From T.J. Buffenbarger
(August 13, 2024) — After the A-Main of the Knoxville Nationals during the post-race press conference conducted in front of the race fans, cheers rang out from California sprint car fans with any mention of their home state sweeping the podium and four of the top five finishers.
Those fans have reason to cheer. The left coast of late has produced the most promising young talent in the winged sprint car world in recent years. Drivers such as Kyle Larson, Brad Sweet, Rico Abreu, Carson Macedo, Giovanni Scelzi, Buddy Kofoid, and Cory Day have electrified winged sprint car fans with their abilities over the past decade.
The plethora of talent coming from the left coast is far from new though, but the changing landscape of our sport has landed them in winged sprint cars longer than they would have in years past.
When I first started covering the sport, Jeff Gordon was all the rage in stock car racing with NASCAR approaching its peak popularity. Gordon being able to star on Thursday Night Thunder propelled him to NASCAR stardom.
Gordon was originally from California and moved to Indiana to chase his dream. With Tony Stewart also achieving stardom in NASCAR following the same path, we started to see kids popping up in Indiana wanting to be stars. Many of those drivers were from California.
Shortly after this website started hitting its stride Pete Willoughby and Keith Kunz brought a couple of young, charging California racing prospects, Jay Drake and Jason Leffler to the Midwest. Their talent was electrifying to see on the USAC stage. Other drivers like Cole Whitt and Darren Hagen were chasing that same dream as were drivers adjacent to California like Arizona’s Jerry Coons Jr. and J.J. Yeley.
During Indiana Sprint Week we would see the talent from the West Coast come to do USAC races that most of us had only seen on highlights and read about such as Cory Kruseman, Damion Gardner, and Rickie Gaunt.
If you were a young, talented open wheel driver making the shift to USAC was the thing to do. Often times young California talent would exit the winged sprint cars to go through USAC ranks just to see if they could get a prime NASCAR opportunity. Kasey Kahne, Larson, and Abreu are drivers from the west coast that did winged sprint car stints and for a time cut back to do most of their racing in USAC on their way to their NASCAR opportunities.
Once the economics of NASCAR started to change and USAC took their midget and sprint car divisions off the pavement, that path to stardom stated was altered. While Larson did some amazing things with the United State Auto Club, his winged sprint car exploits dominate the discussion when talking about his sprint car accomplishments.
The streaming of short track racing being made available not only to race fans, but for race teams looking for the next big thing, is helping those teams identify young talent they want to invest in at a younger age.
The winged sprint car is now being looked at as the proving ground to scout talent with teams choosing to give those prospects such as Corey Day time in late models and ARCA before moving through the ranks.
The truth is the winged sprint car has always been one of the best training grounds. If you look at drivers like Kahne, Larson, and Christopher Bell I felt having to compete against the highest competition in winged sprint car racing was a key part of their success. Even veteran drivers like Stewart added skills to their toolbox when running the winged sprint car frequently.
For California, the farm system has been in place for a while. The vibrant outlaw kart and micro sprint scenes train the drivers along with sprint cars on the tight confines of tracks like Tulare Thunderbowl, Placerville Speedway, Silver Dollar Speedway and others. There are also car owners on the west coast willing to put young drivers in the seat and let them hone their craft.
The difference today is instead of seeing those drivers move to Indiana to move up through their national touring system, kids now are looking at the winged sprint car not only for that opportunity to move up, but also as an avenue to possibly make a living.
Not as many young drivers at that talent level wanted to grind out a living on the World of Outlaws tour back when USAC was the hot trail to find young talent. In recent years, winged sprint car racing with bigger purses, a second option in the High Limit Series, along with the explosion of the already booming merchandising business in the sport have more young drivers looking at winged sprint cars as a place to land in their racing career instead of something to just fall back on if their NASCAR dreams don’t happen.
While California driver Logan Seavey has been having a tremendous run through USAC, most of the young west coast open wheel talent has stayed in the winged sprint car recently. How long this trend continues is yet to be seen, but for now the fans watching these young, talented drivers rip around dirt tracks in winged sprint cars are benefiting from how entertaining they are to watch.