DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Kyle Larson's hilarious confession (sorry Brad Sweet) | Daily 2-14-2024

On the show today we'll talk High Limit at East Bay, including surprises and people not understanding the format. There's also been a development around dirt late model tire selections being public, I've got Super DIRTcar Series full timers, and a lot more. Let's go!

It's Wednesday, February 14th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

For those of you with significant others, don't forget today is Valentine's Day. You still have time to stop and grab some flowers, chocolates, and an expensive piece of jewelry. I'd feel bad if I didn't remind you. Alright, dirt racing...

After Monday rain pushed the rest of that program back, we got a Tuesday High Limit double feature at East Bay. They ran the rest of the Monday program, and then we got the full Tuesday show. In the matinee, it was all Kyle Larson out front. He went second to the win in the dash, setting him up for the feature pole. And he never relinqueshed the lead from start to finish. Both Justin Peck and Tanner Thorson kept him honest, but couldn't find a way by the Silva 57. Cole Macedo nipped Thorson right at the checkered for second, with Thorson third. Brad Sweet slipped to fourth by the end, after starting on the front row with Larson. After the race, Larson told Speed Sport with a wry smile that he was kind of glad Sweet went backwards, so that the fans wouldn't come after them saying the whole show is rigged in their favor. On a double program day like that, you always worry about the track surface, but I thought it was solid all night. It even widened out pretty fast for the day time stuff. In the night cap, we had a much messier feature, several incidents, including one right at the start. I'm not sure if Tyler Courtney spun the tires from the front row, or if Spencer Bayston got into him, or both, but the 7BC getting sideways at the green caused a big stack up that collected several cars, including fifth starting Larson. He went to the back with a flat left rear and never recovered. He was involved in two other incidents, and finished 26th, DFL. Out front, polesitter Brad Sweet led the first six laps, but Sunshine took over on lap seven and was out front the rest of the weay. Corey Day charged from sixth to second, and Sweet ended up third. Even with the cautions, I thought both features were entertaining, and the battle out front in the second show was fun. I was curious how often Brad Sweet gets beat after starting on the pole of a main event, so I jumped into the database at dirtrackr.com/analytics. Going back through 2017, the Big Cat started on the pole in 49 Outlaw races, and won 20 of them. So that's just shy 41%. He finished second in another 18, so that's about 77.5% for poles leading to first and second place finishes. He was though the only driver to finish top five in both races, and one of just four to finish top ten in both. He'll continue to have that target on his back all season. Leaving East Bay, Sweet leads the High Limit championship over Corey Day, Sunshine, Brent Marks, and Thorson. Thorson definitely coming out of the gates with more pace then I think we were prepared for. A podium, and a charge from the B-Main to 11th. We'll see if they can keep that going. Some surprising guys way down the order include Justin Peck, who had terrible luck in both features, and Cory Eliason. That RSR 8 team is looking for speed headed to Golden Isles next. Their best finish against the Outlaws at Volusia was 20th, and they were 18th and 19th yesterday.

A couple of other notes. It was interesting yesterday watching social media figure out the High Limit format in real time. People wondering why Kyle, Brad, Thorson, and Cole Macedo were not in the qualifying lineups. That was because if you finish top four in a prelim feature, you are automatically placed into heats as the four fastest qualifiers the second day. That was part of the format announcement a few weeks ago. Between this, how dash spots are handed out, and the qualifying seeding, I think it's going to take the fan base a while to get their heads wrapped around these small nuances. Also, I have absolutely no idea how Rico Abreu didn't crash with ten to go there on the backstretch. He got a monster run through one and two and made a move on the high side after Zeb Wise for second. It was pretty clear that Zeb didn't know he was outside, and Rico got squeezed and launched into the air. How that car came down on four wheels and didn't flip, I'll never know. At one point, all Rico could see through the rock screen was the track surface as his car was perpendicular to the speedway. Unfortunately the 24 was not the same after that, and ended up 17th after a last lap incident. We'll see High Limit again in eight days.

At Volusia on Tuesday, we got DIRTcar late models and a pair of USAC sprint car features, making up for the lost action on Monday. In the Tuesday main event, Carson Garrett and Kyle Cummins led laps early, but it was Logan Seavey who went ninth to lead by lap 20, and he drove on to the victory. It was his first sprint car win of 2024, and the first for the new Abacus Racing sprint car operation. He topped Cummins and and Kevin Thomas Jr. at the end. Brady Bacon was in line for a podium, which he desparately needed after a tough Ocala weekend, but tangled with a lap car with two to go and flipped. He finished 20th. In the makeup feature that followed, it was a similar story for Seavey. He raced by early leaders Chase Stockon and Bacon by lap 14, and again drove away to the win. Bacon and CJ Leary completed the podium. So we had Justin Grant go back-to-back at Ocala, then Seavey do it at Volusia. The USAC teams are headed back for Ocala this weekend, with action starting back up on Thursday. Seavey leads Leary, Grant, KTJ, and Briggs Danner in the championship standings.

In the night's DIRTcar Nationals late model feature, Bobby Pierce was in control, until a late restart with eight laps to go. He came out of four to the green flag, and immediately slowed in front of the field with an expired power plant. He tried to stay low as the 32 checked up, but it was too late and most of the field piled up behind him. Lots of damage, Hudson O'Neal went for a big ride, and Pierce done for the night. Devin Moran inherited the lead and drove on to the win, topping Ricky Thornton Jr. and Kyle Bronson. My favorite thing on the night though came courtesy of the DIRTVision broadcast, and more specifically their timing and scoring graphic. They regularly scroll through the intervals between cars, and plus minus, but there was an addition last night. On lap 11, suddenly there were everyone's tire choices. Bobby Piece on the softer two, with Devin Moran and Chris Madden in two on the harder threes. This was obviously a suggestion I made on the daily show a few weeks ago, which was also incorporated into the conversation around the Lucas races as well. This was the first time though we've seen actual broadcast graphics for it. Big kudos to DIRTVision for making this happen, hopefully we get to see it more often. It sounds like they've put togther a system to incorporate it directly into their broadcast software, which is pretty cool. I had folks tweeting at me about it, but it's great to know that the big players are listening. So my next question is, what else should we be advocating for? What other improvements can we suggest? Maybe drop me a comment if you have an idea. Also, big shoutout to all the commenters across platforms that told me this couldn't be done.

Tonight at Volusia, we'll get the regularly scheduled three-pack of late model features, plus Monday's makeup, so four total. Also, with USAC moving out, the Super DIRTcar Series takes over as the second division. I've been trying to keep a running list of who has declared as a full timer with the Super DIRTcar Series so far for 2024, so here's what I have. Right now I've got Mike Trautschold, Alex Payne, Anthony Perrego, Jack Lehner, Mike Mahaney, Matt Caprara, CG Morey, Justin Stone, Jimmy Phelps, Felix Roy, Matt Sheppard, and Mat Williamson. The championship season for the big blocks doesn't start until later in March, so there is still time for more drivers to sign on with the SDS, and from what I've heard, this list should grow. Cars will be on track tonight around 5:30PM eastern, and you can watch live on DIRTVision.

If you want to listen to some other dirt racing shows this week, Winged Nation has David Gravel, Quicktime has Paul McMahan, Dirt Track Confessions has Jillian Gravel, Hoogie's Garage has Jeff Swindell and Tanner Thorson, Dunewich on Dirt has Jeff Smith and Newman Presnell, Turn 2 Terribles has Kyle Keen, Plum Wild has Colin Bokus, and there are new episodes of the Dirt Reporters, Passing Points Down Under, the Dirt Nerds, and the Hammer Lane. To see all of these shows and episodes, head over to dirtrackr.com/podcasts.

That's it for the Daily show today. Make sure to hit the streaming schedule at dirtrackr.com/watchtonight. You do have options on this Wednesday, including more sprint car action from East Bay.

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