Hunter Kohn Advancing Late Model Career by Reconnecting with Kansas Roots
Photo by Emily Schwanke
CONC—If you know the history of Late Model racing in Kansas, then you know the name Larry McDaniels.
The Wichita native is an eight-time National Championship Racing Association (NCRA) champion and a member of the 81 Speedway Hall of Fame, amassing hundreds of wins from the 1970s until his retirement from driving in 2013.
Since then, McDaniels has passed the torch to the newest wheelman on the family tree – his grandson, Hunter Kohn, who will try to make his own history in Kansas this weekend with the World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series presented by DIRTVision.
The family now calls North Carolina home, with Kohn cutting his teeth at Millbridge Speedway in Outlaw Karts and Micro Sprints. It was only a matter of time until he dove into the family tradition of dirt Late Model racing, initially in the 602 and 604 Late Model divisions around the southeast.
After two seasons of Crate racing, Kohn made the leap up to the Super Late Model ranks at the start of the 2025 season. His campaign has mostly consisted of regional action around the Carolinas, but Kohn also traveled to Fairbury Speedway to make his World of Outlaws debut at the Prairie Dirt Classic, followed by two more appearances at Needmore Speedway and Senoia Raceway in September.
“Our Super program this year honestly hasn’t been what I would want it to be,” Kohn said. “We obviously haven’t run that many races. It takes a lot for us to run the Super motor, and we just haven’t had the greatest of results. We ran decent here around home in North Carolina and stuff, but you go to these big races with the World of Outlaws and you’re way off par. We have been getting better since Fairbury, we improved a lot at Needmore and Senoia, able to keep up a little bit better. It’s all about experience. It’s tough physically and mentally, especially as a driver when you want to go out and show everybody what you can do.”
Luckily for the 18-year-old Super Late Model rookie, he didn’t have to look far to find a crew chief with decades of expertise to lean on. Help came in the form of his grandfather, McDaniels, who took the chance to stay involved in the Late Model world while guiding his grandson’s budding career.
“He basically does it all,” Kohn said. “He’s working in the shop all day, every day. I have a full-time job, so I get there when I’m done with work. He didn’t really lose any experience in it, he just wasn’t keeping up with it when he stopped racing in 2013. Everything is so advanced now, but some of the stuff is still the same. His experience with that, I mean, you talk to many people and they say, ‘Yeah, your grandfather’s right.’ He’s got great experience, he’s obviously one of the best out of Kansas, and it’s really great to have him a part of it.”
Following the team’s weekend in Georgia with the World of Outlaws, Kohn could see the progress he was making and wasn’t quite ready to put the car away for the winter. With the next stops on tour being a pair of Kansas tracks – Humboldt Speedway (Friday, Oct. 3) and 81 Speedway (Saturday, Oct. 4) – Kohn decided to try to gather up enough funding to make the trip possible. Two weeks removed from a Facebook post asking for assistance, Kohn is set to make the 1,000-mile trip west to write his own chapter of the family’s “Sunflower State” legacy.
“We got home from the Needmore and Senoia trip with the World of Outlaws, and we were deciding to take a couple weeks off,” Kohn said. “Then about two weeks ago now, they were like, ‘Want to go to Kansas?’ We were going to try and make it out there. We posted some stuff, tried to get some more help to make it out there.
“A good bit of people reached out and asked what they could do. They did what they could, and it really helped us get out there. It wasn’t too much of a big process, it was just a quick few deals for the rest of this season.”
Once the grandfather-grandson team get to Kansas, they won’t be going at it by themselves. Every racer has someone they can point to who helped steer them in the right direction when they were getting started in the sport, and for Kohn, that person is World of Outlaws star Ryan Gustin.
“We’ve known Gustin for two or three years,” Kohn said. “After the World Finals, we told him he could come to the shop because they were heading to Senoia after that. We kind of just became great friends with him. We text and call him all the time asking about stuff. He looked over our stuff at Fairbury, told us to do this and do that, and it really helped. Same thing at Needmore and Senoia, he’s just looking over our car, making sure we’re not bound up or messed up anywhere on the car.”
In addition to his Hall of Fame grandfather, Kohn’s great grandfather and mother also raced around the state, meaning Kohn will become a fourth-generation Kansas Late Model racer this weekend. The game plan is simple – put together a performance that makes them proud and continues the building process toward what he hopes is a long and successful career behind the wheel.
“My grandfather and Mom, Dad, grandmother, they’re always just like, ‘Bring it home in one piece, make it to the Feature, it’ll be fine,” Kohn said. “My personal goals, obviously a racer wants to win. Top 10 would be really nice, and to put on a show for the fans, those are my two goals there.
“For 2026, I do want to travel a lot more than what we did, but it’s just real tough. But hopefully, in the next few years, if I’ve proven myself, I get that call from someone one day.”
The World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series presented by DIRTVision season continues this weekend at Humboldt Speedway (Friday, Oct. 3) and 81 Speedway (Saturday, Oct. 4). For tickets and other event information for all remaining events in 2025, click here.
If you can’t make it to the track, stream every lap live on DIRTVision.
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