By T.J. Buffenbarger
(August 31, 2025) — The Must See Racing Series completed their two-day weekend with Kody Swanson taking $14,000 out of the palatial Owosso Speedway over the weekend. Here are my takeaways from the Sunday portion of the event.
• If you take the best pavement sprint car on the plant and put one of the best, if not the best, pavement sprint car driver in that car you get the result we saw on Sunday.
Unless something mechanical went array on Dick Meyers #50M car, there was little to no doubt what Kody Swanson was going to do to the field on Sunday at Owosso. Even with the team on edge due to a potential vibration Swanson felt during the second lap of qualifying, when it was feature event time Swanson went out and decimated the field.
After doing our post-race interview Swanson looked surprised when I told him the winning margin was solidly over eight seconds over second position.
Unless something changes dramatically, I would advise Davey Hamilton Jr. and the rest of the folks involved in the Open Wheel Shootout at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in November to pre-print the check with Swanson’s name on it.
It’s mind boggling how Rob Hoffman built the ultimate winged sprint car in 1991. Though it was not his intention, Meyers has engineered that car to be the ultimate pavement sprint car.
It’s probably good for the dirt sprint car world that Meyers is so focused on pavement, because it might be scary to think what he could do if he turned his attention to it.
Swanson also did an incredible job driving in the feature, maintaining an aggressive pace running three wide through traffic, making a point of not having his momentum broken by the slower cars.
It was entertaining watching Swanson driving Meyers car perform at such a high level.
• One combination worth keeping an eye on as the Open Wheel Shootout in November draws closer is Troy DeCaire and Taylor Ferns driving winged sprint cars for Aaron Pierce.
Pierce seems to have the desire to go winged sprint car racing again, and for this weekend enlisted Ferns and DeCaire to do so.
While Ferns fought mechanical gremlins for a majority of the weekend, DeCaire landed on the podium twice despite not racing at all this season before the two events at Owosso.
DeCaire has not lost his touch with a winged sprint car on pavement and Ferns will likely get up to speed sooner than later. This could end up being a potent combination to watch.
• While the Must See Racing 410 sprint cars were the headliner, the modest field of Must See Racing Lites crate sprint cars stole the show on Sunday.
Sliding around Owosso’s high banked 3/8 mile oval, both feature events for the Lites cars that feature torsion bar suspension, spec shocks, and a crate engine, were tremendously fun to watch.
Must See Lites competition and occasional dirt racer Charlie Bauer informed me the Lites cars are faster setup like a dirt sprint car, running free to where they slide through the corners a bit. While this makes them difficult for them to keep tires in good condition, they produced some great racing action.
The Lites class is like turning the clock back on winged pavement sprint cars 35 years. Hopefully a few more teams enter the class for 2026, because a full field of those cars at Owosso would be off the charts for entertainment.
• With their major remodel about 1/3 of the way done Owosso Speedway deserves to be mentioned as one of the nicest short tracks in the country.
Owosso has always been an entertaining stop for sprint car racing, but in recent years the facilities had fallen behind. Rex Wheeler has made one of the largest, if not the largest, investments I’ve ever witnessed into a short track facility.
The entire pit area is concrete, new grandstands on the backstretch appear to seat approximately 10,000 people, top flight lighting, and an amazing sound system are just a few of the amenities I noticed while walking the grounds.
The racetrack was repaved and re-shaped once Wheller took over. Thankfully the racing action was not impacted that much by the remodel, which in a couple of years will include the front stretch with a two level grandstand, suites, and other amenities.
The thing that struck me the most when walking around on Sunday besides the tremendous investment by Wheeler was the attention to detail on everything that has been done so far. From having the track logo on almost everything right down the traffic cones, having oil dry, fire extinguishers, and trash cans strategically located throughout the infield, to how the pit area and facility is laid out overall showed how much thought was put into the smallest details.
Once permanent restrooms and the front stretch remodel are complete Owosso can make a strong claim to being the nicest short track in the country and could give some bigger sporting venues a run for their money when it comes to quality of facilities.