World of Outlaws at the "Burg" Lawrenceburg Indiana

A trackside report by Mark Roden - Image editing by Joana Esteves of JoMar Visions

19 August 2023

The Lawrenceburg World of Outlaws race was my second such event of the year, the other being at Devil’s Bowl Speedway in Dallas back in April.  The format was similar between the two, however there were no Late Models at Lawrenceburg.

I was invited to come to the track with my friend Don Culver, who contributed to my recent Indianapolis 500 reports and will soon be producing some of his own. 

For Lawrenceburg, we arrived in the afternoon before racing began so that we could grab our vests and do some pit scouting before heading into the infield.

The ‘Burg, or Lawrenceburg Speedway, is smaller than Devil’s Bowl, so everything is closer.  Another difference is that the ‘Burg does not have any meaningful barriers at all surrounding the infield.  Other than a few mounds of earth, infield photography is mostly unobstructed. 

One of many school busses used in the Lawrenceburg Speedway “Night of Destruction”

The opening to the track is on the back stretch, about halfway to turn 3.  At first glance, it is a fairly simple and straightforward facility; there are few frills, everything that’s needed is there, and not much that isn’t (basically 6 light poles and a scoring pylon).  Several of the photographers congregated around the scoring pylon, which has a (somewhat uncomfortable) block wall around it to sit on.

I had no schedule to go by, so I wasn’t really sure what was going to be happening at any given moment, but they started out with Sprint hot laps (a 3-4 lap group practice session) followed by qualifying.

Session #1 of the hot laps saw Abreu post the fastest lap time with a 12.242 second trip, about 6 seconds faster than they ran at Dallas due to that track’s larger size (Lawrenceburg Speedway is a hair under 1/3 mile at .325 mi in length.)  Brad Sweet, the current points leader at the time of the event, was second fastest followed by Macedo, Schuchart and McFadden.  The full list of 8 cars were all within 5/8 of a second in times.

Buddy Kofoid (#71) edged out Abreu’s time in the second session with a 12.099 second fastest run, getting within a half second of the track record at the speedway set in September of 2008 by Spud Gustin (11.628s at just over 100 mph).  The lap held up as the fastest in all 3 practice sessions, with David Gravel minting the fastest lap time of the final group with a 12.243.

For the Modifieds Hot Laps I changed my position to inside Turn 1.  I set up behind the protective 3” diameter light pole, which also had some shrubbery around it serving as extra padding should a car slice its way through the area.  I was very pleased with this decision as the Modifieds threw a lot of dirt in that corner.



One of the things that I really like about this class is the amount of flex in the cars as they hit the turns.  From the infield they appear as though they are about to fly apart, and they really do kick up some dirt.

Matt Hamilton (#9H) made the top of the pylon with a 17.060.  They were 5 seconds slower than the Sprints but still just as much fun to watch.  This is the second time that I have seen these cars race this year; they ran at Dallas along with the Sprints and Late Models.

The opening Ceremonies consisted of driver introductions and some trackside interviews, and then came the heat races.  Before the first heat I moved back to the turn 2 dirt bank which seemed to be a great place to get photos of passing.  At the start I captured the lap 1 pass that Donny Schatz put on Macedo to get things going. He led all the way to the checkered to advance to the feature.

Heat #2 promised to be quite a show, with drivers James McFadden, Buddy KoFoid, Brad Sweet and David Gravel taking up the first 4 starting positions.  I walked a bit more toward the back straightaway for this one to get a slightly different angle.  As you can see, I was completely shielded by the protective barrier and a big tire.

McFadden started from pole position with Sweet beside him and the Kofoid/Gravel duo right behind them to fill out the second row.  As the race developed there was a caution drawn by Sheldon Haudenschild when his car shut off.  He was pushed to the work zone outside of turn 4 where he had a 2-minute clock to make any repairs and either rejoin the field at the back or forfeit the race.  As it turned out, he couldn’t get the car to fire again so that was the end of his night.  

On the restart, Cody Maroske jumped the start and suffered a penalty of two spots as a result.  Heat #2 ended with Kofoid popping up a spot for the win, and the other three top 4 starters ended in the order that they started.  Maroske ended up in 8^th.

One last look at Heat #2:

Heat #3 saw crowd favorite Rico Abreu and Logan Schuchart stacking up the front row, with other names like Scelzi, Allen and Zearfoss among others filling out the field for the final 8-lap heat to determine order in the feature.

The other class running that night was the Modifieds class.  These are longer and shorter, with bodies that flex as the car gets into a turn.  They are fun to watch and even more fun to photograph, as they will give you several different “looks” depending on where they are on the track and how hard they are on the pedal.  Here are some shots from the 3 heats:



Modifieds Heat Race #1:

Modifieds Heat Race #2:

Modifieds Heat Race #3:

After the Modifieds came the World of Outlaws Toyota Dash to determine the order of the top 6 spots in the feature race.  James McFadden was beginning to show his power by taking the first slot giving him the pole for the 30-lap feature main for the Sprint cars.

Abreu and Schatz traded slides at each other through several laps, while Scelzi, Kofoid and Macedo continued to duel through the first third of the race until lapped traffic began to separate things out a bit. 



On lap 10 we got our first caution, when Cole Macedo and Logan Schuchart went tumbling into turn 3 after getting together on the front straight and collecting Bill Rose, who was ready to come up swinging once he got out of the car. I did not see the collision but was just down from it.  Macedo’s car was destroyed, Schuchart had a bent down tube and other damage.  Rose’s car was heavily damaged.

Schuchart’s crew set out to replace the damaged parts including top wing, front wing, and several structural members.  The 2-minute work zone timer passed, and then they were given the 1 lap to go signal, still working like mad to get things sorted.  Amazingly they were able to return to the race, still sporting some body damage from the accident.



On the restart McFadden continued his dominance, taking off from the field.  Within 5 laps he was into traffic again, with Macedo and Abreu not far behind.  Lap 22 saw the second red flag, this time the result of an attempt by the #5 of Spencer Bayston to slide up and around Brad Sweet but instead crushing it against the outside retaining wall, losing the front wing and causing some front-end structural damage.

Back in the work zone, they got to work repairing the car, receiving help from other teams as well.  A full axle cage replacement was needed, and they continued to work even after their time ran out, but they were unable to rejoin the race.

Restarting again looked just as it had been all race, with McFadden taking the lead and Macedo, Kofoid and Abreu fighting it out for 2^nd/3^rd.  Selczi made his way into the mix as well with 5 laps to go.

McFadden had a clear lead, but with 3 laps to go quite nearly ended up in the wall.  Recovering, he took it to the flag with no further trouble.

Winner-World of Outlaw Feature-James McFadden

*This race resulted in creating a tie for first in the Outlaw Sprint car point standings between Brad Sweet and Carson Macedo, each with 3344 total points. Also tied (for 5^th) were Donny Schatz and Sheldon Haudenschild, 174 points behind the other pair.

Don and I left before the Modifieds feature, we had been there since early afternoon, and we’d just had enough.  The racing there was intense due to the short lap times, and the track was a great venue to shoot.  This year has been increasingly varied with different racing series, not just Indy.  If you like dirt, Sprints and Modifieds put on a great show.