ANDREWS, Texas — After racing to national rookie of the year honors in a Smiley’s Racing Products IMCA Southern SportMod last season, one of the first questions Cutter Spalding heard was ‘Think you can race a Stock Car, too?’
His answer was a confident “Shoot, yes!” and the 19-year-old from Andrews, Texas, was quick to back up that bravado with another rookie of the year award, this one in the EQ Cylinder Heads Southern Region.
“We were blessed with a lot of good luck and a good team,” said Spalding, after driving a Kerry Fryar Motorsports-owned 2024 Sniper Speed ride built by Jeffrey Abbey to six feature wins, the Texas State championship and a runner-up finish in the regional points race. “I love everything about this sport, no matter what. I’ve been blessed to be able to do it.”
Second in points at Abilene Speedway and fourth at Heart O’ Texas Speedway, Spalding had a lot of blessings to count after making a combined 67 starts between the Stock Car and SportMod divisions in 2024.
“It was tough … it’s hard work. We raced Waco every Friday, then loaded up and went to Abilene every Saturday. If either one rained out, we were going somewhere else,” he said. “We’d get home at six or seven Saturday morning and the bad part was that if one car got tore up, we’d have to get up around 10 or 11 to get it back together.”
“It was tough, too, when the two divisions ran back-to-back,” he continued. “But the positive was I could go out in one car and come back already knowing where the line was at, because I’d just been on the track and knew what was going on. So it was a little bit of an advantage at that point.”
Spalding was also a four-time winner and sixth in national Southern SportMod standings. He swept main events in the two classes on April 13 and June 22, both times at Abilene.
“We had started the season at Abilene (the Ice Breaker), I was up to fourth but spun myself out and finished like 18th,” Spalding said. “That bothered me a little bit. I thought to myself, ‘Here we are spinning out like a rookie.’ Then we went out to Waco and won the Jack Bagby Memorial. That was our season highlight and it was really all Jeffrey (Abbey). He had the car dialed in, all I had to do was drive it.”
He will race both divisions again in 2025, planning to make more Southern SportMod starts during the weekly point season. Spalding will also be Boone Bound to race the Stock Car at the IMCA Speedway Motors Super Nationals fueled by Casey’s next September.
“The Southern SportMod is like a go kart and Stock Cars are like slow, finicky turtles. I could hop out of the SportMod an into a Stock Car, then swear I could see everything,” said Spalding,” whose descriptive abilities are every bit as good as his driving. “Don’t get me wrong, they’re still fast and they’re more difficult to set up. They’re fun to drive because you have more time to react.”
He’ll start diesel mechanic school in Brownsville in January.