Spridgeon sees the bright side of a change in driver rosters.
“Now there are opportunities for some younger guys to step up like Emerson Axsom and Jadon Rogers,” he noted, “and others who are looking at doing it like Alex Bright. When you have really good guys running full time for all those years it makes it really hard to break through. Chris Windom had two wins this year, last year Kevin Thomas had none. Jake Swanson, if you check the numbers, had about as good a first year as anyone we have seen, and he got one win. Now, maybe some will see an opening, and in fact, there is new blood and new teams coming.”
USAC has a unique problem.
“The problem we have with USAC,” Spridgeon said, “is that we have three divisions and they don‘t overlap. If you are a sprint car only racer that limits what you can do. So do you run a midget to backfill that? Do you run local shows? Some of these guys don‘t want to do that.”
Purses are on the rise in the USAC sprint car division. The point fund increased by $40,000 and there will be more races offering between $6,000 and $10,000 to win. In addition, if a driver wins two of three USAC titles will earn a $150,000 bonus. Sweeping all three titles, would earn the Triple Crown champion a $300,000 bonus.
Though USAC has worked hard to bolster the purse and to create marquee events there are no dates on the schedule that monetarily rival winged sprint car racing‘s crown jewels. It may simply be the Tyler Courtney effect.
“I think guys looked at what we did last year and saw it as an opportunity to grow as a team and a driver and expand to the rest of the sprint car world,” Courtney acknowledged. “It‘s one big world whether you race wings or not. But I think there is an opportunity to run big races that you don‘t normally get to do when you run the full USAC schedule. You can‘t go run the Kings Royal or Knoxville Nationals. If you are USAC guy, or a non-USAC guy, you want to run those events. When you open yourself up to do those things it is a whole new world.”
Windom and Thomas know Courtney set the bar high. That doesn‘t faze Thomas. What he refuses to do is turn his back on a challenge. He knows the biggest winged sprint car races pay more money and knows the only way to get a slice of that pie is to shine on those stages.
“It‘s not a guarantee, it‘s an opportunity,” Thomas said. “The grass may not be greener, but it is real tall and I haven‘t done anything with it yet.”