After only one season of awarding its championship to the driver who finished highest among the top-four in the standings going into its final race of the season, the Dirt Track World Championship at Eldora Speedway, the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series has announced a change in the format that will be used to determine the 2024 titlist. Instead of a winner-take-all system being used to decide the season-long victor, a seven-race Big River Steel Chase for the Championship will again feature the top-four in the standings racing it out for glory.
Series director Rick Schwallie announced the new format on Thursday at the Performance Racing Industry Trade Show in Indianapolis.
The new system will call for the top-four in the series standings following the Lucas Oil Late Model Nationals at the Knoxville(IA) Raceway on September 21st to compete for points over the final seven events on the schedule. The races held at Brownstown(IN) Speedway, Atomic Speedway in Ohio, Pittsburgh's Pennsylvania Motor Speedway, East Bay Raceway Park in Florida, and Eldora Speedway in Ohio will decide who takes the trophy.
The one race winner-take-all format proved to be unpopular with many fans. In particular, it was thought by some that Ricky Thornton Jr. had been deprived of a title that was rightfully his after posting a 'regular season' that saw him score 23 Lucas Oil wins and build a lead in the standings of more than 500 points going into the finale at Eldora Speedway.
As Schwallie explained in an interview with Michael Rigsby of FloRacing.com, the change from a season-long points tally to the four-driver challenge was done for the purpose of raising interest and drawing in sponsorship money to reward the racers who stayed loyal to the tour throughout the full campaign.
The series leader pointed out that media attention was high going into the Eldora finale and that viewership for the event was great. Because of sponsorship brought in by the format, the points fund paid out more money than ever before with eventual champion Hudson O'Neal claiming $200,000 all the way down through fourth-place Jonathan Davenport receiving $100,000.
“It did have a lot of those things(viewership and media attention)," Schwallie pointed out in the interview. "But our original goal wasn’t all those things. Those were just bonuses. Our original goal was to be able to bring in sponsorship to increase our points fund. That allowed us to do that.”
But the real question here is whether the new format will appease those who so vehemently opposed the one race winner-take-all scenario that played out in October at Eldora. Now, the top-four in the standings following the event in Knoxville will have seven races to try to outpoint their three rivals. In theory, one bad race should not necessarily doom a driver's chances at a championship.
At the same time, the promoters and streamers will get the guarantee of a tight points battle even if someone were to have the same type of season Thornton had in 2023. Fans who believe that a single showdown was not a good way to determine a title winner may be more willing to accept a seven-race playoff.
“In the group of racetracks, the cream will rise to the top," Schwallie stated. "And that’s how we’re going to crown our champion. In theory, it’s similar, yet it’s the VR2, I guess — the second version of it.”
The Chase for the Championship served the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series well in that it did in fact draw a significant amount of attention and brought in a high number of viewers for the final race. However, there was the issue that many of those viewers refused to recognize the legitimacy of the championship won by O'Neal.
What now remains to be seen is whether or not fans and competitors take to this seven-race format in a positive way.
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