Steven Snyder Jr. in the No. 51, the third driver in the car this season and the one who has turned it into a regular top-10 threat, including a podium at El Paso County. (Photo: World of Outlaws / Tyler Carr Photo)
Most new sprint car teams get judged on their first win. Three Stooges Racing should be judged on something less glamorous: how many times it had to start over. In its first full World of Outlaws season, the Indianapolis-rooted No. 51 has carried three different drivers, and the only constant on the pit board has been a crew chief who once made his living in a hockey rink.
That crew chief is Noah West, who co-owns the operation with his father, Jeff. The series profiled him this week in an official feature ahead of the team’s final scheduled weekend of 2026: Lincoln Park Speedway in Putnamville, Ind., on Friday, Oct. 16, and the tour’s first visit to Belle-Clair Fairgrounds Park Speedway in Belleville, Ill., on Saturday. The piece gives the clearest look yet at what a family-built, ground-up 410 team actually looks like at the sport’s top level, and where the Wests want it to be.
From pavement and IndyCar carbon to dirt
This is not a team that wandered in off the street. Jeff West raced Supermodifieds out of Oswego, N.Y., building his own cars and chassis, then moved the family to Indianapolis to work for Eddie Cheever’s IndyCar team on repair and carbon work before starting his own business, IPC. Three Stooges Racing existed before the sprint car, running what the series describes as primarily pavement machinery.
Noah’s route was stranger. He played college hockey at the University of Michigan and spent a pro season in the ECHL with the Kansas City Mavericks while keeping a foot in racing. In 2023 he led the crew on the Hayward Motorsports No. 19, which C.J. Leary drove to 12th in the Eldora Million. When that program wound down, father and son sat in the shop after Kings Royal and decided to build their own. Jeff’s line, as Noah recalled it: “Well, I got two cars on the way.”
The No. 51 debuted during Kings Royal week in 2025 with Joel Myers Jr. Scott Bogucki took over in August of that year, ran 10 races including a 12th at Lincoln Park, and was announced in December as a full-time Outlaws rookie for 2026.
Three drivers, one season
The season since has been a lesson in how thin the margins are for a one-car independent. The timeline, from the series’ own releases:
- Bogucki, February to May: The Australian delivered the team’s high point early, charging from ninth to second at Lawton Speedway on March 20 for his first career Outlaws podium. He and the team parted ways after Williams Grove in May; neither side gave a reason.
- Ashton Torgerson, May to August: The 19-year-old Arizonan had lost his Shark Racing ride when that team parked its car, and slotted into the 51 to keep his Rookie of the Year bid alive. He announced his departure in early August.
- Steven Snyder Jr., August onward: The 2025 USAC National Midget Rookie of the Year, who also drove a winged car for CB Industries/Spire Motorsports this year, debuted with the team at the Ironman 55 in Pevely, Mo.
Snyder has been the best fit so far. The series credits him with a 16th-to-sixth run at the Front Row Challenge, laps led and a top five at Huset’s, his first Outlaws podium (10th to second at El Paso County Raceway) and a fight for the win at Ventura. The official 2026 stats page lists him with three top fives and four top 10s in 22 starts. For comparison, Bogucki shows one top five and three top 10s in 12 starts. The series’ weekend preview even flagged Snyder as a driver who may be flying under the radar.
Why driver churn hurts more in a 410
Analysis: a winged 410 is a car that has to be tuned to the person in it as much as to the track. Wing angle, stagger, torsion bar and shock choices all lean on how a driver enters and loads the corner, and an Outlaws crew chief is building that notebook on the fly across back-to-back nights at tracks he may never have seen. Every driver swap wipes part of that notebook. A two-car superteam can cross-reference data between drivers; a single-car family team cannot. That’s why West’s comment about Snyder matters more than any single result: “We both want to build together and work together.”
It also explains why the rookie-heavy approach was a gamble. Rookies are what independents can typically afford and attract, but they arrive without track notes for most of a schedule that crisscrosses the country. Running a full tour as an independent means absorbing that learning curve plus the tour’s tech and tire policing (see Kelby Watt’s four-race suspension for how seriously the Outlaws take spec compliance), without a sister car to share the load.
What the Wests want in 2027
The series feature does not announce a 2027 driver or schedule, and nothing official confirms Snyder will stay. What West did lay out is a model. He named Tod Quiring’s Big Game Motorsports as the template and also pointed to KCP Racing and Roth Motorsports: organizations that outlast any one driver or crew chief.
The second part is the more revealing one. West says he wants to be on the road “for a few more years,” but he’s building the team so it can keep competing with the World of Outlaws while he is at home. That’s a different goal from a hobby team chasing a big-money night. It means hiring and training people, building depth in parts and personnel, and making the program less dependent on a single family member doing everything from the hauler. It is also how the established Outlaws teams he named have survived driver changes.
What to watch next
Lincoln Park is a useful benchmark. It is where Bogucki’s lone 2025 Outlaws start with the team produced a 12th, so a Snyder top 10 there would show how far the program has come. Belle-Clair is new for everyone, which levels the notebook problem for one night. The series’ preview lists eight races left on the 2026 schedule, including Texarkana and the World Finals at Charlotte, but the team’s own season, per the series feature, winds down this weekend.
After that, the real test begins: the off-season announcement. Snyder already has ties to Spire, a team building out its own sprint car presence, so keeping him won’t be automatic. If the Wests head to Volusia in February with the same driver and crew chief they finished with, it will be the first time this team has started a season without starting over.
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