It took 31 years before I had seen a 410 Sprint Car race in person.

The irony isn’t lost on me, but the entire reason I had made the trip out to Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March 2019 was to cover the debut of NASCAR’s new high downforce, 550 horsepower rules package -- something that I despised from the start.

NA18D is anathema to everything that I am as a racing guy.

It’s a rules package that for three years has aimed to keep cars packed together at the highest level of a discipline, like a diet Daytona or Talladega, by ensuring that many of the most talented stock car drivers in the world need not lift off the throttle.  

It’s pretty much wide-open, planted to the surface, and that’s not racing.

So, it was befitting in a way that the same weekend NASCAR trotted out NA18D to much fanfare that the World of Outlaws competed across the street at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Dirt Track.

Growing up on the Alabama Gulf Coast, and to a dirt racing family nonetheless, I never had the chance to watch 410 Sprint Cars. They never raced anywhere close or on the same card as my dad’s Pure Stock division. 

That’s how I became a pavement short track guy in the backdrop of Five Flags Speedway and the Snowball Derby.

Meanwhile, the NASCAR Cup race at Las Vegas that weekend went as expected.

There was a close finish and closer deltas aided by well-timed cautions or arbitrary race stoppages, with executives in their suites or race control celebrating an accomplishment that only required stripping Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin of what made them such spectacular talents in the first place.

But earlier in the week provided a much-needed alternative.

While one series stripped their 900-horsepower producing powerplants to 550 via a tapered space, here was another discipline that maximized their output in a nimble 1,400 lb. machine with some of the most daring race car drivers to walk the planet. 

Donny Schatz and Brad Sweet struck me as modern-day counterparts to Evel Knievel. I hadn’t even met Sammy Swindell yet, someone that warranted a different level of reverence and aura when we spoke at Chili Bowl several months afterwards.

I left Las Vegas that weekend annoyed with the direction of the NASCAR Cup Series, but aware that 410 Sprint Cars represented everything I wanted to cover as a motorsports journalist.

It felt like a home I had never before stepped foot in with an immediately welcoming community and a patient pit area that is always willing to answer the stupidest of questions. I had a lot of them, and still do.

When I had expressed an interest in adding 410 Sprint Cars, USAC Midgets and Champ Cars to my regular beats, I found another home with the FloRacing team, who is also providing me patience and that same willingness to answer the dumbest of questions.

All of that is to say, that I’m no dirt expert, and won’t be for a while.

But I joined Flo because I think these disciplines are worth sharing to an audience, who like me, feel like something is missing from their current motorsports diet.

These cars, with their power to weight ratio, is so exemplary of what it means to be a racer. This sport is supposed to wow you, and nothing will have the impact of 20-plus 410s rolling by you for a four-wide salute. 

Over the past two years, I have discovered some of the most captivating races and the gritty everyman racers who compete at some of the most iconic dirt track facilities. That’s probably the most exciting part to me.

I’ve only seen The Grove, Port Royal, Attica and Fremont through someone else’s lenses. What I‘ve immediately learned about this community is that they’re just as excited to share what they love as I am to learn. 

In exchange, I hope I do right by this community and eventually offer the kind of information, insight and perspective that I’ve brought elsewhere. There is pressure and responsibility here, and it’s not lost on me.

Thank you for having me.