Spoon River Speedway
Hauler-driving crews spin tunes behind wheel
By Todd Turner
DirtonDirt managing editor
Nicholas Carpenter spins the hits for ASD Motorsports. (DirtonDirt)
BANNER, Ill. (Aug. 14) — Riding around town in your personal vehicle gives you free rein over what’s playing on the radio.
That’s not the case for Dirt Late Model haulers logging thousands of highway miles around the country with team members having to agree what’s playing on Spotify.
Whether it’s dialing up Top 40 hits, a singalong for the crew, a podcast to pass the time or high-volume music to arouse a drowsy driver, more often there’ll be audio playing in the decked-out toterhomes that carry race teams from dirt track to dirt track across the map.
Among teams surveyed at Spoon River Speedway for Thursday’s event on the World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series, it’s a mix of ‘90s country, classic rock, rap — and some silence — with the occasional podcast or two.
The general rule of thumb is that the driver — the driver of the hauler, not the race car driver — largely gets to decide which hits to spin.
“We listen to a lot of '90s country — George Strait, Brooks and Dunn, that kind of stuff,” said Dan Clark, a 29-year-old crew member for the Ty Twarog Racing team of driver Nick Hoffman. “For us, we all kind of get along and listen to the same stuff, so it's pretty much like it don't matter what you turn on, like we're all into it. Normally, yeah, the driver will be on it. Sometimes we'll be driving and I'll be on the aux or whatever in control of the music.”
The Minnesota-based Dustin Sorensen team syncs phones or iPads to play XM, podcasts or even stream another dirt race from another part of the country. Mostly they agree on what to listen to and there’s not too much criticism of song choices.
“Once in a while we’ll pick on people,” said Mike Sorensen, Dustin’s father and crew chief, “but for the most part we're all kind of on the same page, our group of guys. Mostly country.”
Classic rock is typical for the Jason Feger team, says crew member Chase Rosser, 32, of Cullman, Ala. But you can skip the ballads.
“Classic rock, rock music, something to keep us going, keep us pumped up,” Rosser said. “Nothing slow. We don't want nothing slow.”
Donnie Birdwell, the crew chief for the Steine Motorsports team of driver Cody Overton, does most of the team’s hauler-driving and Overton lets him control the music. But if Overton get his chance to play DJ, he’ll sometimes play a random mix of old-school music, in part to annoy 16-year-old crew member Ty Giles.
“He gets mad. He’s like younger generation so he wants all this new style of rap and I'll be playing, like, George Strait or something, and he doesn't even know like who he is or anything. He's like, ‘Dude, what is this?’ So I do it to just piss him off pretty much,” Overton said. “He’s just so new music and you start playing like just older stuff. He just has no idea. I mean he's 16, so it's just funny. And then (he’ll play) classic rock and stuff he doesn't agree with at all, so I just play and blare it.”
Overton occasionally gives Giles a chance to play some new music, but it doesn’t last long.
“We do it for about two seconds,” Overton said. “I cut it off and tell him, ‘This is stupid. Play something else.’ Some of it's OK, if you're in the mood, but most of it, no, I'm not really in for it.”
For the ASD Motorsports team of driver Ethan Dotson, you might want to bring ear plugs. Crew member Nicholas Carpenter, 23, of Leavenworth, Kan., often does the driving, and he estimates the volume is typically between 28-30. For the record, 30 is the maximum.
"I mean, a lot of people will listen to country, but if you're about to fall asleep, you may turn on some heavy metal to try to wake you up,” Carpenter said.
The ASD team prides itself on music variety with singer Katy Perry, country and bluegrass artist Zach Top, rapper 50 Cent and who knows what else. A bluetooth connection, auxiliary cord and hands-free magnetized smartphone holder provides the setup, and whoever is behind the wheel gets first choice.
You won’t hear any spoken word audiobooks or podcast among the ASD bunch, but singalongs are popular for songs such as “Picture” by Kid Rock or “Palmdale” by Afroman.
The Briggs Transport crew members are down with playing music, but more often than not, when team co-owner Boom Briggs is behind the wheel, everyone’s riding in sweet silence.
“Either country or complete silence,” crew chief Shane Winans said of Briggs. “He’s usually on the phone, so he doesn't listen to music. … I would say 90 percent of the time, no music. Nothing. If the music's on, it’s because he’s tired. That’s how you know he’s starting to get tired if he turns the music on.”
The choice of country music for the Briggs team would likely be the Willie’s Roadhouse station on Sirius XM, but there’s one song that you’re guaranteed not to hear in the hauler: “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot.
Perhaps it’s because it has the word “Wreck” in the title, but Briggs won’t allow it.
“Turn that off!” Winans said, mimicking Briggs. “I don't want to listen to that. Who played this?”
Winans said Briggs gives the team the silent treatment in part because his cousin and Hall of Fame driver Chub Frank, who Briggs crewed for years go, also drove without playing music.
"Chub was the same way. Chub would just have complete silence down the road,” Winans said. “It’s bizarre. Chub always said it was his thinking time. I don’t know what (Boom’s) excuse is.”
Sometimes it’s also quiet in Overton’s hauler because Birdwell opts for ear buds instead of the speakers.
"That's when we know don't go up there and mess with him,” Overton said. “He’s listening to something. Then sometimes you'll walk up there and ask him, 'Hey, I'm hungry,’ and he (doesn’t hear). You're like, ‘HEY, I’M HUNGRY.’ And you’re like,Oh, he’s got his ear buds in.”
Most teams prefer music, but Overton said he’ll stream the occasional podcast, too.
"When I'm into something, like that Joe Rogan deal, I listen to that a good bit, so I'll watch him and then that Theo Von, when I get really bored, I start listening to Theo Von, because he just makes me laugh,” Overton said. “Everything he says, that dude's funny as hell.”
Rosser, who works for Feger’s team, personally likes to listen to podcasts previewing SEC football from his native Alabama, but he doesn’t subject everyone in the hauler into talk of X’s and O’s. "I wouldn't wanna bore them out,” he said.
Annoyances for some teams are the ad-supported versions of streams like Spotify or Pandora (“I’m cheap and so I don't pay for that stuff,” Clark said) or when a song comes on that someone else wants to skip.
"I mean if it's your song, then you keep listening,” ASD’s Carpenter said, “but if not, then they can get up and go to the back or they can sit there and have to suffer through it.”
It doesn’t happen much with Hoffman’s crew. “Sometimes you’ll get that, ‘This song sucks!’ or whatever, but it's not too often,” Clark said.
On an overnight haul, the driver and passenger up front might tone down the music a bit, he added.
“If someone's in the back sleeping, we'll shut the door to the cab so that way it's pretty much blocked off and the beds are in the back other than mine and I'm usually up front riding throughout the night,” he said, but other nights "it can get pretty wild at times, I guess you'd say.
“Especially when it's late at night, it's about the only thing you got to keep you occupied, so yeah we'll start singing pretty loud.”
And which team member has the best pipes?
“It definitely ain’t me,” Clark said. “None of us are really any good. I guess it depends on how many drinks you have to see whether you're really good or not.”
