High Limit Racing doesn’t want a war.
That’s been the message from five-time champion Brad Sweet nearly every time he’s spoken publicly since the original announcement when live for him and Kyle Larson’s sprint car series.
They’re both on the same page with that, and hold strong on that purpose, but they’re not blind to what is happening in the sprint car industry.
The series purchased the All-Star Circuit of Champions – a regional series that typically stayed within the boundaries of Pennsylvania to Iowa and seldom raced further East or West – earlier this year.
On Tuesday, it announced it would be expanding into a national schedule, creating a landscape in the sprint car industry that holds two national touring series: High Limit Racing and World Racing Group’s World of Outlaws.
“We’re aware when we did this deal that that, you know, there was going to be maybe a void created a little bit and maybe some upset people, but we want to assure them that we’re not forgetting the history of the All Stars,” Sweet said. “The All Star name is still there. It’s just tabled for 2024 at this point, just so that we can focus on trying to get the High Limit Racing series off the ground. I think we don’t have a clear, concise answer on what we’re going to do with All Star brand. We have it on our list of things to do, and if the opportunity presents itself or we feel like for the overall health of the ecosystem of sprint car racing to bring it back as the right move than we, then we will, we just needed some time to focus on what we’re trying to do right this second.”
For now, that void will stay, but the tour is working with the FAST Series in a partnership to help compliment schedules and ultimately keep Ohio Sprint Speedweek – a miniseries that runs over the course of around 10 days in Ohio – in existence for its 42nd year.
Elsewhere, there is some animosity between the two sides.
World Racing Group owns the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series as well as its streaming platform, DirtVision. It broadcasts other tours under the WRG umbrella, such as the late model series, the Super DIRTCar big block tour and the Xtreme Outlaw midgets, as well as a number of weekly local shows around the country.
FloSports has invested heavily into the sport in recent years, picking up deals to broadcast the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series, USAC’s three national tours, and is the home to the biggest races of the year in dirt late model racing.
The company made a robust move here, purchasing a minority ownership stake in High Limit Racing. It’s not something FloSports has done with many of the 25 sports it broadcasts around its catalog.
“It’s a unique partnership for us and you know, sort of a co-ownership position,” FloSports executive vice president of global rights acquisition Phil Wendler said. “We do have some owned and operated events that we do across different sports, Jujitsu, wrestling, even our FloRacing Night in America, right. We’re always looking for creative ways – that’s the great thing about our businesses, we’re pretty nimble, we want to find the right partners – we want to find long term solutions that we can really invest in. And so we liked this model, because we feel confident in partnership. So, it’s definitely something that we could look to replicate in other sports or even in racing, or there could be a bigger stakes, or we own our own the IP exclusively.”
It’s a move by FloSports to ensure its dirt racing package is getting the best it can. It will always chase to improve its product, so long as its invested in the sport.
“We want to have the top series the top drivers, the top tracks, across all segments that we invest in, in motorsports,” Wendler said. “We’re pursuing the IP here and an ownership position in High Limit Racing, because it’s really creates an integrated long-term strategy and approach that gives us greater flexibility and how we use the IP dynamically to go beyond FloRacing. You know, we want to promote our partners to drivers to tracks and continue to elevate the sprint car racing space. If we can do that we’re all going to win here.”
The conversations have been had throughout the year between High Limit and World Racing Group.
Despite anything Sweet or Larson could say, there isn’t a series on the planet that would be happy losing its five-time champion to a tour he created himself.
“I felt like (WRG was) just taking it kind of like from of like a personal thing – like it’s a personal attack,” Sweet said. “But, you know, I assured them it was more business decision on my end, and I have no ill feelings towards them. They don’t love what we’re doing. It’s pretty obvious by some of the comments they’ve made, but at the end of the day, we got to do what’s best for us.”
The animosity showed a bit Wednesday, when WRG announced another six-figure race just one minute after High Limit Racing’s press conference was scheduled to begin.
Sweet and Larson, however, don’t want to pay attention to things like that.
“We’re certainly not reactionary,” Sweet said. “We definitely have a vision and a goal, and we’re not looking over our shoulders, we’re looking out in front of us. We know that there’s going to be, in the short term, some people upset but I think anytime you do anything big in life, or in any industry, I think you’re going to have that. So, you know, I think just we’re just putting a great staff together, we’re putting a great schedule together. We’re looking at a really big picture. We’re putting a great business model for the team owners and you know, we’re gonna we’re gonna elevate the fan experience, this is things that we are going to do. If there’s some reactionary stuff on the other side, is it still elevating sprint car racing, so we’re winning in either way.”
The other layer arises in differences the two tours have in philosophy.
After Sweet and Larson announced they would race an inaugural season with a midweek schedule, World Racing Group implemented a rule allowing its full-time drivers to race outside of the series in just four events throughout the season.
It was dubbed as the ‘exclusivity bonus,’ which came along with an increased season-long championship purse. Drivers could race at as many non-WRG sprint car events as they wanted to, but it came with losing the thousands of dollars in bonus money added when they stuck within the bounds of the brand.
High Limit Racing won’t have such a rule, and is encouraging its drivers to race elsewhere during the off-weekends the tour will have.
World Racing Group also prohibits non-World of Outlaws teams from having a merchandise trailer at its events. Only full-time World of Outlaws members have that luxury. High Limit says it will not have such a rule.
“The outlaws have been in business for a really long time, and I think they’re gonna continue to be in business, you know,” Sweet said. “I can’t really speak on what they’re going to do, all I can do is focus on what we’re trying to do it with our High Limit brand. Obviously, we want to have big events and we have a completely different business model than what they have. We’re not asking our drivers to be exclusive, we’re not trying to run 95 Nights, you know, so it’s a good bit different. We’ve kind of taken what the All Stars had and simply elevating it to another level, we feel like the All Stars were basically in between Pennsylvania and Iowa, and we simply added a west coast swing… We’re really looking at the overall sustainability for team owners are really trying to focus on the fan experience. We think the fan experience needs to be elevated to another level. And I think the overall goal for us is just to make the whole ecosystem better for everybody.”
Improving the ecosystem is the main goal for the series, but Larson and Sweet are competitors as much as anybody else.
They want to make their own product the best, even with coexisting with the World of Outlaws brand. That doesn’t mean it will end that way and it’s gong to remain contentious as things shake out this winter.
For Sweet, the opportunity was just too good to pass up, and he and his team are putting forth efforts to improve on the things they’ve seen in the last decade-plus in the sport.
“Obviously, teaming up with Kyle & FloRacing, (I was) presented a really unique opportunity,” Sweet said. “You know, when you spend 10 years kind on the road, and you’re basically are living in this world of sprint car racing, it’s your desire and your passions to grow the sport, obviously. I think it’s part of my, who I am, is, just to have a strong desire as an entrepreneur for one and just a true for racing to grow the sport, and then, you know, these opportunities kind of present themselves. I just feel like this gives me the opportunity to showcase my vision, and where I’ve thought that we could take sprint car racing for a long time. I accomplished in the driver’s seat, no matter what happens moving forward.
“But in my vision, High Limit Racing is going to be at the top of the sport, and it allows me to compete for the biggest purses, allows me the opportunity to make the biggest living for my family,” Sweet said. “Those are all key factors in making this decision.”
