the business of
Photos: Paul Arch
DIRT By Ashley Zimmerman
Casey Shuman, back in his racing days, running a non-wing sprint car at the Ultimate Challenge in Iowa.
WORLD RACING GROUP EXPANDS CA S E Y S HUMAN ON THE NEW SER IE S AND L AT E MODEL RULES ONE MIGHT AS well label it a tradition that exciting off season racing news will be released during the three days of PRI and last year the tradition survived. Between the unification of the late model rules and the creation of a new midget racing series by World Racing Group, both sides of the dirt track racing community were buzzing. Be it speculation, opinion, surprise, or excitement, there was much to be said on all ends of the spectrum. Casey Shuman, director of the World of Outlaws Late Model Series uniquely found himself right in the midst of it all from the round table discussion leading to the unification of the late model rules to the midget racer turned man behind the Xtreme Outlaw Midget series. Never one to turn down knocking out two birds with one stone, Dirt Empire managed to squeeze a few moments of the highly sought after Shuman post PRI announcements to talk about the fresh ideas coming to life for the 2022 race season.
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Dirt Empire: Let’s start with talking about the creation of the Xtreme Outlaw Midget Sprint Car Series, you were kind of the brain behind the project and getting this off the ground. What made you want to push for this to become a real deal? CS: I mean, it’s my background; midgets, sprint cars, that’s everything I’ve done pretty much my entire life. It’s always something I’ve wanted to be a part of. My wife and I owned the WAR sprint car series for a few years, so there’s a lot of history and background as far as that type of racing goes. We’ve talked about it the last couple of years, and it finally was able to come about. Obviously, with DIRTvision onboard we’re able to bring a whole different type of racing to the subscribers so that was appealing as well. It was the right time to do it. DE: Obviously, you won’t be going at this endeavor all on your own. Who will be assisting you?
DIRT EMPIRE MAGAZINE • ISSUE 08 - 2022
CS: With the schedule being only 10 or 12 races, I don’t know that it’s going to warrant a full blown team. I plan to be at all of them, there might be one I don’t get to be at. But that one will be in conjunction with the World of Outlaws sprint cars, so Mike [Hess] will probably take the lead on that particular event. But, a lot of it is going to be my late model crew. There’s a few of them that have expressed an interest in doing it, as well as a few of the sprint car guys. I think currently we’re going to try and utilize a lot of the staff that we have now. DE: Obviously the creation of another midget series brings about the discussion of how this potentially affects USAC. Do you believe it will have any impact on the series? CS: I don’t know that I think that it affects them, if it does, I think it probably helps. We’re definitely going to try and stay away from weekends that they are racing on specifically. If we’re going to
