For Tyler Courtney, practically every interaction he has with a race fan these days includes some kind of conversation about "DIRT: The Last Great American Sport Sponsored by NOS Energy Drink," a five-part documentary series from FloSports Studios that tells the story of dirt-track racing as its known today.

At the forefront of the sport are its biggest stars, namely Courtney, who shares the docuseries spotlight with Kyle Larson, Justin Grant and Thomas Meseraull.

“The feedback I’ve had seems to be pretty well, especially when we were out in Nebraska (for the High Limit Sprint Car Series race at Eagle Raceway),” Courtney said. “I think almost every fan that came up said they got done watching the last episode and they were looking forward to the next one. It’s cool to kind of hear the feedback on that and see how many people are actually paying attention to it and watching.

“I think, obviously, we did a good job with it. We didn’t. We were just ourselves. Flo and everybody at FOX Sports putting it all together has obviously been received very well and hopefully we can do stuff like that in the future and give people insight into what we do with dirt racing.”

WATCH DIRT: THE LAST GREAT AMERICAN SPORT

The reigning two-time champion of the All Star Circuit of Champions and two-time USAC National champion says that DIRT gives “more of an understanding of what we do on a nightly basis and more of the background of how a lot of us (Grant, Larson and Meseraull) started.”

“I think a lot of people see me as hopping in this thing and never (knowing) what I did before,” Courtney said. “Hopefully I got to speak on that a little bit in my episodes to really get people a background of where I came from and why I love doing this. Really just stuff like that.”

VIDEO: Tyler Courtney shares his thoughts on DIRT: The Last Great American Sport. 

Courtney’s also appreciative of how DIRT captures the raw emotion and intensity that typically broils on a daily basis, whether on the racetrack in the heat of combat or off the racetrack when long hours of pre-race preparation are required to stay on top of their respective games.

“This is how we make a living, right? Besides just making a living, we’re very passionate about it,” Courtney said. “We do this because we love the sport of racing. When things don’t go the way you want them to or you make mistakes you feel like you can control, it pisses you off. Some people can make fun of you for that or whatever. To me, that’s passion. Justin’s whole episode of him being made at himself is him being passionate about that, yeah. 

“I bet he never makes that mistake again because it’s now ingrained in his head to never do that again. I think it’s more passion than anger, but you can perceive how you want. It’s raw emotion of what we do on a daily basis.”

In Courtney’s featured episode is an all-access chronicling of his Kings Royal title defense at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, last July. It was a rather roller-coaster week for Courtney, which wasn’t fun for the 2021 Kings Royal champion in the moment but it makes for good content nonetheless.

“If you would have been there the year before it’s a whole different video, right? But that’s racing,” Courtney said. “You have your good nights and you have your bad nights. In my episode, you got to see highs of one night and lows of the other night. It’s a mix of everything of what you get in racing. That’s the beauty of this sport. I feel like a week like this, if you have a bad night, you can forget about it really quick and move onto the next one. It’s why we love it, man.”

Courtney hopes that with Larson’s broadening reach in NASCAR, Dirt Late Models and now INDYCAR that race fans from other forms of racing will start to take heart to grassroots racing and become followers of the sport he loves, too.

“I think it definitely has, and that’s with a guy like Kyle in there that’s going to draw the NASCAR crowd in,” Courtney said. “And maybe a little bit of INDYCAR now that Kyle’s submerging himself into that. A little bit of (Dirt) Late Model (as well). It’s just a good way to cross-pollinate the fans and hopefully create a bigger audience for grassroots racing in general.”