THE USAC LIFESTYLE: ROGERS & DUTCHER TAKE ON USAC SPRINT TOUR FULL-TIME IN 2024
By: Richie Murray – USAC Media
Speedway, Indiana (December 1, 2023)………Jadon Rogers and Michael Dutcher Motorsports are back on the trail for a full season run with the USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship in 2024.
The Worthington, Ind. driver and Cicero, Ind. based team have both contested the full USAC schedule in recent years, and both have been winners, but this will be both parties’ first full-time, full season venture together.
The duo teamed up for the latter half of the 2023 season where they made nine USAC National Sprint Car starts, accumulating four top-five results and six top-tens between August and October, including a 23rd to 5th run on the opening night of Sprint Car Smackdown at Kokomo (Ind.) Speedway, plus a pair of fourths at Kokomo and Texas’ Devil’s Bowl Speedway before closing out the campaign with a fifth at Lawrenceburg (Ind.) Speedway.
Together, Rogers and Dutcher’s No. 17GP also won on the local level last September, taking a trio of scores on the local Indiana scene with a pair of wins at Paragon Speedway and a Midwest Sprint Car Series triumph at Tri-State Speedway, all of which came on a single successful Labor Day weekend.
It was August of last year when both found themselves in need with Dutcher seeking a driver and Rogers searching for a ride. Since teaming up, the combination has clicked and has provided them with a bit of a leg up entering 2024 with experience working together as opposed to some other teams’ situations in which they are starting anew.
“Dutch and I had been on the verge of getting together multiple times,” Rogers revealed. “Instantly, we were really fast this past year. I’m excited to get back, and I feel like I have a real fighting chance of going after a championship with a guy who has a lot of knowledge.”
Dutcher has quite a pedigree in USAC racing circles. He was the recipient of USAC’s Chief Mechanic of the Year award in 2012 as the head wrench turner on the Corey Tucker Racing/Bryan Clauson, Inc/Curb-Agajanian No. 7 driven to the USAC title by Bryan Clauson that same year.
As a car owner, Dutcher owns 12 career USAC National Sprint Car victories with drivers such as Kevin Thomas Jr. and Jon Stanbrough and Rogers feels he’s the next in line to take the Lifestyle Homes sponsored machine back to victory lane in 2024.
Rogers, the 2020 USAC National Sprint Car Rookie of the Year and a one-time series winner in 2022 at Tri-State Speedway, cites the comfort of having Dutcher in his corner, noting that he has a bit of a different outlook with his team relying on its success to ultimately pay the bills.
“Dutch runs his program to live, so he wants to win as much as me,” Rogers stated. “I can see that focus in him and how badly he wants it just as much as I do. I know whenever I’m at the racetrack, as much he can give me, he’s going to give it to me and I’m going to do the same for him.”
Rogers has driven in recent years for a variety of teams, and in fact, won nine races on the local Indiana level in 2023 for both Dutcher as well as 4J Motorsports, while also winning with USAC in 2022 for the Engler family in addition to competing extensively in a car owned by his father, Kyle Rogers.
Rogers’ role with Dutcher might be slightly altered from in contrast to past scenarios, but now has his focus fixed on the wheel and the pedals. The 21-year-old may still be young, but he’s a veteran in most any other category as he enters his 10th year of sprint car competition after earning the Hoosier Auto Racing Fans Billy Marvel Jr. Rookie of the Year award at age 13 in 2015.
“With my own deal, I’ve always had input, and it’s nerve wracking enough when you’re trying to focus on driving and doing your best on that end, then you’ve got to mix in the fact of whether you’re making the right decisions on setups and things like that,” Rogers explained. “It’s really nice to have a situation in which you have a crew working on the racecar while I can study the track, and when it’s time for me to get in, I can grab my helmet and get in and the racecar and everything’s ready to go.”
Rogers and Dutcher’s USAC season opens in 2024 with five Winter Dirt Games dates at Ocala, Florida’s Bubba Raceway Park on February 9-10-15-16-17, plus two nights at Barberville, Florida’s Volusia Speedway Park on February 12-13 for the DIRTcar Nationals.
