On Saturday, longtime car owner Michael Barshinger announced via Facebook that Australian veteran Kerry Madsen will take over his familiar No. 24 next season in Central Pennsylvania.
After Lucas Wolfe and Barshinger ended a four-year relationship last month, scenarios, including the young talent of Tanner Thorson, played through the car owner’s head. But nothing stuck, leaving Barshinger in a state of uncertainty as the new season neared.
It all came together when Madsen called Barshinger just last week, inquiring about a 2021 run. It’s a move that seemingly caught many by surprise, but in reality Madsen is Barshinger’s tailor made driver.
“I was like, ‘Well, I’m looking for somebody just like you,’” said Barshinger, who practically hired Madsen in that conversation. “With the bigger paying races we’re seeing, they’re all time trial shows. That’s the number one thing. That is what I was looking for. The racing part, we can work on that and get good. But you can’t really teach the time-trialing deal. You either got it or you don’t. That’s something he can do.”
Madsen, who was let go last month by Tod Quiring after the hiring of David Gravel, has established himself as one of the better qualifiers in the country. As more shows in Central Pennsylvania shift to a bigger-paying, time-trial focus, this match comes at an opportune time for both Madsen and Barshinger.
“With [Kerry], it’s a really good scenario,” Barshinger said. “We’ll do this season and see how it goes.”
The team is set to run primarily at Williams Grove, which increased its weekly purses to $5,000-to-win, and Port Royal, which will pay $4,000-to-win weekly and feature 11 races of $7,000-to-win or more. Madsen and Barshinger will also race big shows like the Knoxville Nationals and Kings Royal at Eldora.
It will be a similar schedule to what Wolfe ran the past four years, when he latched on with Barshinger in 2017 and collected 21 wins in their time together.
All of those wins came the first three years. The 2020 season was a winless struggle for Barshinger and Wolfe. Stiffer fields also didn’t help a team that has been seeking to regain their mojo ever since Wolfe’s back injury in a wreck September 2019 at Port Royal.
“It was a difficult year for everybody and of course the competition was totally different with everyone coming in here to race,” Barshinger said. “I didn’t quite look at it that way. We were really good for two and a half years before [Wolfe] got hurt. Things just haven’t gelled since that time. This year, everything was different with the competition. … It’s just a whole different deal.”
Madsen and Barshinger plan to debut this new endeavor at Lincoln Speedway’s Ice Breaker on Feb. 27. Barshinger knows it will take a few races for the pair to get comfortable, but he doesn’t expect it to take long for the results to come.
“Personality wise, I think we’ll be really good that way,” Barshinger said. “He’s definitely a gasser, way different than what I was used to with Lucas. I feel like if we can get [Kerry] going, we should be pretty competitive anywhere we go.”