Sprint Car Tour: building on a solid foundation

Kody Swanson (left) and Tyler Roahrig battle it out at Indianapolis Raceway Park. (David Nearpass photo)

ANDERSON, Indiana — Seasoned street sprint car activists believe the 500 Sprint Car Tour is headed in the right direction.

Presented by Advanced Auto Parts, the 500 Sprint Car Tour enters a second season with races in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.

Kody Swanson was crowned the inaugural champion in 2022 and was the winner of the first race at Plymouth Speedway.

“I enjoyed the first year because it was great to have street sprint cars on an annual season schedule,” Swanson said. “A chance to go to some new tracks and it was a lot of fun.

“It’s been really encouraging not just to be supported by new fans and the new teams that have joined us,” he said. “It has the potential to get better and keep growing. It seems like more teams are getting ready to hit the road and do more races.”

Tyler Roahrig has racked up consecutive wins at the Lucas Oil Little 500 and said the sprint car tour was “hugely successful.”

“It had a great number of cars, the racing was good and competitive and we’ve raced at a lot of cool circuits,” he said. “I think the fans really enjoyed the race and it seemed everyone was enjoying themselves and that was part of it.”

Roahrig expects the number of cars to be higher this season as interest in the Tour is very high.

Bobby Santos III said the first year was more than successful, it was a great year for a start-up series.

“The number of cars and the competition was great and the quality of the cars was great,” he said. “I can only see that things are getting better.

“The Little 500 as the main event and to build on that and create a series around it,” said Santos. “In the second year, I think the quality of the competitors will be better.”

Santos said the addition of Nashville and Toledo is exciting and the series will continue to go in the right direction and continue to build on that.

“I’ve raced all the tracks and I’m looking forward to all of them,” he said of the 2023 schedule. “I’m looking forward to Nashville for the history, I like the bigger tracks.”

Billy Wease said the first year of the tour was great.

“We had some exciting races and everything was really competitive,” he said. “They’ve done a great job with the series and given us cool tracks to drive to and the car count seems to be increasing.”