Scott Bloomquist and Cody Sommer are still partners in the operation of Scott Bloomquist Racing. Several starts remain on their 2021 schedule, including this weekend’s NGK NTK World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte in Concord, N.C., with the Hall of Fame driver racing alongside open-wheel modified ace Nick Hoffman in a two-car effort.

But the end of their three-year business relationship is at hand. On the final day of September, they announced their decision to part ways “cordially and mutually” at the conclusion of the season, and Sommer, an industry executive and entrepreneur, will officially depart his role as SBR’s president following Dec. 2-4’s Castrol Gateway Dirt Nationals at the Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis, Mo. — an event founded and promoted by Sommer.

“I guess I won’t be part of the rock band,” Sommer joked of leaving Bloomquist’s team. “I’m not gonna be a roadie anymore.”

Sommer, 34, certainly had a whirlwind three seasons on and off the track with the soon-to-be 58-year-old Bloomquist. It was April 2019 when the duo finalized a deal bringing Sommer aboard as president and part-owner of Mooresburg, Tenn.-based SBR — after Bloomquist had, months earlier, half-kiddingly suggested to Sommer, “I need to get you to manage my ass” — and there was rarely a dull moment for them in the years to come. Together they went through highs and lows, trials and tribulations, joy and pain, and Sommer found himself doing things he never anticipated.

“I’ve definitely experienced a lot of great things, but I’ve experienced a lot of bad things too. It’s been across the board,” Sommer said. “I mean, the biggest takeaway that I have from all of this, I came into this solely as a businessman at first. I had those roles and responsibilities, and to this day I’ve done those and maintained those. But the way my mentality works, I don’t just stop there. If the business needs me, I’m gonna be there for it. I never thought I’d be a chassis builder, but by golly, I became one last year (with SBR’s Team Zero chassis business) because we needed it, and those are the cars we’re racing today.

“Just me kind of talking to myself in the mirror, it’s a little insane to think about the educational curve and the variety of experiences that have happened. It’s just hard to fathom.

“And just when everybody started to get comfortable with me being a roadie,” he continued, his voice trailing off for a second as he alluded to how he also became a wrench-turner in the pits. “You know, at first, they were like, ‘He’s working on the cars, and he’s underneath ‘em, he’s getting his hands dirty. I thought this was a business guy.’ You see me doing the business stuff, too, and then finally everybody starts to get comfortable with me being a grease monkey and then here we go … we switch it up.”

Both Bloomquist and Sommer emphasize there was no heated argument or falling out that prompted their upcoming split. It truly was a mutual decision and they remain friends, as evidenced by how they’re finishing out the 2021 season rather than cutting ties immediately.

“I’m a part owner with him in the team, and the way it legally is structured and works, he couldn’t just come to me and say, ‘I want to close, I want to cancel this agreement,’ just like I can’t just go to him and do the same thing,” Sommer explained. “The only way that you can close the company is a dissolution, a bankruptcy, close-the doors, that type of deal … but even then, only the managing member can make that decision, which is me, meaning I can go to him and say, ‘We can’t pay the light bill, so legally we have to close our doors and this is over.’

“In this particular case, it’s not one of those types of things. This is purely a matter of, 'Do we want to be out of the deal?' As long as we can agree to be out of the deal, then we can do that. If you can not agree, unless someone is doing something wrong, there’s really no way you can do it. It’s kind of like a marriage — it’s like an uncontested divorce, or a contested divorce. Contested ones are ugly and people disagree and it takes a long time and nobody ends up happy, but uncontested ones, they’re pretty seamless and painless, and in this case … I don’t like to use the word ‘divorce’ with us because that’s not the case here, but like we said (in the press release), if we ever got to a point where we maybe didn’t envision it with the same mindset anymore, or didn’t have the same idea of how it should be done or whatever, then we would just separate.

“Obviously this isn’t the first time (for a disagreement), right?” he added. “I mean, if it was just one little thing, it’s like, ‘OK, get over it, work it out.’ We’ve been there, we’ve done that, we’ve overcome a lot of things together, and I’ve moved on certain things and he’s moved on certain things, and I haven’t on certain things and he hasn’t, and all in all, we always made it work. But obviously, when we sat down (in late September), we made a decision that we didn’t need to keep doing it.”

Bloomquist said in the press release revealing the split that he wants “to get back to what I am comfortable with and how I always did things before.” That’s a thought process Sommer fully comprehends.

“I think he legitimately … let’s face it, he’s not Mr. Corporate. He’s not,” Sommer said. “He’s a hard-core racer who’s done it the way he’s done it for a long time, and I understand that and I can respect that and I get it. And I, of course, have a little bit different wiring and I like to do it a certain way, and we have, and sometimes you get to the point where you just … again, I don’t want to point the finger at either one of us saying, ‘They don’t want to keep doing this,’ but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if it was one of us wanting out and not the other. It wouldn’t matter to either one of us because we wouldn’t want to be partners with someone who didn’t want to be a partner back.

“So it really doesn’t matter who felt a certain way first, or who felt a certain way now. At the end of the day, if you’re mature, and you do have respect for each other, you can kind of look at the situation as a little bit of an it-is-what-it-is type of thing. Obviously, neither one of us wanted this. I mean, I’ve moved my family here (to Tennessee). I’ve dedicated 90 percent of my workload to this business, and 90 percent of what I do … obviously it’s not what I wanted to have happen, but I’m also mature enough to accept that we’re in different places on the way that we envision it being done down the road.

“Who knows?” he continued. “Maybe over time, more clarity will present itself. Maybe not. We rarely argued, so this isn’t about fighting. It’s just more about vision and a desire to do it a different way, and if we can’t agree on it I think you have a tough choice to make and we made it.”

Bloomquist admitted that one of the scenarios that he and Sommer discussed for the future of SBR was hiring Hoffman, the 29-year-old standout from Mooresville, N.C., who served as a sub in the No. 0’s seat after Bloomquist experienced right leg and foot issues in late July related to his January 2020 hip replacement and remained with the team for selected events after Bloomquist’s return in September. But Bloomquist asserted that he wants to remain the team’s primary driver.

“(Sommer) was leaning a little more towards we needed to run Nick all the time and me run less,” Bloomquist said. “It was great working with Nick, but I didn’t want the focus to get turned too much away from myself. Basically, I’m not anywhere near ready to quit racing, let alone back off a tremendous amount. And I wasn’t quite ready to entertain the idea of having another driver basically replace me and me just run a limited schedule.”

Bloomquist, of course, has spent the entirety of his three seasons partnered with Sommer battling the effects of the serious right hip and leg injuries he suffered in a March 2019 motorcycle accident in Daytona Beach, Fla. He was sidelined three months in ’19 before returning to the cockpit in mid-June; after racing in pain throughout the remaining months of that campaign, he underwent hip-replacement surgery in January 2020, was back racing a month later and since then has periodically experienced numbness in his leg and foot that has hampered his performance.

SBR has enjoyed success during Sommer’s stint as president, but the biggest hits came with Chris Madden of Gray Court, S.C., behind the wheel as Bloomquist’s teammate from July 2019 through June 2020. Madden enjoyed a spectacular hot streak during the summer of ’19 with consecutive crown jewel victories in the USA Nationals, North-South 100 and Topless 100 over three weekends; Bloomquist, meanwhile, won a modest three times in ’19 (a pair of $5,000 Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series events at Batesville Motor Speedway in Locust Grove, Ark., and Ohio’s Mansfield Motor Speedway and a $15,000 score at Georgia’s Cochran Motor Speedway), just once in ’20 (a $10,000 World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series triumph on Sept. 25 at Thunder Mountain Speedway in Knox Dale, Pa.) and is winless this season.

When Sommer looks back at his time with SBR, he can’t help but wonder: What if? Sommer reached a handshake agreement to partner with Bloomquist as the calendar flipped to 2019 and Bloomquist “had just got done winning (at) the World Finals like a month-and-a-half prior.” Bloomquist’s 2018 season boasted 12 victories overall, including the $30,000 Show-Me 100 at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo., and the $100,000 Dream at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, and in January ’19 he was cruising toward a victory in the Wild West Shootout finale at FK Rod Ends Arizona Speedway outside Phoenix until a last-lap tangle with a crashed lapped car ended his bid.

“So when you approach that (2019 season), you just go, ‘Man, these two people coming together, it’s going to be insane what they’re going to accomplish, right?’ ” Sommer recalled. “Who would’ve thought any different at that moment? And then, boom! You’re hit with something you could’ve never even predicted or expected or anticipated … he gets in a motorcycle accident.”

Sommer still “jumped in the fire both feet with him” by finalizing his ownership stake in SBR while Bloomquist was recovering from injuries serious enough that “we didn’t even know if he was gonna race ever again.” The determined Bloomquist made it back — perhaps even faster than anyone might have thought — but there’s no doubt the accident cast a pall on the Bloomquist-Sommer pairing.

“Let’s face it, it still does today, three years later,” Sommer said. “He just had to get out of the car at I-80 (Speedway in Greenwood, Neb., in late July) because he was having issues still dealing with (his right leg and foot). He knows that. I know that.

“It’s unfortunate, because we never got to do it, start-to-finish, the way it was obviously fully intended to be done because of that injury. It just set that path a different way … which life is about adapting, I’m not saying it’s not, and we obviously have adapted. We have made decisions. Chris Madden probably doesn’t get in a car if (Bloomquist is) not hurt. Nick Hoffman doesn’t get in a car if he’s not hurt. There’s just a lot of decisions that are made.

“I’m very confident that without that injury, that very well could’ve been Scott with those wins (in 2019) and not Chris. At that point, I don’t think we really cared who it was (winning) — it was about just winning races as a team and a unit — but I guess I’m trying to point out, it’s kind of crazy to think about, if that accident didn’t happen, what other career statistics would exist today almost three years later (for Bloomquist)? Would there be another Dream? Would there be another (World 100) globe? Would there be a World of Outlaws championship? A lot of things, you just don’t know.

“He’s balancing his health and getting back, but there still are gonna be times when that (injury) is gonna creep up on him,” he added. “That’s just part of it, and he knows that, too.”

Bloomquist is intent on regaining his vintage form. He knows much hinges on his physical status, but he feels that he’s headed in the right direction after sitting out nearly two months of action this year and finding some relief to the problems he had with his leg at I-80 and again after September’s first World 100.

“After I-80, and experiencing some excessive numbness in my leg that I had my hip replacement done in, I elected to step out of the race car until I could get something done with that,” Bloomquist said. “That’s when Steve Sorbera, a chiropractor (and Bloomquist sponsor from western Pennsylvania), came and stayed with me for a week, and we worked on a number of things, stretches and stuff, and we got things where they were better.

“The biggest thing that I did see was when I went back and raced Eldora … the first World 100, my leg ended up going numb on me again. Then we worked extra hard on the seat (in the car) and made it to where my left cheek of my ass was carrying almost all the weight of my body and it relieved the right one and just supported the leg. After the second 100 laps at Eldora, I could’ve run another 100, and I had no more numbness, just a small tingling that I had had before I-80.

“I’ve had an MRI done, and I’m supposed to go see a neurologist (this month). I’ve never been completely without some tingling and numbness in my right leg, and I’m gonna pursue just seeing if they can fix it where there’s none. If just continuing the stretching and chiropractic stuff I’m doing keeps progressing and showing me that I’m improving, well, then, obviously I wouldn’t want to get surgery, but if (doctors) tell me that they can see exactly what it is and it’s not anything that concerning of a surgery and they can go in and open up where the nerves are being pinched — and that’s all it is, the nerves are being pinched coming out of my lower spine — then I’ll consider it.

“But I’m fine racing the way I am now, especially with the seat change. I’ve been on my simulator, iRacing, and feel like I’m not having any problem. I mean, I stay on that thing sometimes for hours and I was going numb on it and I’m not anymore, so I think that we’re on the right path. As far as my physical conditioning right now, I think that I’m as physically fit as I’ve ever been and more than capable in every way, other than I need to be sure that I don’t go numb during the race … and I think that we’ve got that under control.”

Bloomquist is looking towards 2022, both with his racing effort and his Team Zero chassis shop.

“I’m just ready to hit it hard and pursue just getting back into racing, even though I’m not planning on following any kind of points deal again in my career,” Bloomquist said. “I want to just focus on big events and the race car business and get back where we’re winning races.

“My relationship with (promoter) Barry (Braun), I stay in touch with him and know what he’s planning on doing with purses and races (with the XR Super Series in 2022). He’s got a big schedule, but everything he’s doing is really good money. I just think if I can focus on those and maybe some of those Flo(Racing) Night in America races … I just want to be involved in things that I don’t have to actually sign up for or commit to for a points championship. I don’t have any interest in that any more. I want to just take it week-by-week and hopefully put together sponsors for different races, like what we did this year. I think that I’ve kept some people who can help me with that and that’s gonna be the most successful path for me.

“There’s no question in my mind whether I can do it or not. Again, the confidence will be even higher if I can get rid of all the issues, but even without that, I feel like I still can operate. Really, we had a few issues happen at Eldora (in September’s second World 100 after leading early), but I thought we were gonna win that race. Even when I came in the pits and came back out, I still felt that.

“My confidence is high enough, and I know my abilities are still everything they always were. We’re gonna work on our race cars and do some testing and make sure we come out loaded for bear.

“This is what I say to people,” he added. “I’ve started over a couple of times and I know what it takes. It’s the same process. You just go through the same motions, and it’s just about work and testing and paying attention and good relationships and good help. If I do all of that, it’s not gonna be a problem.”

Sommer, meanwhile, plans to shift his concentration to his promotion of his ever-popular indoor race in St. Louis, which returns Dec. 2-4 after Covid-19 restrictions halted last year's event.

“Obviously I’m focused on that, and really beyond that it’s going to be putting a lot of focus there,” said Sommer, who plans to make the World Finals his final event working hands-on at the track with SBR. “I think the biggest thing I was wrong about prior to coming into this deal with Scott was, I was very confident that I was gonna be able to do this and manage all these other things, be able to have eight, 10, major dirt events across the country, be able to have a venue in Ohio (Mansfield), be able to have this, have that, and still do this. I was definitely wrong about that, because to operate a race team at the highest level of the sport like we do, there is no other job. I’ve spent 90 percent of my time at SBR. And trust me, I made those choices and wanted to do that. I have no regrets. None. But it is amazing how much time you have to invest in this sport to have any type of success whatsoever.

“I know in the back of my head I see opportunity doing more with the Dome. This is the first time, really ever, that, for the most part … I mean, I’ve got little business things that I’m involved with, like Dirt Draft, but they don’t take up a lot of my time, so I can focus on the Dome. And again, I love the Dome. There’s nothing like it. I will always do everything in my power to make that as successful and as big as it can be, so that, no change.”

Sommer said one thing he has “grown apart from is promoting more races,” noting that, in the wake of some bad experiences with special events he created over the past two years but ended up not running, he’s not interested in trying to be “the best politician” you can be to run those races.

“What am I gonna do next outside of SBR and the Dome?” Sommer said. “I’ve got a couple of ideas. I’m not in a position to talk about them yet, but some of them are inside motorsports and some of them are not. And I also have some more conversations to have with Scott, too. We’ve got (time) before I technically hand him the keys and say, ‘Here you go,’ in a hypothetical way anyway. I don’t need to make any rash decisions on what I’m gonna do next. I’m sure there’s gonna be rumors galore on what I’m doing, but don’t be surprised if just nothing happens.”