DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Tire transparency on Clay Harris night at Ocala! Plus hope for Belle-Clair Speedway | Daily 2-1-2024

You guys, we got tire selections at Ocala! We'll talk about that, plus a big night for Clay Harris, an update on the future of Belle Clair Speedway and more. Let's go!

It's Thursday, February 1st, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

I hope you were tuned into FloRacing last night for the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series feature from Ocala. Because if you were, you would have heard Michael Rigsby and James Essex talking about the tire selections for the top four starters. In the leadup to the main event, series director Rick Schwallie passed on the tire report to the announcers booth, and we heard that Hudson O'Neal and Daulton Wilson started on the Hoosier NLMT 2, while Blair Nothdurft and Clay Harris had bolted on the 3s. Those were obviously right rear tire selections. Big hat tip to Schwallie for making that happen and for James and Rigsby for sharing. Ben Shelton coming through there as well adding a little bit of context from the infield. I thought it was perfect, and added a nice wrinkle there down the stretch knowing the top two drivers were on different tires. I think if the track surface would have played a little nicer, maybe it would have played into the finish a little bit more. But either way, I hope that continues to find it's way into broadcasts this season, helping tell the stories of how these races play out. I know a lot of those guys are tuning into these shows, which I certainly appreciate, and it's badass that we can throw out a suggestion like that and have it implemented just a few days later. Love that. And to everyone who said it wasn't possible, I'll look forward to your comments today on the show.

Last night's main event was won by Hudson O'Neal from the pole. All four Lucas races so far this season have been won by O'Neal or Ricky Thornton Jr. Those two were at the top of the series all 2023, and clearly they aren't slowing down. RTJ has won 11 of the last 20 Lucas features, and O'Neal has four of those 20. Pretty wild numbers. I do think though that O'Neal's win was probably a bit overshadowed by what we saw from newcomer Clay Harris. We've talked about the Florida driver a few times here lately, because he's getting ready to be a rookie on the Hunt the Front tour this season, and he's been super respectable through this opening stretch of speedweeks. For a guy with just a handful of super late model appearances, it was impressive to see him make both features at Golden Isles against 50 car fields. And he was again in the main event on Tuesday at Ocala. But last night was something else. He qualified fourth in his group, and then beat Jonathan Davenport to win heat two. That led to a row two start for the feature, and he was leading by lap eight. I think if he stays on the bottom there before half way, maybe he ends up winning, but he jumped up, and O'Neal was able to track him back down for the top spot. With the track being so bottom dominant, and then making taking a bit of rubber there late, that was all the Rocket 1 needed. Impressive run though, leading laps and finishing second. In just a few short nights, he's gone from a guy nobody knew about, to somebody we will definitely be paying attention to on the HTF Super Dirt Series this season, and a guy that looks like he can challenge for wins.

A couple of other notes from last night. I feel like it's not officially speedweeks down south until Mark Whitener is mad at somebody. He was involved in an incident last night that we never did get to see on replay, but he was none too pleased with Tyler Erb. Lucas officials had to hold him back during the caution period. Also, on Dirt on Dirt's Drive Home, Rigsby said he thinks Ocala will get three or four race nights in 2025. So it won't be a complete takeover of the East Bay dates, but definitely a bigger presence. Looking ahead, the late model teams have a practice night at All-Tech today, with racing coming up Friday and Saturday. If you want to see early stats for the 2024 Lucas season, head over to dirtrackr.com/analytics. Every race so far is in the database, and the numbers are rolling. That will help you out with those fantasy racing picks, or if you are just curious about action so far. At this moment, 217 Lucas races are representing, that's everything back through the 2020 season.

Elsewhere this weekend, we've got Winter Freeze at Screven in Georgia. That weekend includes the $20,000 to win SCDRA show and two nights of Southern All Stars action. It sounds like they are expecting a big field of late models there, and a number of high profile drivers. We've talked about Brandon Overton, but the list also includes Tanner English, Ryan Gustin, Garrett Smith, and a lot of the top southern guys like Wil Herrington, Carson Ferguson, Ross Bailes, and more. If English goes to Screven, I guess that will be a big clue that he's not going to pursue a season out with Lucas. Friday and Saturday from Screven will be streamed on Flo. If you want more on the SCDRA portion of Winter Freeze, check out The Slider issue I sent out this morning. It features a piece on the event from Evan McRory who hosts the Dunewich on Dirt podcast. It's in your inboxes, and at dirtrackr.com/theslider.

We won't have any 410 sprint car racing until DIRTcar Nationals starts next week, but there is 360 USCS action in Florida at Hendry County this weekend. Some drivers to expect there include Wayne Johnson, Ryan Timms, and Davie Franek, among others. That one can be streamed over on Speed Sport, but it is pay-per-view and it will set you back $39.99 for a weekend pass.

Before we shut it down for the week, I wanted to give an update on the future for the shuttered Belle-Clair Speedway in Illinois. We first talked about Belle-Clair on the Daily show back in October of 2022, when it was listed for sale at a price of $2.4 million. The track itself hasn't hosted any racing since 2019, and ended up being a victim of shutdowns during covid. It had previously held races for POWRi, MARS, the MLRA, and the Summer Nationals. Later in 2022, the facility was eventually acquired in a joint deal between the city of Belleville and St. Clair County, with plans to continue operation of the fairgrounds and race track. It's been a slow process since then, with one of the final legal hurdles being cleared in June of 2023. That was when St. Clair County was made sole owner of the property, with the town of Belleville always planning on exiting the deal. Supposedly it had to be a joint deal with the city originally to make it through the legal process, I won't bore you with those details. Once that part of the process was done, the focus could then shift to a $14 million construction project to give the 22.5 acres a facelift and updates. An article in the local paper said that the county board chairman had hoped there would be racing at the track in 2024, but at this moment that seems unlikely. Just a few days ago though, Jimmy Dearing over at stlracing.com posted a rendering of what officials hope the facility will look like once the renovations are complete. The plans though according to Dearing aren't yet finalized, so we are probably looking at more time before any real work begins. Just seeing the image though makes me hopeful that sometime soon racing will return to Little Belleville.

That's it for the Daily show this week. Thanks to all of you who continue to tune in and support the show in whatever way you do so. The now complete month of January was the biggest ever in terms of show viewership. We were just shy three quarters of a million show plays for the month. For some context, it took nearly two years to start, before we reached that number for the life of the show. So what previously took 21 months to do, we are now doing in a month. We are averaging around 24,000 plays every single day, and had nearly 250,000 unique viewers in the month of January. I can not wrap my brain around that many people watching and listening. Versus January of 2023, show growth was over 200%. So a big thank you for that.

Hope you guys have a great Thursday and weekend out there, we'll see you back here on Sunday!