Performance Racing Industry Trade Show
Unified rules landmark benefits multitour teams
By Todd Turner
DirtonDirt.com managing editor
Shane Clanton jokingly barged into the PRI meeting. (DirtonDirt.com)
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (Dec. 9) — When a major Dirt Late Model owner called Steve Francis this week to complain how varying body and dimensional rules among touring series were complicating his team’s offseason, the technical director for the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series knew it was time to complete some unfinished business. | Complete PRI coverage
The car owner told Francis: “If you guys don’t do something, I’ve gotta build three races cars to go race this year: One for (Lucas Oil), one for the droop rule (on the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series), and one for hit-and-miss races.”
Francis picked up his phone and called Kenny Kenneda, his WoO counterpart, and they agreed “we needed to get everybody on the same page.”
Fast forward to Thursday afternoon at the Performance Racing Industry Trade Show when Francis, Kenneda and officials with several other racing organizations met behind the closed doors of a tiny World Racing Group meeting room in the racing organization’s exhibit space on the Indiana Convention Center show floor.
Their mission? A unification of Dirt Late Model rules through a multi-organization cooperative effort that would allow a race car legal with one organization to be legal with a dozen more series, organizations or tours.
Mission accomplished as an effort that began with rule-discussing cooperation between the two major national tours in April and continued throughout the season came to fruition with unified rules covering body styles and dimensions, car weights, rear tire sizes and more were standardized by a major chunk of Super Late Model organizations. The agreement will be enforced beginning with Jan. 20 WoO action at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla.
“This is probably one of the biggest things that’s happened in our sport,” Francis said at the two-hour meeting’s conclusion, “is us all getting together as a group and agreeing on a set of rules for a car that makes a common Dirt Late Model again.”
Thursday’s cooperative marked Super Late Model racing’s first major unification of rules since the creation of the United Dirt Track Racing Association body rules in the mid-1990s after an Evansville, Ind., meeting spearheaded by Mike Swims of the Hav-A-Tampa Dirt Racing Association in conjunction with several other organizations.
“We’ve been talking about for almost a year, just trying to get on the same page, because there are some minor differences among all of us, the way we tech cars or the rules we have, so it’s really good to get on the same page,” said meeting participant Casey Shuman, World of Outlaws series director. “Getting everyone together and having one set of common rules to where it’s the same across the board all across the country is huge, not just for (each) series, but for the racers, too. You don’t have (to change) stuff and build different cars now. You can take it anywhere and race.”
While most of the unifying rules streamlined minor technical differences in differing dimensions, the significant among changes is the broader institution of the so-called “droop” rule that limits on-track deck heights of race cars and was previously used only with the World of Outlaws, Ray Cook’s Schaeffer’s Spring and Southern Nationals and Eldora Speedway events.
The key issues announced by the cooperative (check with series for more specifics):
Rear travel limiter: Colloquially known as the "droop" rule, postrace rear deck height must not exceed 51 inches (checked with both rear tires off the ground). Failing inspection results in disqualification that disallows a driver’s time trials or puts the driver to the rear of the previous race’s finishing order.
Weight rule: 2,350 pounds with driver after races; cars are allowed a pound-per-lap burnoff for feature events (not applicable to non-special DIRTcar events).
Tire sizes: Cars must be equipped with a 28.5/90 circumference tire on left-rear and front tires; the right-rear circumference must be 29.0/92.
Body skew: The measurement of the left-rear quarterpanel from the center of the hub to the rear of the quarterpanel should not exceed 54 inches. Measuring 6 feet from the left-rear quarterpanel to the right-rear quarterpanel, 8 feet forward along the right-side door, the diagonal measurement from that point to the top of the left-rear quarterpanel requires a minimum 118 inches.
Decking: If the hood is dropped, the deck must remain flat. If hood remains flat, a drop of the deck will be allowed (maximum 2 inches). If the interior is dropped, the hood and fenders must remain flat behind the air cleaner.
Plastic quarterpanels: Plastic quarterpanels will be allowed on the right side of the car only (disallowed on left side).
Tire compound rule: The cooperative also discussed a sport-wide tire rule with Hoosier Racing Tire product manager Shanon Rush, but instituting such a rule — limiting Late Models to a handful of compounds — isn’t possible for 2022 but was tentatively set to begin 2023 in what would mark a monumental shift in tire rules.
The mood of the cooperative’s participants was ebullient following what was basically an impromptu trade show meeting triggered by the Francis-Kenneda phone call earlier in the week.
“Actually this came together very fast. We got together with myself and Kenny and Shuman,” Francis said, “and we called Ray Cook, then we went to Chris Tilley (of the Valvoline Iron-Man Racing Series) and Southern All Stars and (DIRTcar) and Comp Cams and MLRA. ‘Hey, we want to do this,’ and everybody was like, ‘Man, just tell me when to be there.’ This started at 10:30 this morning and at 1 o’clock we were in there starting the meeting.
“By 1 o’clock, everybody was in the room. That’s how fast, that’s how much we all are passionate about the sport and felt like this needed to happen for our sport.”
Along with WoO and Lucas Oil, agreeing to the rules were DIRTcar (Eldora Speedway events and series events including Summer Nationals, MARS and Sunoco American Late Model Series), the Alabama-based Southern All Stars, the Kentucky-based Iron-Man tour, Cook’s North-Carolina-based tours, Missouri-based Lucas Oil Midwest LateModel Racing Association, Arkansas-based Comp Cams Super Dirt Series, Georgia-based Ultimate Southeast and the fledgling Castrol FloRacing Night in America tour.
Each organization had a representative in the meeting (Iron-Man’s Chris Tilley participated remotely) with more than a dozen folks shoehorned into a 10-by-10-foot room around a poker table.
Lucas Oil Series director Rick Schwallie knows drivers will have to be sold on the details of the changes, but they’ll be the benefactors.
“I think the overall thing is the same statement we’ve been making for nine months: there should be one Late Model that anybody can take anywhere,” he said. “You don’t need to have different cars for different rules or different situations during the course of the year. Racers are looking for information whether it’s a droop rule, or not a droop rule race. Is it in effect? Is it not in effect? We just needed to clean it up. We needed to clean it up for the sport. And I’m proud that we’re cleaning it up.
“I’m proud the whole sport came together and said, ‘Yeah, this is how we’re going to do it, and we’re all going to be on the same page and enforce (rules) the same way.’ To me, will the competitors agree with everything we just did? They probably won’t, but at the same time, I think they’ll all agree, getting the same (rules) no matter where they go is the most important thing. That’s ultimately what it’s all about.”
Sam Driggers, director of the DIRTcar organization that’s part of the World Racing Group along with the World of Outlaws, praised the streamlined rules.
“The good news is, you’ll be able to take your race car anywhere you want to go, and you’ll be legal,” Driggers said. “So that way, it’s not a thing about a guy saying, ‘Well I’ve gotta buy this, this and this to go (race) that.’ You need one race car and can race on every series. It should be a good thing for everybody and it should help everybody.”
Comp Cams tour co-owner Jack Sullivan is excited about the uniformity that allows a driver to “come run the Comp Cams Series one week and then turn around and go run the Southern All Stars or go run Lucas Oil the following week, and the car should, if the car races with (Comp Cams), they can race with them. And that’s the way it should be and that’s the way it’s going to be.”
Kelley Carlton, Ultimate Southeast director, said the give and take between organizations to agree on rules should prove beneficial.
“Really I think it’s just getting together, just getting in the room. Because, like I said, there wasn’t any dissension among us. We all agreed to it when we talked about it, we all agreed to it. It was just getting in the room,” Carlton said. “I think a lot of that is, a guy like me, a regional guy, wants to feel like he has a say in it, he has a stake in the game. And I think that’s what happened. Mike Swims and I were good friends and talked all the time, and he was one of those guys who could get people together like that. And these guys were able to do that today. I think it’s a big, big step in our sport. I mean, probably the biggest thing in the last 10 or 12 years as far as I’m concerned.”
Tilley said his Iron-Man Series was “thrilled to be a part of what I think is a huge day for our sport today. The announcement and the people involved with making our sport better as one unified group is just another step in the right direction.”
The officials plan to have a joint tech session of a Dirt Late Model on the show floor — likely on Friday — to make sure all the tours will be handling rule issues identically. Additionally, tech inspectors for each organization will be on call for assistance from inspectors with questions with the establishment of the unified rules.
Francis is glad to see a long process pay off.
“Kenny and I started this first conversation between Lucas Oil and the World of Outlaws in early to mid-April, and it’s been a slower process than him and I would’ve liked,” Francis said. “But after we finally were able to get to some points in common ground, we worked with each other at Wheatland (Mo.) and at (Eldora’s) Dream, and we’ve kept in contact, we’ve talked about rules, we’ve talked about plusses and minuses, things we’d like to do. Ultimately we agree a Dirt Late Model needs to be a Dirt Late Model that can race anywhere in the country under the exact same set of rules.”
Francis added that “everybody gave a little bit to make the common good of our sport. And that was our ultimate goal, is one Dirt Late Model (driver) can go from Wheatland, Mo., to the World 100 to Batesville, Ark., on the Comp Cams (and) not have to work on his race car.”
Correction: In the body skew measures, the 118-inch measurement is a minimum rather than a maximum.
