World of Outlaws Late Model Series
Cody Overton garners support for self-owned team
By Spence Smithback
World of Outlaws Late Model Series
Cody Overton (joshjamesartwork.com)
The World of Outlaws Late Model Series offseason has been anything but quiet for Cody Overton.
As the 2025 season concluded, Overton’s team owner Dave Steine elected to scale back from owning a nationally touring Dirt Late Model team. But Overton wasn’t ready for his stint as a WoO full-timer to be over, which eventually meant taking matters into his own hands.
The Thomson, Ga., driver’s planned third full-time WoO season will look considerably different than the first two as he takes a new title of owner-driver with Cody Overton Racing with support from Baldwin, Wis.’s Steine, longtime team owner Bruce Kane of Glen Burnie, Md., and former Texas racer Allen Murray.
“Dave, he’s still going to help a little bit, just kind of back scaled,” Overton said. “I had to kind of take it all over and start doing it myself running as my own team, so that’s going to be a big change for this year. He’ll still direct me and help me, look out after me, I guess. It’s just going to be a lot different, I suppose. I’ve got to start nickel-and-diming more, but for the last two years I’ve been with him, I’ve kind of ran it like it was my own. I watched what I spent, I didn’t just go spend reckless money because it wasn’t mine.
“There are a lot of new people coming on board, and then another one that’s been with me a long time, Bruce Kane, he’s coming back on board. We’re going to kind of team together, so it’ll be like my racing and then Bruce Kane’s racing. That’ll be a big deal, he’s going to be a really, really big part of my racing. And then also Allen Murray, he’s supposed to come on and help. So I think there will be a lot of new names on it, honestly.”
Overton will be trying to improve on 2025’s season that included six top-five finishes and 20 top-10 finishes in 43 starts while finishing eighth in series points. In his rookie season in 2024, he finished 13th in points with eight top-10 finishes (he never cracked the top five).
Ask anyone who is responsible for owning the race car they drive, and you’ll hear about how much it changes the view of the entire operation. It’s a lesson Overton has learned through a trial by fire in recent weeks as he starts the process of making his team a mainstay at the pinnacle of Late Model racing.
“Them bills, they rack up faster than I thought,” Overton said. “I never really saw them as much. I knew what I was getting, but I never really thought it was just one after another after another, they just keep racking up. That was the biggest thing that surprised me. The engine refreshes and all that, everything just racks up. It looks bad right now because we’re not racing and nothing’s coming back in, but once we get going, I think it’ll kind of smooth its way out.”
Once Jan. 22-24’s season-opening DIRTcar Sunshine Nationals at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla., rolls around and Overton focuses on his driving duties once again, he’ll be looking to replicate the weekend he had one year ago. After a third-place run on 2025’s opening night and an 11th-place finish one night later, Overton left Volusia as the national tour's points leader for the first time in his career.
With six early-season events at Volusia along with stops at other Southeastern tracks where Overton has experience, the ingredients could be in place for a solid start to the year and a potential first-career WoO victory.
“I think it’s going to be a lot better this year,” Overton said. “I feel like I’ve got way more experience now and really know what’s going on. That was the big deal, I just didn’t want to give up another year. I just wanted one more year because I really want to win one bad. I really feel like this maybe will be the year, so hopefully it all works out.”
There’s one other aspect of team ownership Overton hasn’t forgotten about over the winter – designing the race car. Fans can expect a familiar look on the side of Overton’s machine when he rolls onto the track at Volusia, as he plans on bringing back the No. 97 that he's has use most of his career.
“I think we’re going to go back to the 97, see how it goes,” Overton said. “But I told (Steine), if I go to Speedweeks and I suck, I’m going to change it back to the 2 as fast as I can.”
