If it’s got wheels, Briggs Danner wants to race it. His latest type of car? A super late model. He made his debut during the Appalachian Mountain Speedweek event at Bridgeport Motorsports Park on Sunday.
What has this 23-year-old raced competed in before? Here’s a rundown:
- .25 midget (three-time national champion)
- SpeedSTR (2021 champion)
- 358 dirt modified
- 600 sprint
- Midget
- TQ midget
- Non-wing and winged 360 sprints (USAC East Coast Sprint Cars 2022 and 2023 champion)
- Non-wing and winged 410 sprints
- USAC Silver Crown
Danner added a late model to his repertoire for one simple reason.
“I want to drive as many different types of cars as I can,” Danner, of Allentown, Pennsylvania, said. “It is hard to say if driving a late model will help with driving an open wheel car. I feel that anytime you can get on a racetrack and learn about different racing situations, it makes you a better driver. I’m sharpening my racing skills, and it keeps me from being rusty.”
It’s hard to imagine a driver who races up to six nights a week becoming rusty, but it certainly keeps Danner sharp.
“Those situations start with handling different shapes and sizes of racetracks, and what driving styles you use on them,” said Danner. “Then, you are racing against other drivers — all with their own ways of handling situations on a particular track.”
By racing more cars and more events, Danner felt it helps his racecraft.
“I’m judging slide jobs and determining where I need to be on the track to prevent them and to execute them,” Danner said. “I use every lap of experience to try to better myself in any situation down the road.”
Danner wanted to race a late model at Action Track USA last year, but a deal didn’t come through. He kept in touch with Jim Bernheisel, the event’s promoter, who linked him up with car owner Denny Superko to run a practice session at Bridgeport.
“A super late model is way different than an open wheel car,” said Danner. “Start with the size of the car and how it works. Then, aerodynamics play a big role in the late model’s performance. Compare that to no aero in a wingless 360 sprint car.
“A non-wing sprint car is hard to drive. A winged sprint car is easier to drive, but harder to race. When you are in a pack of cars, the air is dirty and the winged sprint car becomes a lot harder to race than it is to drive. A late model is big, fast, and very demanding. It has a lot of suspension variables, and you need to know how that works and translates to driving situations. Driving a super late model is very demanding because aero also affects the car like the winged sprint car. Stuff happens quickly on the racetrack when you are in a super late model.”
As far as his late model debut, Briggs Danner finished fourth. Late model veteran Gregg Satterlee won the event.
“Fourth is respectable for the first time out,” Danner said. “I was racing with respected, experienced super late model drivers. I’m never quite satisfied — I wanted to be on the podium and came up between one and two car lengths short.”
Outside Groove Note of Transparency: Added yet two more classes of cars Briggs Danner has raced (2025-06-22).
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
