAC, the four teams were never publicly released (that I can locate). To complicate matters more, it is also unclear if USAC uses the same lab and testing process, as I have heard from some that they do and from others that they do not.

USAC officials initially announced suspensions, then stated that further testing of the tires was required because they all failed the exact same way. They indicated that during the additional testing at a second and third lab, the tires were deemed perfectly legal. Therefore, the four drivers in question were not penalized. It was quite obvious that this was a public relations nightmare for USAC and that they will likely never mention it again. Implying that a failed tire test did not automatically go through a second round of testing opened the door for hundreds of questions and scenarios. For example, if only one of the competitors tire failed, would that tire even be sent for additional testing? That remains unclear on the USAC side, but not the WRG side.

To further validate WRG’s testing process, they upheld the penalties that were handed out during the same time period, while USAC did not. That tells me that the process of testing the tires was not the same or that USAC was under heavy scrutiny and decided it was best to not suspend the drivers. It could very well be both.

So, while the USAC tire testing debacle of 2022 could be used as a valid argument concerning the process and labs, it is important to remember that not all of these details are made public and a lot of things happen behind the scenes. In the most recent case of Pierce, Bronson and Moran, the USAC situation is irrelevant. WRG and USAC are not the same and WRG has notoriously defended their process and upheld their penalties.

To bring this one to a close, I think that the transparency that WRG has shown is a huge positive for the process, but it still might not be enough. The reality is that something like this hurts both parties. It might hurt the driver’s image and potential earnings more, but it still makes WRG vulnerable to angry fans and teams. I think a few changes could be made to the process to really improve things for everyone.

  • Release the full chemical breakdown of each failed test and make it public for everyone to see like NASCAR does with illegal parts.
  • Work with Hoosier Tire to provide tires with “tamper-safe” seals or scannable tracking numbers so teams can see exactly where that tire has been.
  • Speed up the timing of the tests. The process takes too long and depending on the type of chemicals used, it could change the results during each step.

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Published by Steve Thornton

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