DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Overton says we're making sh*t up; I'm all in on a Davenport/Thornton rivalry | Daily 1-28-2024

Coming up on this Sunday show, we'll talk RTJ vs JD at Golden Isles, the future of speedweeks, more Lucas full timers, and Brandon Overton's claim that the 76 is still a Longhorn. Let's go!

It's Sunday, January 28th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

Speedweeks is off and running down south with the first Lucas weekend of the season now complete. They got two of three nights in the books at Golden Isles, with Friday's show rained out. Last Thursday night, Hudson O'Neal kicked off his title defense with a win from the pole in the opener. Jonathan Davenport did officially lead a single lap, right past half way, but other than that, it was all the Rocket 1 out front. O'Neal topped a four pack of Longhorns, with Davenport, Brandon Overton, Ricky Thornton Jr., and Brandon Sheppard completing the top five. Last night, we had some drama before the race even got going, with polesitter Garrett Smith sent to the tail under pace laps for having the wrong tire bolted on the 10 car. That promoted RTJ to the top spot, and Mike Marlar to the front row. Real quick sidenote here, I did a show last week about wanting to know the tire selections for each team for the feature, and had several commenters say it wasn't possible, or that teams hid them. Clearly they don't, and it wouldn't take much to have an official walk the lanes right before the feature and record each selection, and then pass that off to the streaming production trailer. They are already looking at this stuff, so it wouldn't take a ton of effort to make this addition to the broadcasts. Anyway, back to the feature. RTJ was quickly to the lead at the start, and things were relatively calm until around half way. Marlar tried to make a move on the 20RT for the lead, but Thornton got the elbows out to keep him behind. Those two scuffling let Davenport by for the top spot, but we weren't done there. RTJ gave JD a shot in the tail and nearly spun the 49 out, before things settled in for a few laps. Right before ten to go though, it got interesting again. Thornton got a run on Davenport into turn three and muscled him out of the lead, and then just a lap later it was Chris Madden who was able to get out front. Unfortunately for Smokey though, his move was negated by a caution for a slowing Tim McCreadie. RTJ was able to get away at the end to score the $25k win, with Madden second and Davenport third. Thornton was definitely spicy after the race in interviews, and my favorite line was quote "He's mad, but oh well" in reference to Davenport. Thornton said JD has dirtied him a bunch in the past, which I don't really remember, but I'm sorta here for this dynamic. I hope Davenport does indeed end up going full time Lucas this season, because I'm all in on a JD/RTJ rivalry. Davenport even gave Thornton an elbow on the podium post race. Drop me a comment, let me know where you stand on the action last night. Was it just a racing deal? Or was someone to blame there? Let me know.

Besides the racing, there are a few other late model notes from the weekend that I wanted to touch on. First, in his most recent show, Michael Rigsby talked about the future for speedweeks with the end of East Bay coming in 2024. He said things are still in flux at the moment, but the previously named Bubba Raceway Park, now rebranded Ocala Speedway, could play a bigger role in 2025. He said they are doing a lot of work there for the future, and racing coming up this week could be an audition. The Lucas teams have practice at Ocala on Monday, with racing set for Tuesday and Wednesday. East Bay finally closing down will leave a massive hole in the early part of the Lucas schedule, and I'm sure the series will try and fill those dates with stops at some of the other tracks.

As for series full timers, it sounds like things have expanded a bit beyond the 13 Lucas regulars we'd already talked about. Kyle McFadden had a story about Mike Marlar signing up, which is a shift away from his usual pick and choose schedule. Marlar did win the Outlaw title in 2018, and him going Lucas splits the two Skyline Motorsports cars, with Tyler Bruening signed up with the Outlaws at the moment. Rigsby commented that he thinks Davenport will go Lucas again, even though he hasn't committed publicly at this point. Some others in the mix on the fringes, include Spencer Hughes, Dillon McCowan, and Jimmy Owens. I had missed this before as well, but even though he's declared Outlaws already, Kevin Kovac mentioned a few days ago, that BShepp hasn't ruled out a switch back to Lucas either. So things will stay fluid here over the next few weeks down south on the full timers front.

And finally, before we move on, I wanted to hit on Brandon Overton. He's one we've talked about several times in recent weeks, because of his schedule plans and chassis selection. A lot of rumors and uncertainty have been hanging around this team. Kyle McFadden from Flo approached Overton late last week to set the record straight. In McFadden's piece, Overton says they aren't going full time with Lucas, which is in line with what we've been hearing, and seeing on his schedule page. As for the 76 chassis, McFadden said quote "While there are no decals explicitly identifying Overton's chassis, he said it's a Longhorn by Wells and dismissed claims that it's anything different" unquote. Overton said people have nothing better to do than to quote "make shit up", and if they had made a change, the team would say so. I also had someone close to Overton reach out to me and say they are still running Longhorns, but even so, the rumors persist. On Thursday's Dirt on Dirt Drive Home show on Facebook, Ben Shelton said the same, that Overton claims it's a Longhorn, but others aren't so sure. It is funny to me that Overton is surprised there is so much speculation about their chassis choice. But I think trying out chassis brands late in the 2023 season, combined with rampant internet chatter, and this situation where there is no Longhorn branding on the car certainly fuels the rumor mill. Those things aren't nothing. For the moment, I guess I'll try and believe Overton, that this is indeed just a Longhorn by Wells. But I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't more to this story, or more coming.

At Volusia this weekend, three entertaining nights of 360 sprint cars for the Southern Sprint Car Shootout. Thursday and Friday were similar, with Austin McCarl battling it out late with Sam Hafertepe. Thursday, Hafertepe came out on top, but Friday it was McCarl holding off the 15H right at the checkered. Saturday though, it was a different cast of characters involved at the end. Justin Peck led a ton of laps driving the Dyson 20 machine, but it was Ryan Timms, who drove up to the lead with 12 to go from fifth, who took the $10,000 win. Peck settled for second with Hafertepe third. Hopefully this was a preview of what we'll get from Volusia when the World of Outlaws sprint cars head there for DIRTcar Nationals. Volusia is quiet this week, and then DCN kicks off next Monday night, February 5th.

Before we shut it down today, I wanted to point you to the DIRTRACKR email newsletter called The Slider. I sent out a new piece in recent days from Pat Sullivan, who just continues to bring the good stuff. This newest edition featured a piece about the IRA Sprint Car Series and the difficulties of operating in this new sprint car world order. Really great insights in there from IRA bossman Steve Sinclair. You can find that piece and sign up at dirtrackr.com/theslider.

That's it for the daily show today.

Hope you guys have a great Sunday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!