The Dirt Track at Charlotte
Late Models still on Strickler's to-do list
By Kyle McFadden
DirtonDirt staff reporter
Kyle Strickler at Charlotte. (Zach Yost)
CONCORD, N.C. (Nov. 6) — Working with one car and one motor in this week’s World Finals at The Dirt Track Charlotte, Kyle Stickler can’t afford to throw too much caution to the wind. Or can he?
His gutsy move from sixth-to-second in Thursday’s B-main action, on the opening corner no less, showed that Strickler isn’t keen on playing on it safe at the 4/10-mile oval this week a half-hour from his Mooresville, N.C., home. | RaceWire
“They got screwed up on the start, or coming to the start, and I think they were trying to fan out to get around everybody. The seas just kind of parted,” Strickler said. “Whoever was second, probably the leader and second, were playing games. And the guy who was fourth, he went to the outside. A huge hole opened up, got to shoot the gap there.
“Sometimes it just works like that. Starts are so important in these Late Models. You’re coming to the green and these carburetors, we have so much traction and so much motor in trying to take off. Timing everything is so crucial.”
The 42-year-old hasn’t race Dirt Late Models much the last two years as Thursday’s 35-lap, $15,000-to-win feature at the Charlotte oval marked his ninth feature start in the discipline this year.
His commitment to the fendered race cars is being rekindled, though, as eight of those starts have come since Aug. 7’s opener of the North-South 100 at Florence Speedway when he embarked on a partnership driving Austin Kirkpatrick’s AK Race Cars.
Thursday at Charlotte he had to start the feature in the Kirkpatrick-owned No. 69 — driven by R.C. Whitwell this week — because Strickler broke an engine valve during that riveting B-main charge in his No. 8 entry. After a quick trip to Spartanburg, S.C.’s Clement Racing Engines on Friday morning to rebuild the engine, Strickler’s No. 8 is back to full strength the remainder of the weekend.
Qualifying for features against crown jewel-caliber fields is exactly what keeps Strickler content enough to race Dirt Late Models limitedly while still showing up at the sport’s biggest events. Last year, he only started seven Dirt Late Model features, posting a best finish of seventh at Cherokee Speedway’s Blue-Gray 100 in Gaffney, S.C.
Just because he hasn’t competed in Dirt Late Models doesn’t mean he’s hardly raced. Actually, he traveled more than ever this year in his maiden campaign on the United States Modified Touring Series, where he finished eighth in points albeit missing two races aboard a Cade Dillard-built CDR Race Car. His four victories were tied for third-best on the tour.
“I ended up missing a couple of races in Oklahoma … but had a blast doing it. Those guys are professional modified racers,” said Strickler. “It’s just so much travel. I mean, every racetrack that we’d go to would be 12, 15, 16, 18 hours away.
“Like I said, so much travel and having two kids and a wife, it's just man, life on the road, there was times where we were on the road for like a month at a time, and it's just gets to be a lot, especially when you have kids and a wife and everything back home.”
Three months into his partnership with Kirkpatrick’s rapidly-growing AK Race Cars brand, Strickler likes what the North Carolina car owner is assembling.
He qualified for the World 100 finale on Sept. 6 at Eldora Speedway, plus the event’s two semifeatures, and had a shot to win Aug. 16’s unsanctioned $10,000-to-win event at East Alabama Motor Speedway. Strickler ultimately broke a fan blade while leading midway through the feature that night at EAMS.
In his AK Race Car debut at Aug. 7-9’s North-South 100, he missed transferring into the A-main by one spot, but won the non-qualifiers race.
“Austin's been great to work with. The first couple of races we rode to the racetrack together and just talked for hours about what our viewpoints were on different things on the cars,” Strickler said. “And I like that it's different. It's not just a cookie-cutter race car. He thinks outside the box, whether it's right, wrong or indifferent. His cars look noticeably different, so I think that's really cool. Very well-connected, has a lot of awesome people in different walks of motorsports, which I really, really like.
“And it's kind of, I've raced a lot. I'm getting to where I've run a lot of different cars and have been racing for a long time now and it's great to see how his engineering knowledge and the vehicle dynamics of everything meshes with my race experience.
“So far, so good. Just, we have nights like this where we can go out there and show speed. I mean, we unloaded the car, made made the World 100 and were respectable there. So keep building on things and kind of see where it goes. But right now, everything's been really good and really happy with everything.”
The possibilities are wide-ranging for Strickler moving forward. He could return for another USTMS run, especially because longtime backer Tony Girolamo, who Strickler calls “G-Man,” fields a modified for him on the national modified tour. That’d mean another part-time, crown jewel-focused Dirt Late Model schedule in 2026.
But the potential is there for Strickler race more again on the Dirt Late Model circuit, especially with what Kirkpatrick’s assembling at AK Race Cars. Along with Strickler, Kirkpatrick’s built a more-marketable race car the last few months, adding Skyline Motorsports and Tyler Bruening to his clientele and hiring driver-mechanic R.C. Whitwell.
“We're trying to put something together to go run some more of this Late Model stuff,” Strickler said. “I mean, we live in Late Model country, so it makes sense for us to run some more of these races and I mean, I definitely love the Charlottes, the Volusias, the Eldoras. Eldora is my favorite racetrack in the country. I like to go to those big, marquee events, but at the same time, you have to keep on learning to get better and keep up with these guys.
"Hopefully there's more in the future and can keep building on something because I think (Kirkpatrick) does have a really good product that has a lot of really good ideas. It's just, it can be pretty tough to go up against the big powerhouses with Rocket (Chassis) and Longhorn (Chassis), and with as many cars as they have and the sheer numbers of what they got. So I think he's got like 10 cars out now and we're showing some promise here. So, like I said, I'm really happy with what we got.
Strickler’s also hopeful to get a familiar face back on his race-day crew next year, too.
“Hopefully next year, my longtime crew guy and crew chief Austin Bloom, he might come back and help some,” Strickler said. “He’s got ABC Traction Solutions for his consulting business he's got. So yeah, hopefully we can kind of get the old band back together and have some fun and go do some Late Model racing and all the big modified races as well.”
Could Strickler return on a national Dirt Late Model tour? Maybe not next year, but he’ll strongly consider that in the years to come.
“I don’t think a tour just yet. I have a lot of good people behind me: G-Style Transports and G-Man in North Dakota has been with me for a long time. Charlie Donaldson (of Denver, N.C.), and Charlie's been with me since the beginning down here,” said Strickler, who started the 2021 season on the World of Outlaws Late Model Series before parting ways with PCC Motorsports midway through the year.
"It's all about going to places that I really enjoy going to,” he added. “I definitely would not rule out a tour. It all comes down to funding and these Late Models, especially if you're going to go run a tour, I mean, you can bleed money. I mean, when we were trying to do it full-time with Charlie and G-Man, man, we thought we were spending money mod race. Late Models, those guys spend a ton of money.”
Strickler also has Ronnie Roberts, former longtime crewman of Scott Bloomquist’s popularly known as “Fireball,” traveling with him full-time. He’s building a new race shop closer to his Troutman, S.C., home as well.
So the building blocks are there for Strickler to at least race more Dirt Late Models in 2026.
“If we had some people come on board to help out and got some good crew guys — right now, we got just being Fireball on the road and poor old Fireball. We're working him to death. He's got a lot of Bloomquist years on him. I mean, those are, I think, they're like more than cat and dog years, I think. So, yeah, we just got to, you know, get everything put together.
“But, you know, we can go have some good regional shows and everything's kind of meshing and going really well. I’m trying to build a shop that's closer to the house. Living here in Troutman and then having to drive an hour to over to Denver everyday, with the traffic around here, is just brutal. So, yeah, we're working on getting the shop built, and then I’ll keep all my stuff here way closer to home and still have all my partners that are helping along the way.”
He’ll at least start his 2026 Dirt Late Model season Jan. 22-24 at Volusia Speedway Park’s Sunshine Nationals in Barberville, Fla. The possibility to venture out for Jan. 10-18’s Wild West Shootout at Central Arizona Raceway is on the table as well.
“Who knows, we have talked about going out and doing something,” Strickler said. “R.C. is working for Austin now, and with R.C. being from out that way and with it being in Arizona next year, it’s definitely a possibility to get a gang together and go.”
All told, Strickler envisions his three-month partnership with Kirkpatrick leading to more.
“We have some big things in the works, and like I said, it don't take much to kind of push you over that edge,” said Strickler, describing how close he is to racing Dirt Late Models again on more of a full-time basis. “You get some guys that jump on board and then get some crew guys to jump on board that want to learn, and younger guys that can go and leave home and go on the road for a while, things can fall into place real quick.”
