DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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If you're rooting for either side to fail, you're going to be disappointed | Daily 3-6-2024

Today I want to talk about the perception of event success for dirt races, and why things are never as bad or as good as you think they are. Plus we'll dive into a wide open NARC championship, we've got weather updates and more. Let's go!

It's Wednesday, March 6th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

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I want to start today's show off with a discussion about success. In the last few weeks we've had this insane seesaw of sentiment about some of these early season dirt races, and mostly on the sprint car side. We've gone from big car counts not seen in decades at DIRTcar Nationals and packed grandstands, to the Outlaws are going out of business because 19 sprint cars showed up to Volusia on a Monday night. And with High Limit, 50 plus at East Bay and sold out reserved seating, to 26 cars at Golden Isles and a very light Thursday grandstand with people talking about Georgia being a sprint car mistake. The haters on both sides are looking for any reason to cling to why things are bad. It really just depends on where their perceived allegiances lie. But there are some things to consider here. First, when you are running an event, yes you want a full grandstand, a full pit area, and eleventy billion people watching online. To be fair though, that only happens a few times a year. The bulk of events the rest of the season are usually dealing with varying levels of the three. And that's what we've seen the last few weeks. Yes, the dirt racing community saw light ticket sales at Golden Isles on that Thursday, but that didn't stop people from watching online. FloRacing's numbers for that Thursday were very strong, and that combined Saturday show with Lucas was the highest viewed High Limit event ever. Yes, I've seen the numbers, and they came along with a full facility on that Saturday. I know, because I was there. So things were probably not nearly as bad as some wanted to believe, and there were reasons behind the light Thursday grandstands, which we covered on a Daily show. And how about Monday at Volusia with the World of Outlaws. I was told multiple times via comments that the Outlaws cancelled Sunday because of the car count and not the weather, and I just wouldn't say that because I'm a WRG homer. Right. Now, obviously that's not true, because if it were, they would have cancelled Monday as well. You would have gotten the quote "facility is saturated, the weekend is cancelled." It's not that hard to do that. But instead, they raced Monday with the same number of sprint cars that were signed in Sunday. And you know what, it didn't matter how many cars were there. Those Volusia grandstands were filled. Even Donny Schatz mentioned in his post race interview how big the crowd was. It's clear that the weather, a Volusia track hard on engines, and racing elsewhere kept cars away, but if WRG makes money on that event placed inside Bike Week in Daytona, how do you walk away from it? I'd take some of the negative comments about car counts to make money at the ticket gates. Sucess isn't necessarily black and white. And to go a bit further on that Volusia car count, 19 versus 23 a year ago. Add in the four full time cars lost to High Limit, there's 23. Add in Kevin Newton and Justin Peck who had planned on racing, but left because of the weather, and you are beyond last year's car count. And that's without Sam Hafertepe, Zeb Wise, Brian Brown, Noah Gass, and Aaron Reutzel who were all at this event a year ago, but either raced elsewhere or took the weekend off. Are they Outlaws still going to be going out of business when they get 40+ this weekend at Kennedale? My point with all of this is there are going to be varying metrics of success on these events, there is no magic bullet, and if you are rooting for either of the sprint car sides to fail, you are going to be disappointed.

Moving on... The NARC sprint cars out west were supposed to begin their 2024 season this coming weekend at Hanford, but that event has been postponed. The weather doesn't look too bad, but photos shared to social media show that the track is still very wet after recent storms. NARC tweeted that the fairgrounds were a quote "swamp." No makeup date was announced just yet, and the season opener now shifts to March 16th at the Silver Dollar Speedway. Even though they are postponed, I wanted to dive into NARC a bit today, because they have shared a list of full timers expected for the season. This will be an interesting year for NARC in terms of the championship contenders. Dominic Scelzi won the title in 2021 and 2022, and was third in 2023. He plans on traveling a bit more in 2024, and will not return full time to the series. You'll still see him at a lot of events, just not as a regular. So that's one contender out. And 2023 champion Corey Day has moved on to national touring competition, as he is a full time High Limit driver this season in the Jason Meyers owned 14. So not only are two of the top three in the final standings out, they also accounted for 12 of 22 wins a season ago. Day had nine and Scelzi three. That means this championship will be wide open this year. Justin Sanders now has to be the defacto favorite in the Mittry 2X, as at the moment we don't expect to see him travel much outside the west coast in 2024 like he did last year. Other contenders include Bud Kaeding, who was the champion in 2017, Justyn Cox in the Bates Hamilton 42X, Chase Johnson, Dylan Bloomfield in the Vertulla 83V, Billy Aton, last year's rookie of the year Nick Parker, and Jarrett Soares. The rookie class is expected to include Dominic Gorden, Gauge Garcia, Caeden Steele, Michael Ing, and Joey Ancona. If you're a fan of sprint cars after dark, this will be an intriguing battle to follow all season long.

If you were looking forward to some USMTS modifieds this weekend, unfortunately you'll have to wait now until April to see them again. The King of America at Humboldt Speedway in Kansas has been postponed because of poor weather to April 4th through 6th. There is no racing on the USMTS calendar between now and then, so that will be your next race. After that it's a trip to Boothill Speedway in Louisiana for three days, April 11th through 13th. With four races complete in 2024, Dan Ebert has a very slight four point advantage in the championship standings over Jake Timm currently. Ebert, Jason Hughes, Jim Chisholm, and Jack Sartain have been the four race winners so far. Hughes went for a nasty tumble last Saturday night at Rocket Raceway Park, but did climb out of the car okay.

Around the other dirt racing shows this week, Sam Hafertepe Jr. and Bud Kaeding are on Winged Nation, Hunt the Front's Joshua Joiner is on with the Dirt Reporters at Dirt on Dirt, Quicktime has Justin Peck, Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks is talking photography, Hoogie's Garage has Cory Eliason, Dunewich on Dirt has Ross Bailes an Dewayne Keith, Turn 2 Terribles has JJ Loss, Across the Groove has KJ Snow, Plum Wild has Jordan Casey, and I've added a new show to the podcasts page. Check out Caution Free where you get your shows. You can find all these episodes and more at dirtrackr.com/podcasts.

Alright, that's it for the Daily show today. Make sure to stop by dirtrackr.com for all the latest news, plus the streaming schedule. And on the YouTube channel, we'll be releasing episode four of the sprint car build with Zach Hampton tomorrow, so stay tuned for that.

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