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Drivers for the Super Dirt Series for 2023


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Steve Barrick from AARN did an informal poll at Volusia and from that group of drivers down there he got this list of Platinum Drivers:

Marc Johnson

Jack Lehner

Matt Sheppard

Adam Pierson

Jimmy Phelps

Max McLaughlin

CG Morey

Ronnie Davis

Darren Smith

Mat Williamson

Robert Bernard

Alex Payne

Those that will not follow the whole series include:

Rick Laubach

Danny Creeden

Stewart Friesen

Danny Johnson

Demetrios Drellos

Erick Rudolph

Jordan McCreadie

Matt Stangle

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14 minutes ago, Jack Brady said:

Is it me, or does the list kind of look a little lackluster?

Like I said in my answer above, the list was an informal poll based on the cars that were in Florida a month ago. More teams have been added, just nothing official yet.

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Barrick's info was wrong (he weirdly hot a lot of not accurate info in that whole article.) Marc Johnson and Alex Payne are not running it. Steve Bernard is the guy (I believe Robert is his dad). I know Mathieu Desjardins is running in the St-So 37 that Paul St-Sauveur had ran on the tour the last few years. I believe Felix Roy from Quebec will be chasing the whole tour, too. 

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19 minutes ago, KB19 said:

Barrick's info was wrong (he weirdly hot a lot of not accurate info in that whole article.) Marc Johnson and Alex Payne are not running it. Steve Bernard is the guy (I believe Robert is his dad). I know Mathieu Desjardins is running in the St-So 37 that Paul St-Sauveur had ran on the tour the last few years. I believe Felix Roy from Quebec will be chasing the whole tour, too. 

I guess it was a REALLY informal poll then 😂

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SHHH, It's a Secret!!!!!!!!!

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19 hours ago, Jack Brady said:

What did you post that for? I was enjoying all the speculation and misinformation. :drag:

 

20 hours ago, leroy said:

What I believe is more interesting is the END of season list compared to start list !!!!!!

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58 minutes ago, Towman said:

 

What I believe is more interesting is the END of season list compared to start list !!!!!!

Agreed…..unfortunately the number of guys that make the list of possible SDS champions ends at 2, and one of those needs to improve drastically from last season. 

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1 hour ago, rpm72x said:

Agreed…..unfortunately the number of guys that make the list of possible SDS champions ends at 2, and one of those needs to improve drastically from last season. 

I see 4,  Money Mat, Matt, Mad Max, and the Aussie......

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32 minutes ago, Towman said:

I see 4,  Money Mat, Matt, Mad Max, and the Aussie......

I’ll take Sheppard and give Williamson a shot if he has some good luck and the 9s has some bad. The other 2…..they will have success, but the times of struggle during the season are too often and too long to compete for a series title. I really hope they change that and I’m wrong on the prediction. The series absolutely needs something to make it a bit less predictable.

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On 3/12/2023 at 3:23 PM, Jack Brady said:

Is it me, or does the list kind of look a little lackluster?

If you’re my age, you grew up on a different Series than what it is today… I remember regulars being Hearn, Horton, Hoffman;  Danny, Alan, and Jack Johnson;  Tremont, Paine, McCreadie, Billy Decker…. I’m even old enough to have seen Cagle, Lape, and Lazzaro when they were 5 night a week travelers. 

Problem is….time waits for nobody. All of those listed above are long since retired, past their prime, or gone completely 😞. What we have now is a different breed of racers, a different type of racing, and with very few exceptions, only sporadic flashes of greatness. The cars being so equal now has given the impression of a diluted talent pool IMO. With less than a handful of exceptions. Races are very, very seldom won from 24th anymore but rather from a fortuitous outing at the redraw ceremony. 

I wouldn’t say that the SDS regulars today are short on talent, but most of them likely will not have the consistent dominance that put them in the same category as the stars of the 80s and 90s.   JMO….

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1 hour ago, ChrisAkulis said:

If you’re my age, you grew up on a different Series than what it is today… I remember regulars being Hearn, Horton, Hoffman;  Danny, Alan, and Jack Johnson;  Tremont, Paine, McCreadie, Billy Decker…. I’m even old enough to have seen Cagle, Lape, and Lazzaro when they were 5 night a week travelers. 

Problem is….time waits for nobody. All of those listed above are long since retired, past their prime, or gone completely 😞. What we have now is a different breed of racers, a different type of racing, and with very few exceptions, only sporadic flashes of greatness. The cars being so equal now has given the impression of a diluted talent pool IMO. With less than a handful of exceptions. Races are very, very seldom won from 24th anymore but rather from a fortuitous outing at the redraw ceremony. 

I wouldn’t say that the SDS regulars today are short on talent, but most of them likely will not have the consistent dominance that put them in the same category as the stars of the 80s and 90s.   JMO….

That was the golden age. Talent along with ingenuity actually being embraced created it…..we will never see it again. The pool of possible talent interested, willing and able to get into racing has dwindled…..which stunts the possibility of new superstars and creating something new is absolutely frowned upon unless you have the correct connection. None of those drivers you listed were able to put together a decade of absolute dominance like Matt…..and it was due to their competition being both super talented and innovative. Those days sadly are long gone. The closest thing to it is SLM racing now. 

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Back in the day there really wasn't much turnover on the SDS, either. Just in the last few years Ryan Godown, Erick Rudolph, Mike Mahaney, Tim Fuller, Demetrios Drellos, Chris Hile, Larry Wight, Keith Flach, Danny Johnson are all some solid talent that ran the tour but no longer do. There have been some nice additions to the tour here and there (Desjardins is a nice upgrade in the 37, Adam Pierson and Tim Sears Jr have both had some nice runs) but it's hard to replace the level of talent that I just listed.

The different rules that everyone has these days make the whole sport a lot more stale, too many people don't know how good a guy like Steve Bernier, Chris Raabe, Brett Kressley, Jordan Watson, Rex Kng Jr, etc actually is because a lot of guys are forced to stay local. We don't even have a race like Knoxville or the World 100 where we get ALL the big name modified guys anymore.

It's been beat to death and we've all accepted that it'll never happen, but imagine how much more fun it'd be and how much driver/fan support there'd be if a team could go to the Fonda 200, SDW 200, Speed Showcase, and Eastern States 200 without changing much around!

I still love it--but man the dirt modified world can be frustrating! Haha--and I'd like to think I'm usually one of the optimistic ones! 

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1 hour ago, KB19 said:

Back in the day there really wasn't much turnover on the SDS, either. Just in the last few years Ryan Godown, Erick Rudolph, Mike Mahaney, Tim Fuller, Demetrios Drellos, Chris Hile, Larry Wight, Keith Flach, Danny Johnson are all some solid talent that ran the tour but no longer do. There have been some nice additions to the tour here and there (Desjardins is a nice upgrade in the 37, Adam Pierson and Tim Sears Jr have both had some nice runs) but it's hard to replace the level of talent that I just listed.

The different rules that everyone has these days make the whole sport a lot more stale, too many people don't know how good a guy like Steve Bernier, Chris Raabe, Brett Kressley, Jordan Watson, Rex Kng Jr, etc actually is because a lot of guys are forced to stay local. We don't even have a race like Knoxville or the World 100 where we get ALL the big name modified guys anymore.

It's been beat to death and we've all accepted that it'll never happen, but imagine how much more fun it'd be and how much driver/fan support there'd be if a team could go to the Fonda 200, SDW 200, Speed Showcase, and Eastern States 200 without changing much around!

I still love it--but man the dirt modified world can be frustrating! Haha--and I'd like to think I'm usually one of the optimistic ones! 

I agree whole heartedly on your points. I will say what separates the cream of the crop talent wise…..is how well one does in other peoples playgrounds. Matt slaps everyone around no matter if he has 10 starts at a track or 1000. The heavy hitters from back in the day were the same way. When the “dirt boys” showed up years ago….they were the favorites and most of the top 10 consisted of them. Now….when the 9s shows up, he’s the favorite….doesn’t matter the venue or rules package. We only have 1 of those type guys today. It would be nice to have even a half dozen for the marquee events. 

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Predictability is the death knell of a series. And right now, you can't find anything more predictable than an SDS race. Which is a shame because it once was a great series.  Maybe less races would get more drivers interested. I can tell you the answer isn't having less drivers redraw- which has been floated.

 

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