- The 30th annual Cook Out-sponsored Summer Shootout series that opened Monday night will present 10 events—with Monday-Tuesday programs on June 12-13 and July 3-4—through its season-ending August 1
- Legend and Bandolero cars on the quarter-mile oval that uses much of the 1.5-mile speedway’s frontstretch and part of pit road.
- The list of Summer Shootout alumni is long and impressive.
If tradition holds, the next group of Cup Series superstars will have worked their way through NASCAR’s lower-level Xfinity and Craftsman series. Before success there, though, some no doubt will have built their skills in the CARS, ARCA Menards, or K&N series.
But even before that, some starry-eyed teenagers will have raced in the Summer Shootout at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The 30th annual Cook Out-sponsored series that opened Monday night will present 10 events—with Monday-Tuesday programs on June 12-13 and July 3-4—through its season-ending August 1 championship night. The CMS creation will present seven classes of Legend and Bandolero cars on the quarter-mile oval that uses much of the 1.5-mile speedway’s frontstretch and part of pit road.
The list of Summer Shootout alumni is long and impressive. Among them: two-time Cup Series champions Joey Logano and Kyle Busch; one-time Cup champions Kurt Busch and Chase Elliott; Hall of Fame driver Dale Earnhardt Jr.; Xfinity Series champions Elliott, Daniel Hemric, William Byron, Austin Cindric, Austin Dillon, and Chris Buescher; and Craftsman Series champions Dillon, Zane Smith, and Ben Rhodes.
Dave Blaney did several summers in the Shootout Series. So did Cliff Daniels, crew chief when Kyle Larson won the 2021 Cup Series title. Former Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne was a Summer Shootout regular. So were Alex Bowman, Corey LaJoie, Noah Gragson, Hailie Deegan, Ty Dillon, and Harrison Burton. The late Ricky Hendrick, son of multi-time championship owner Rick Hendrick, raced in the series.
After several years in the Summer Shootout Series, Logano was 14 when he reached the ASA National Tour in 2004. Within four years he was racing in the Craftsman, Xfinity, and Cup series, and winning in ARCA. He credits much of that teen-age success and his impressive resume to what he learned during his time on Charlotte’s quarter-mile bullring.
Future NASCAR Cup star Chris Buescher (06) races in the Summer Shootout in 2008.
“You learned the nuts and bolts of how to race people,” said Logano, who commuted from Atlanta with his family to run the mid-week races. “I had a lot of fun racing against guys like David Ragan before we ever got to Cup. We had a blast. My dad and I came up here and tried to figure out how to race with people. In some cases, you learned how to fight each other. It was pretty rough because of the bumping and banging in Legend Cars. It was a great place to learn how to race.”
After tooling around his yard in a go-kart, Wallace got into a Legends car for the Shootout. Just 10 at the time, he quickly became infatuated with racing and showed enough promise to start climbing the NASCAR ladder. After several years in the Craftsman and Xfinity series, he became a Cup Series regular—with two victories in recent years—and a frequent top-10 runner.
“I miss racing Legend cars,” he said recently, before the 2023 Summer Shootout season opened. “I remember coming out (to CMS) when I was 10 years old. I had a big enough lead in one race that I was watching myself on the jumbotron. I overdrove the next corner and messed up trying to watch myself. Those were good times for sure; a lot of good memories came out of it. I’ve always said that when I have kids—which will be years down the road—I’m going to put them down the same path I went through.”
Ryan Blaney is another Summer Shootout ’Class of 2008’ that made it all the way to the Cup Series.
Hemric, the 2021 Xfinity Series champion with Joe Gibbs Racing, credits his success to the skills he developed in his Legend car at Charlotte in the Shootout Series. (He won a special $1,000,000 race in 2010, the biggest purse in Legend car history). That Shootout success helped build his reputation, which led to his Xfinity ride with Richard Childress Racing in 2017.
“As time goes on and you see so many drivers come in and compete at a high level, a lot of that is a testament to those Bandoleros and Legend cars,” said Hemric. (FYI: His late uncle, Dickie, was an NBA star with the Boston Celtics after an all-American career at Wake Forest in the 1950s). “You came here to race to put your name on the map. I was a part of it in some way, shape or form from the time I was 10 years old to about two years ago.
“I gained experience every summer out there, racing against the best. As time goes on, you see so many drivers come in and compete at a high level. It’s really cool to see the next generation of kids, like William Byron, coming out of Legend cars going up to the Cup Series. That’s pretty special.”
Speaking of special: On Monday night, in the Beginner Bando class, 8-year-old Brexton Busch – that would be Kyle’s son – qualified second and finished second in his first-ever Summer Shootout Series race. Clearly, it’s just a matter of time.
Contributing Editor
Unemployed after three years as an Army officer and Vietnam vet, Al Pearce shamelessly lied his way onto a small newspaper’s sports staff in Virginia in 1969. He inherited motorsports, a strange and unfamiliar beat which quickly became an obsession.
In 53 years – 48 ongoing with Autoweek – there have been thousands of NASCAR, NHRA, IMSA, and APBA assignments on weekend tracks and major venues like Daytona Beach, Indianapolis, LeMans, and Watkins Glen. The job – and accompanying benefits – has taken him to all 50 states and more than a dozen countries.
He’s been fortunate enough to attract interest from several publishers, thus his 13 motorsports-related books. He can change a tire on his Hyundai, but that’s about it.
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