DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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A week later, Hudson O'Neal's future is still unknown | Daily 3-21-2024
We are now exactly one week since Hudson O'Neal announced his departure from the Rocket house car, and we'll talk today about his options and what still looks like a murky future. Plus Tanner Holmes is set for his first sprint car start of 2024, what to watch this weekend, and more. Let's go!
It's Thursday, March 21st, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.
If you've been following along, episode eight of the 410 sprint car build with Zach Hampton is live today on the YouTube channel. It's engine time, as Zach shows us how to drop in a fresh piece from Speedway Engine Development. Just a handful of episodes remain in the series, which I hope you guys are enjoying. New videos in the series debut each Thursday and Sunday.
As I put the show together today, we are just a little more than now 48 hours away from the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series season getting rolling again. Just a little bit ago here, Lucas altered the weekend schedule, with Atomic moving to Sunday because of possible Friday rain showers. They also moved up the start time at Brownstown on Saturday to one hour earlier. So Saturday, Sunday now, instead of Friday, Saturday. You can see more details at lucasdirt.com. The one big question mark we still don't have answered is what the future holds for Hudson O'Neal in the wake of his departure from the Rocket house car. He's got a ride for this weekend, but beyond that, nothing is set and the rumor mill is both working hard, but also not providing much in the way of solid information. I've heard everything from certain big teams rolling out a second car, to smaller regional teams offering up their rides for O'Neal. And in asking around a bit, O'Neal himself has been really quiet about what the future may bring. He doesn't seem interested in talking with any media types, and it's hard to really blame him for that. As many super late models as there are out there, not many can just suddenly take their team on the road with a series like Lucas and compete, even with a driver like O'Neal in the seat. And a lot of the top level organizations are set, at least for right now. The good thing is though, is that O'Neal has time. After this weekend, Lucas doesn't race again for over a month, with Georgetown, Hagerstown, and Port Royal next, April 26th through the 28th. So plenty of time to judge all available options and make a decision. What's wild to me at this particular moment, especially in this current culture of TikTok and Facebook, and Instagram, and Twitter, is that Hudson O'Neal tested yesterday with the team he's going to run for this weekend, and I've not seen a single photo or video from that test show up anywhere online. And there were other teams at that track testing as well. Hat tip to those folks who were there, who could have plastered it all over social media, but chose not to. As for what the future will bring, your guess at the moment is as good as mine. I've seen the speculation about MastersBilt, and PCC, and a second SSI car, and people have shared rumors about a few different southeastern based teams. Even the Hunt the Front guys talked about offering up their backup car to O'Neal for this past weekend at Talladega. From what I understand though, I don't think anybody really knows for sure what his next deal will be. Whatever happens, I hope it's a good situation for him, and that he can continue competing at a high level. He's definitely one of the top talents in the country, and while his next deal will likely not be at the caliber of the Rocket house car, he definitely deserves a good seat. One more note, we probably won't get any sort of official confirmation on his deal for Friday and Saturday this week until the team rolls the car out of the trailer.
Before we move on, if you happen to own some Kubota equipment, make sure to check out the myKubota app. You can scan the QR code on the screen right here to get it, or you can click the links below in the video description.
Looking elsewhere this weekend, the World of Outlaws sprint cars are still in Texas, and they have two more races planned. Friday they'll be at Big O Speedway in Ennis, Texas, and Saturday they'll head to Kennedale Speedway Park. Remember that Kennedale date was previously supposed to be at Lawton Speedway in Oklahoma, but that event was moved after Lawton suffered fire damage. Gio Scelzi enters the weekend as the championship leader over David Gravel and Donny Schatz, and we have yet to have a repeat winner this season with the Outlaws. Scelzi and Schatz are the only two drivers to finish top ten in every race to this point. This will be the first official weekend for new World of Outlaws race director Doug Leonard. If you want to know more about him, jump back and check out the Monday Daily show where we talked about his new deal. He's a seasoned race director, and I doubt you'll even notice something has changed. Also a first this weekend, will be Tanner Holmes' first sprint car appearance of 2024. I know a bunch of you also follow along with his YouTube channel, and I'm a big fan of what he does. After running much of the second half of the Outlaw season last year in the Shark Racing 1T, taking over for Jacob Allen, Holmes has returned to his family's car this season and will run a sizeable 60 plus race schedule. He'll run the next three weekends with the Outlaws, before shifting to some High Limit stuff in April. And as long as the weather plays nice, I think you could overall nice sprint car fields both nights. Besides the full time Outlaws, and Holmes, I've seen names like Brenham Crouch, Chase Randall, Aaron Reutzel, and Sam Hafertepe all have plans to race.
If you want other sprint car action this week, you should have plenty of options. Williams Grove has their first Friday of the season with 410 sprint cars, and that show also includes the ULMS late models. Michael Norris won the ULMS opener last week at Pittsburgh. Lincoln and Port Royal are also both on the schedule for Saturday. Port Royal raced last week, but it was the Short Track Super Series modifieds. This will be their first 410 event of the season. And BAPS will close out the sprint car weekend in Central PA with 410s and 358s on Sunday.
In Ohio, Attica was scheduled to try again this week after having their opener last Friday night rained out, but we will have to wait yet again to see the debut of the new three inch sprint car wicker bill rule. Attica has sacked Friday and the rain date of Saturday. They will try again next week to start their 2024 season.
Out west, the NARC 410 season continues Saturday at Merced Speedway. Cole Macedo won the opener last weekend at Chico on a very difficult surface in a race that turned into a battle of attrition. The USAC/CRA non-wing cars are racing as well, but not in California. They've got a Saturday show at Cocopah Speedway in Arizona. David Gasper is the championship leader after two races, after earning his first career CRA win a week ago.
As for other late model options, the only other five figure race is Saturday at Ultimate Motorsports Park here in North Carolina. If the weather plays nice, that one is expected to draw names like Garrett Smith and Chris Ferguson.
That's it for the show this week. Keep an eye out for the next day or two, maybe we'll fire up a livestream again. It seems like you guys are digging those. Make sure you have the notifications on the YouTube channel turned out, so you can be alerted when we go live. I'll also hit the DIRTRACKR Facebook and Twitter accounts with links when we do that.
Hope you guys have a great Thursday and a great weekend out there, we'll see you back here on Sunday!