The 2022-2023 ADPS season will be upon us all in just over a month! And if you're an outsider with no idea who's making up the field that will compete for the title, don't worry, I got that information for you! This is the bandwagoner's guide to the 2022-2023 ADPS Season!
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We're going to start with Wines Racing, and for very good reason as they house a team that is breaming with talent and are the defending owner's champions and house the defending driver's champion. Owner Nate Wines, who finished 3rd in points last season, returns for Daytona Speedweeks with his 38 car before he calls it quits in the ADPS and puts all his focus on winning the Craftsman Late Model Series championship. Outside of Nate Wines, the team had also lost Demo Redneck and Leland Pfief, but in their places will be Ein Styles and Kylee Greider. And if you're worried about the 21 car, fret not : Nate Wines himself picked Seth Peters to race in the 21. As for the champion? Lindsey Deitz will swap out the 6 for the number 1 for this season.
North Star Racing is a new Chevrolet team for this year and was created by the last season's points runner up in Evan Taddy. Evan Taddy has full backing from Ecto and Kwik Trip with Gatorade set to race one a one off scheme at the Brickyard. And he's opened a 2nd car that will also compete for the championship. The driver? The 2022 Winter Classic 150 champion of Ethan O'Connor, who will make an attempt to defend his Winter Classic crown. O'Connor is set drive the 28 car sponsored by Soundcore.
CyberStorm Racing has been a team that has seen a most overhaul in the off season and the team is set to go for a 2nd go at the title. Once again, Alan Mooch finds himself in the team captain spot as the driver/owner of the team. But now, he has been reunited with the 26, a number that he has been synomyous with since his days racing in go karts. Another change? The team is no longer with Ford. They have moved over to Chevrolet and it allowed them to pick up Don Faulconer for the 36 car. Yes, I said 36 car. That's because CyberStorm Racing has expanded to a 4th car. The 23 was retained by the team, but Faith McKenzie walked after Homestead. Replacing McKenzie will be Elon Solberg. And with Alan Mooch rebranding his team to the 26 and the team selling the the rights to the 95 car to Throwback Motorsports, they have rebranded their old 95 car to the new 9 car and have picked up Las Vegas race winner Ash Eleton to drive the car. CyberStorm is a boom or bust team the year. And they certainly hope for the boom.
Thowback Motorsports, owned by Ein Styles, has also seen a maasive overhaul from the 2021-2022 ADPS season. They switched from Chevrolet to Honda. Carrying over from last season is the international driver from the Netherlands of Kay Arr and his 47 team are also carrying over to the new era of Throwback Motorsports. The 86 will be driven by Luke Silvay as Styles leaves to drive the 43 for Wines. The 46 will be driven by rookie driver Wyatt Wilde as Gary Russel decided he was going to retire after running a part time schedule last season. And Max Moreal is back with the team, but he's not driving the 30 car. He will drive the 95 as Ein Styles bought the rights from CyberStorm Racing, releasing the rights to the number 30 off the free market.
New to the ADPS landscape is Marinelli Racing Enterprises owned by Caleb Marinelli. Dodge abaolutely struggled last season and oh, did they struggle. What they decided they needed some heavy fire power and the Mopar camp got it when Caleb came to them. And the lead team in the Mopar camp is the 3 car squad that has the 15 of Caleb, the 12 of Justin Ricci, and the 51 of Dylan Jones. Justin is an interesting case as this will be the first time we see him not race in a Chevrolet as he raced Chevrolets through out his late model days and for the 2021-2022 ADPS season.
But MRE isn't the only team Dodge is getting in their camp. From the ashes of the old Ghost Motorsports came Blast Off Motorsporrts owned by Star Racer and they once again have allaigned themselves in the Mopar camp. Star Racer's team consists of heavy hitting rookie names such as Marco Suarez and the 3 team, Jack Black and the 81 car, and Caden Bishop driving the 19. Star Racer himself returns as the banner driver of the team and driving the flagship 84 NASA car.
The 98 of Rayne Motorsports also returns to the Dodge camp as Allyson Lliara will own and drive her own car with a brand new look and sponsor in Hyperice and will also sport paint schemes from K1 Speed, Ally Bank for a one off, and Speed Energy alongside Mapei for the throwback race in Darlington. She may be the lone driver on her own team, but don't sleep on her as she might have the best car her team can give her on a race to race basis and possibly find her way into a shot into the title fight as a rookie.
And a new Dodge team that showed up out of nowhere has been making noise is LW Racing. The West Virgina based 2 car operation will be run and operated by Ethan Farley who will drive the 14 car and Farley will also own the 41 that Leland Pfeif, a 2 time race winner from the 2021-2022 season, will drive. The only controversial thing coming out of LW Racing team have is the main backing sponsor of the Disney+ show that many people say is one of the worst shows ever. But the ADPS is allowing the team to run the sponsor, for better or worse.
Leaving the Dodge Camp behind ADPS got the defending manufacture's champion in Ford, they find themselves with 3 teams under their banner after losing CyberStorm in the off season. We already talked about Wines Racing who are poised to be title favorites all season long. The other 2 are deffinetly wildcards in the championship talk as don't have a gauge on them. Justin Newman Racing returns with a massive downsize as Justin Newman returns with the 17 car and and rookie racer Jane Ironwood debuts in the 16. Justin Newman Racing is under the belief that they will do better by downsizing and they certainly hope to put the rest of the ADPS on notice with the noise they will make.
The other Ford team? The newly formed Brozoski Racing Experience owned and operated by former Seeker driver Brandon Brozoski who will drive the 00 car. Brandon's team is clearly an unknown headed into this season and they will have the most question marks over their heads.
Speaking of Seeker Motorsports, Red Bull purchased a stake of ownership and have put their branding all over the team to make the team Red Bull Seeker Motorsports. Quinn Jager will continue to oversee teamas majority owner. The California based team will Throwback Motorsports im the Honda camp as they gear up for their debut season of ADPS.
While we're on the subject, 2 more teams have also ed the Honda camp for the season. The first of these teams we're going to talk about is Pigsah Mountain Motorsports owned by P.Q. Guy. PQ Guy returns to drive the 34 car and Toby Smith will drive the rebranded 5 car for the team. Pisgah Mountain was formerly known as the Ford team Ingles Motorsports, so you can add this team to the list of teams Ford lost during the off season.
But the Honda team that has ganered the most talk of all the race teams in the camp is the Indiana based team of Moreal Motorsports, and that's for a very good reason. Owned by IndyCar legend Alex Moreal and fielding the 7 car that Paul Donlan will drive, this team is slated to put together some really amazing runs that will leave nothing to doubt that Donlan is one of the best in the ADPS. It's also thanks to Alex Moreal that the deal to race the ADPS on the hallowed 2.5 mile oval of the Indy Motor Speedway came to be.
Speaking of teams that have gained a lot of talk, the Chevrolet teams of Omocke Kick Ass Raicng and their of Swaggy C Motorsports is the definition of an all-star roster. Starting with the main team, Patrick Roden and James Omocke will run half the season, 13 races, each in the part time entry of the 77 car and that car should return to full time racing once the 4 full time car limit is lifted. Other notable changes the team has that they have picked up Jared Holmes who shocked the wodid by leaving the Ford camp, Carter Jones who will drive the 69 car, Zack Stern who will race in the 82 for OKAR, and Tanor Campos will be racing a new look Axalta rainbow car with the iconic 24 on the side. As for Swaggy C Motorsports? They added 2 legendary drivers of their own : in the 27 they have Anthony Sasso and Tyler King will wheel around the 62 car. Sasso and King were picked up from the dirt racing scene and have never raced in stock cars before so it'll be interesting to see how the dirt racing skills will translate to the ADPS cars.
Speaking of Chevrolet teams getting headlines, Cleasby Racing has been getting talk and stealing headlines for all the wrong reasons. And the big talk has been surrounding owner Dylan Cleasby getting suspended for the *entire* 2022-2023 season due to off track behavior in the offseason. And if that's not bad enough for you, it gets worse : Tree Leclerc's sponsor for his 55 car, Prime, has been getting backlash from fans and media alike. Not for the product itself, but the person behind the it : Logan Paul. Nonetheless, the 55 team will make all the races with full backing from Prime and Cleasby will be off his suspension for the 2023-2024 season, but there is no word on if Cleasby will return from his forced vacation.
2 more teams to talk about here, and we can just rapid fire it : the Amineon will make it's debut with Racing is Forever as JD Fatal will race the 4 car with full on backing from Hookline Fall Creatives. And then the lone Toyota team of Demo's Redneck is owned by Leland Pfeif and they will have Demo Redneck driving the 30 car for them this season. Amineon is a complete unknown and it's quite the shock wave to see that Toyota does not have a lot of teams in their camp. The Toyota seats have been depleted as it seems that Allen Motors and GG Motorsports have both vanished from the ADPS landscape without a trace.
And that is your band wagoner's guide to the 2022-2023 ARCA Dr. Pepper Series season. I can't wait for the new season to kick off with an all new car that promises to provide some fierce competiton.
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