Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

Roth Motorsports scaling back, Joey Saldana looking for a ride in 2017

Feel bad for Joey......although Roth gets a bad wrap sometimes, the man has given a lot to the sport of sprint car racing over the years. I hope Joey can hook up with another competative team in 2017.

Kinda figured this was 1 year deal. Best of luck to Joey.

Saldana and Madsen (Kerry) looking for rides.  Both too good to be on the side lines or driving less than top class eqpt

I think Roth gets pissed that they dont win more often, its hard to win consistantly if you only run a year then get mad and quit for a year and then come back. If they ran the tour consistanly they would be for sure contender. I see Saldana getting a ride with Woo or Allstar and Madsen running Midwest tracks

The all stars could be loaded next year.

You hit the nail on the head. I don't want to talk bad about Mr. Roth because overall, very few people have made the contribution to sprint car racing that he has. He's fielded many good cars in California and on the WoO tour for many good drivers and he has the wins to prove it BUT the one thing that I think has kept him from being a champion on the WoO tour, is a lack of continuity. According to what Joey said, it seems this is more health and age related than anything but the fact is, you're right. To be fair, Roth isn't alone. There's a lot of owners who over the years, didn't have the patience to allow a team to grow into a championship team such as Donny Schatz has. Essentially, the 15 has done the same deal for over a decade. You don't see them going and switching chassis and firing crew members when they hit a slump. They obviously play around with set ups and stuff but they have kept their core program in tact. Kerr/Shoff, Beam/Shaffer, Parrish/Montieth, Kauffman/Dietrich and I'm sure I forgot some others but those teams are examples along with Schatz of what continuity can do. It's good to see that Dennis is willing to support Joey in his next deal. Hopefully something works out because I'd love nothing more than to see Joey win that elusive WoO title that he wants so badly. As far as Dennis Roth, best of luck in whatever you do and if this is the beginning of the end for Roth Motorsports, THANK YOU for all that you've done for our sport.

Add Craig Dollansky to the list also who is trying to find something that will enable him to run upwards of 60 times a year for good purses. There isn't enough opportunity in the midwest to accomodate drivers that make their living racing, so it's either WoO, All Stars or PA at this juncture. And even then PA is probably not the answer for a full time driver like it was years ago. 

Sorry for Joey but this unfortunately was predictable , even though Mr. Roth has done much for racing . He expects the car or team to win more and pay there way without him putting out to much more additional money besides the initial startup costs .

Couldn't agree with you more. Mr Roth has  pit out  alot  of money over the years with racing but with his demands of perfection and not being patient Is what probably have cost him lots of money and championships .

When that Conn Boy ran he had promised him a few years in it. If he would of stuck with him he could of possibly been there by now especially with Swank GREAT chemistry . I knew Dennis had him on the list at the end of 2016 to pilot the 83 again  but he wouldn't leave with no stability there. 

My understanding that Mr. Roth health is not the best and needs to eliminate as much extra stress as possible and that's why racing is being put to the side for now!