With five heat wins and six feature top-five’s, Bryan Batty put together a solid campaign with the Just Foam It OSCAAR Modifieds en route to placing fourth in the standings. With a podium in the season ending Autumn Colours Classic, the driver of the No. 39 recently shared his thoughts with SHORT TRACK MUSINGS.

So what are your thoughts as you look ahead to the upcoming 2024 season?

Heading into 2024, we had a lot of damage through 2023 so our 2024 plans are really up in the air right now, just because the car needs so much work to be back. With having two kids, I might be taking a step back to enjoy life a little bit away from the track, help out my sister and friends a little bit.

What are your thoughts as you look back on the 2023 season?

Up and down year, a lot of bad luck, little bit of good. It was nice to run with a couple of guys and finish the year off with a podium. The car is pretty beat up, but it is what it is. It’s racing so can’t do too much about it.

Outside of getting the car fixed up, what do you feel that you need to work on and improve to continue getting better?

We just need to get a little bit more organized. Our at-track program needs a lot more organization and prep work. We’ve been working in the shop but it seems we’ve been slacking a bit at the track with adjustments and tires, but it is what it is. We use what we have pretty much.

What is your favourite track to run at on the OSCAAR tour and why?

Well of course Delaware (Speedway) as my home track and the fastest track we have right now. Other than that, I really enjoy heading up to Peterborough (Speedway) and Sunset (Speedway). They’re nice tight little tracks. They have a lot of banking and are fun to race around. Really, I love them all up here. They all have their own character and that’s what makes them special.

I know you caught some people off-guard in announcing that not only you have the modified, but you’re building a hot rod and working with David Rockwood.

Yep. David has been a really good friend to me. We just started hanging around last year; he came to spot for me with the modified, and since then, we’ve just clicked and been hanging out a lot and became good buddies. He’s been great to me. He’s pretty much a family member to me and he just gets along with everyone great. So when we decided that we wanted to try and build the hot rod, we figured well, we have the space to do it and tools and try to figure it out together.

Things are always busy it seems in your shop with Bailey having ran the mini truck the past couple years, and now looking to make her move up to the Bone Stock for 2024.

Bailey has been running out of my shop the last couple years, even back in her micro sprint days. It was more my dad’s side looking after things with her program, and then I’m just there helping and assisting with what I can when I can. So with her jumping from something out of my shop to Rockwood’s bone stock, it definitely takes a lot off my mind and he’s experienced in that division. He’s going to be a very good teacher for her in getting her used to driving a full size car and getting experience at all the different tracks here in Ontario.

I know we’ve talked about before in you growing up around Dave Whitlock’s shop and that’s where your interest started, but what is it about motorsports that keeps bringing you back each season?

I think it’s just the adrenaline and the want to improve each and every year. It’s just a competitive aspect of life in that you want to do as good as you can and being in racing, you get to learn a lot – everything from fabricating to physics and money budgeting. It’s pretty much the best schooling you can give yourself – racing you learn everything you need to.

What would be a piece of advice that you’d offer to someone getting started?

Basically, just learn as much as you can, come in with a open mind, don’t listen to too many people because that messes up your program, and stick to listening to certain people and get as much seat time as you can possibly can. Don’t worry about buying all the fancy parts because that won’t make you a better driver. it’s alright to just the cheap stuff as you can get by just fine. You don’t need to go spend thousands of dollars on all that fancy stuff. It’s not going to make it any funner and it’s not going to help you win. The best thing to do is to get something on the track, get as much seat time as you possibly can, and have fun.