Karl Performance closing their doors at the end of 2018.

[Tireguy17]

There are A LOT of modified and sport mod chassis builders too in and around Iowa, all looking for a piece of the pie. But I think this decisions is probably bigger than just the chassis side of the business

[CageFaraday]

Billy Moyer was never the BWRC house car driver... he drove one but not many times

1999 Billy and Birky were team cars for Barry, but it didn't go the whole season, maybe half.

(Birky's car)
1997-98' was Jack Pennington
1993-(early 97) Scott Bloomquist w/ Ronnie Johnson as team mate in 96'.

[Cardirt0]

Dirt racing is Dieing and Its showing in car counts its only time now. As people Die so does the fan count and Car count.

[MotoMatt]

It appears some don't know the history of what became Karl Performance.

Everett Sather had JR Motorsports and they are who did the victory mod, stock car and hobby stock chassis along with parts and engines
Moyer bought JR Motorsports and moved it to Ankeny, coninued the chassis businesses, parts, and engines. He added the Crate Motors since they are a Chevy dealer and saw the $$$ from that. The other part of the business was restoring classic cars. This was all on the same site as the car dealership, one of the biggest in Iowa I think.

I am not sure what is causing the closing, less cars, the overhead as others have mentioned, or maybe something else. I always found it interesting Moyer put the chassis business up there, I wonder how much the dumped into that and he's apparently not very involved other than feedback. I also never heard of them running motors from that shop, so they kind of skirted the late model business but never jumped in whole hog.

[cjsracing]

It appears some don't know the history of what became Karl Performance.

Everett Sather had JR Motorsports and they are who did the victory mod, stock car and hobby stock chassis along with parts and engines
Moyer bought JR Motorsports and moved it to Ankeny, coninued the chassis businesses, parts, and engines. He added the Crate Motors since they are a Chevy dealer and saw the $$$ from that. The other part of the business was restoring classic cars. This was all on the same site as the car dealership, one of the biggest in Iowa I think.

I am not sure what is causing the closing, less cars, the overhead as others have mentioned, or maybe something else. I always found it interesting Moyer put the chassis business up there, I wonder how much the dumped into that and he's apparently not very involved other than feedback. I also never heard of them running motors from that shop, so they kind of skirted the late model business but never jumped in whole hog.

You are mostly correct, but here's a couple additions:

1. Karl Performance is not located on the same site as Karl Chevrolet. When Karl bought JR Motorsports he built a dedicated building for Karl Performance a few miles from the dealership.

2. Until a couple years ago Karl Performance did not build Late Models. It wasn't until Billy decided to have them build his cars that they started building Late Models.

3. Karl Performance is not really in the Open Late Model engine game, their engine specialty is IMCA Spec engines for Late Models, engines for Modifieds, Stockcars and Hobby stock and Crate engines.

[BTExpress]

I would be curious to see how many DLM chassis Karl's has built and sold over the years. I know that was only a small fraction of their business, but it leads me to believe it is a tough market to capture competing against Rocket, Longhorn and Black Diamond. Heck it is a struggle for BWRC, Mastersbult, Capital, and others on a national scale.

[93Nelson]

They did alot restorations/street car stuff. Not just a race shop. He bought jR's and I think he had the restoration place around that time and he put them under one roof. So you had a full race shop(chassis,machine for built/crate,parts) and a full restoration shop (pretty much build what you want)There's was also a time when the had the throw back corvette conversions but that kinda died out.

If you ever been there I think you had to wonder at some point why would someone spend this much money for a place like this. I bet I couldn't a fford the electric bill on that place a month. That place was way overboard for what it needed to be. Should have kept it simple if you wanted long term success.

There's a couple other race shops that have opened in the area since and I think there's a lot of racers that would rather do business with them then with Karl or get it through the Performance a Bodies or Speedway. I feel bad for the employees I know there, not much for Carl or the chassis guys IMO.

[93Nelson]

My only concern is crate repair other then that I can go elsewhere for parts.

This decision was probably not all Carl, my like the group. He doesn't own his whole dealerships. He was bailed out years ago.

[wiredcom]

The new Moyer Victory late models are the same as the longhorns with some extras added by Billy. Moyer partnered with Rumley to build these cars and all the parts, bolt on plates etc... are the same. So there will be no shortage of parts. https://speedsport.com/dirt-late-mod...g-new-chassis/

[mcarter815]

My only concern is crate repair other then that I can go elsewhere for parts.

This decision was probably not all Carl, my like the group. He doesn't own his whole dealerships. He was bailed out years ago.

Depending on your location, Dynamic Power in Moline does crate repair as well.

[Tireguy17]

The new Moyer Victory late models are the same as the longhorns with some extras added by Billy. Moyer partnered with Rumley to build these cars and all the parts, bolt on plates etc... are the same. So there will be no shortage of parts. https://speedsport.com/dirt-late-mod...g-new-chassis/

That article was from 2013 when Billy was doing the Xtreme Longhorns. The Victory race cars he is involved in currently is a whole different deal.

[wiredcom]

That article was from 2013 when Billy was doing the Xtreme Longhorns. The Victory race cars he is involved in currently is a whole different deal.

Hmmm, that's odd. I have a 2017 Longhorn and a 2017 Moyer Victory in my shop and they are virtually identical. Here is a 2016 Moyer/Longhorn https://www.racingjunk.com/Late-Mode...&from=search#1