CONCORD, N.C. — Dirt late model racing’s newest regional tour, the Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series presented by Sweet Victory Apparel, has joined the DIRTcar family for its inaugural season.
All 19 races in the series’ highly anticipated first year will be under the DIRTcar banner, adhering to the DIRTcar Late Model rulebook, starting with its inaugural event at All-Tech Raceway in Lake City, Fla., on April 7. Drivers will also earn points in the DIRTcar Late Model national and regional points standings.
Participating drivers with active DIRTcar memberships will also receive the extra benefits included with their membership — including points fund eligibility, additional insurance and more.
“Our goal for the regional guys was to make it feel more like what they’re used to when they go to national events,” said series director Joshua Joiner. “Whether it be the World of Outlaws or DIRTcar-sanctioned events, when they have them down here in the south. Or even Eldora for the World 100 or the [Dirt Late Model] Dream — it’s done professionally with the way that DIRTcar operates.
“Being able to be a part of that and bring some of that to our tour made sense to us.”
In considering a rules package for their inaugural season, Joiner and the Hunt the Front staff made the decision to align with DIRTcar to take advantage of the sanctioning body’s widespread reach, driver/track benefits and nationally recognized rules and regulations.
Joiner took note of the newly established Unified Dirt Late Model Car Construction Rules and National Late Model Tire specs that DIRTcar assisted in rolling out last year and knew they would be the perfect fit for his fledgling organization.
“From the driver’s standpoint, [those rules] make a lot of sense,” Joiner said. “As a race team, we’re behind that 100 percent and happy to see it, so it made sense for us to support it and be a part of it when we started our series.”
The new super late model series, headquartered in Milton, Fla., was born from the family of one of dirt racing’s most successful YouTube channels — Hunt the Front.
The trio of brothers — Joshua, Joseph and Jonathan Joiner — and friend/driver Jesse Enterkin, brought the brand to life in the spring of 2019, producing vlogs from their experiences at the shop and the track, first as a local crate-engine team with a single car to their present-day operation as a three-car team attending regional and national-level super late model events.
Their expanding involvement in motorsports led to their first dip into event promotion in the fall of 2021 with the inaugural running of the Southern Showcase. The event’s success brought it back to Deep South Speedway in Loxley, Ala., for a second edition last November, and laid the bricks for the spawning of the new regional series.
“We just didn’t feel like there was a really good option at the regional level for drivers at the level that our driver, Joseph, was,” Joiner said. “I look at the guys like Will Herrington, Payton Freeman, Sam Seawright, and a whole list of other guys — not just us — we needed something like this to want to race. It’s not to discredit any of what the other series in the Southeast are doing; everyone has a different way of doing things and how they see the best way of doing it.”
The inaugural slate of races was built with the intention of attracting full-time drivers, reducing travel costs and avoiding overlap with other national/regional events. Joiner said Hunt the Front has strategic breaks in their calendar to allow full-time teams to compete in the bigger late model events dotted throughout the year while still being able to attend all 19 series events without conflict.
They’re certain these principles will result in increased car counts.
“We want the guys who want to run those [national] races to be a part of our series,” Joiner said. “When there’s a World of Outlaws race in Georgia somewhere, we don’t want to schedule a race that’s less than two hours away and keep our series regulars from being able to run against the best in the country.”
The Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series begins its inaugural season this Friday with a $20,000-to-win event at All-Tech Raceway
Keyword: DIRTcar To Sanction Hunt The Front Super Dirt Series