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Brad Sweet Soon To Be 4-Timer

Brad Sweet

1. Droopless Kokomo offers no conclusions

Monday and Tuesday saw not just the debut of the XR Super Series at Kokomo Speedway, with the track’s largest super late model race in years, but also the debut of the XRSS’s decision to drop the “droop” rule from its rulebook. 

The racing at Kokomo was competitive and Jonathan Davenport failed to score either of the two feature wins, actually being bested on track by Tim McCreadie in Tuesday’s $40,000-to-win finale. In that regard, the removal of the droop rule certainly seemed successful in making late model racing more competitive.

But as discussed in this feature last week, Kokomo is hardly a suitable place to determine whether the change in droop rule was actually responsible for anything. After all, Kokomo is a bullring that is different from the tracks where Davenport has been dominant all season long, and further is a track that has spotty scheduling with late models, meaning for most teams the notebook at Kokomo is much thinner than other venues.

Anthony Burroughs, the crew chief for Ricky Thornton Jr.’s late model team, also made a reasonable observation to DirtonDirt during the week that major late model races at Fairbury, Davenport and I-80 this summer all saw competitive racing despite being run with the droop rule in effect.

In short, nothing to see here. When the tour hits Las Vegas next month, with the entirety of the nation’s top drivers likely to be present and racing on a half-mile, will be a true test as to whether the droop rule needs to be dropped come 2023.

2. English dropped from ride contending for title

Though it’s statistically unlikely at this point, World of Outlaws late model regular Tanner English deserves a ton of credit for putting Dennis Erb Jr. under some form of pressure for the series title, a chase that seemed all but academic this spring once three-time defending champion Brandon Sheppard switched to the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series tour. Despite all that success, English will not be returning to the Riggs Motorsports team for 2023.

The split was reported by DirtonDirt to be amicable, but it’s…

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