DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Jimmy Owens' honest mistake, and Hudson O'Neal rumors addressed | Daily 3-24-2024
High Limit grabs a title sponsor, Hudson O'Neal and Mark Richards say the rumors aren't true, EPJ falls off the tour, Jimmy Owens' team makes a mistake, and more today. Let's go!
It's Sunday, March 24th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.
We've got a bunch of stuff to get into today on this packed Daily show, including news from recent days and weekend racing, but before we do, a quick message from today's show sponsor...
Today's episode is being brought to you by Surfshark VPN. Surfshark is an app and browser extension that masks what you do online, and it does that to keep your activity safe and private. Using Surfshark, your data is encrypted, and you can easily change your IP address and location to unblock websites, access streaming platforms and content that might not be available where you are, and keep yourself secure when using public WIFI. My wife has family in Montreal up in Canada, and when we go up there, we obviously still want to watch our favorite Netflix shows, but sometimes we can't, because we are in a different country. All we have to do is fire up the Surfshark VPN, change our device location, and we can get right back to binging our favorite shows. Using Surfshark VPN, you can also get better deals when shopping online. Sometimes, those plane ticket booking websites show you different fares based on your location or device, but that's not a problem with Surfshark. Turn it on, mask your location, and get the best price on those plane tickets for the World 100 at Eldora or the Knoxville Nationals trip your planning. The best part is, right now, you can get 3 months free, and an insane 86% off when you use code DIRTRACKR at surfshark.deals/DIRTRACKR. They've even got a 30-day money back guarantee. So check it out now at surfshark.deals/DIRTRACKR.
Jumping back to last Friday, I told you guys more was coming from my friends at Kubota, and the next steps in their plan were revealed. Besides becoming the presenting sponsor of DIRTRACKR Daily, Kubota is also now the title sponsor for the High Limit sprint cars, and the presenting sponsor of FloRacing's Night in America late model series. The new look Kubota High Limit Racing series will be on display when the they return to action on April 9th at Riverside International Speedway. That $20,000 to win race is also the first of the midweek championship series. The 2024 Castrol FloRacing Night in America series presented by Kubota will debut on May 8th with the season opener at Spoon River. It's incredible that a brand like Kubota sees the value in dirt racing and it's fans and competitors and is making such a sizeable push into the space. Kubota's plans though aren't done just yet, and more exciting stuff is to come. So stay tuned for that.
Looking at the last few days around dirt racing, I'll start first with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series at Brownstown. This was the debut for Tim McCreadie in the Rocket house car, and Hudson O'Neal's ride for the weekend finally became public. He ran yesterday and will run again today with Kevin Rumley and his Longhorn chassis. O'Neal not super fast in qualifying, going 14th in his group, but a seventh to fourth run in the heat put him in the feature, and he then charged from 16th to sixth by the end. So no problem staying in step with series points leader Ricky Thornton Jr. he finished one spot ahead of him. As for McCreadie, he started inside row two, but wasn't able to stay near the front, fading to 11th at the end. He now sits P8 in the Lucas standings. Around this Rocket story, I do want to point out as well, we've now had both Hudson O'Neal and Mark Richards refute the wild social media rumors that have been underlying this situation. In a story at Dirt on Dirt, Richards told Kevin Kovac quote "Hudson O'Neal is one of the most respectable young men that I have ever worked with, and all the rumors out there that social media has blasted off with are totally untrue" unquote. In last night's feature, it was a fun battle out front. We had five lead changes among three drivers, with Brandon Sheppard out front early, and then Devin Moran and Bobby Pierce fighting it out down the stretch. Moran got the lead for good with 13 to go when Pierce got into the back of lapper Tony Jackson Jr. Surprisingly, it was Moran's first Lucas victory since last July at Deer Creek. Headed to Atomic today, Moran now has that fourth and final chase spot in hand. With a bit of a crinkled nose, Pierce finished second, with Mike Marlar third. Hat tip to Max Blair as well on a 14th to fourth charge. Action today at Atomic gets rolling at 5PM eastern with hot laps.
Two other Lucas notes for you. One driver who was not in attendance last night was Earl Pearson Jr. Back on Friday, he announced via a Facebook post that the 46 team, in partnership with Jason Rauen, was dropping off the Lucas tour. Through the first 13 races of the season down south, Pearson had just one top ten, at Ocala on January 30th, and an average feature finish of 17th. He was way down in 18th in the standings following the second Golden Isles weekend. They cited a lack of crew help and the location of the shop as reasons. A reworked schedule for 2024 will be released at a later date.
Also, after the Koehler Motorsports team appeared to commit to Lucas full time with driver Jimmy Owens and the quote "drive for five," those plans might be over before they really even got started. Owens missed the feature transfer in a B last night, and did not have a provisional available. The reason? Well according to a story from Kyle McFadden, the team never submitted their $3500 loyalty deposit to the Lucas series. In order to have that full time status, that deposit has to be submitted before the season opener. The money is then returned to teams who have perfect attendance through the Show-Me 100 weekend in May. So now, because of what Owens called an honest mistake, their 2024 status is back in question. Missing the feature dropped the 20 team from seventh to ninth in the standings. We'll have to wait and see what they do now, try and stick it out on tour, or go back to a pick and choose deal.
With the World of Outlaws sprint cars last night, the event suffered a significant delay because of lighting issues at Kennedale Speedway Park. But the situation was eventually resolved and racing did get completed, if not a little late. This was as well, after racing on Friday at Big O Speedway was cancelled. Significant rain the day before left the facility too wet to race. I don't know if you saw or not, but how about Bill Rose going third quick in his qualifying group, and then outdueling David Gravel for the win in heat race one. It was a dash appearance, and Rose's first Outlaw heat win since 2013. He eventually got caught up in an incident in the feature and finished 15th. In that main event, Carson Macedo took advantage of the pole, and led all 35 laps to score his first win of the season, and first since Devil's Bowl last October. Things did get exciting late, with Aaron Reutzel making a late charge, along with David Gravel. Macedo was able to hold them off, and those two joined him on the podium. Headed into next weekend, we've now got a tie atop the championship standings. Gravel has pulled even with Gio Scelzi, who went 20th to 10th last night. Donny Schatz, Logan Schuchart, and Macedo are the rest of the top five. Stops at Thunderbird Speedway and 81 Speedway are up next.
In Central Pennsylvania, just the Friday night show at Williams Grove got completed. Freddie Rahmer your winner there. Both Port Royal and Lincoln were rained out on Saturday. The 410 sprint car teams will be at BAPS Motor Speedway today. The NARC sprint cars were also rained out in California, losing the race at Merced. They'll be back April 6th at Stockton.
Other weekend winners included Dale Howard with the USCS, Charles Davis Jr. won a rain shortened USAC CRA show at Cocopah, Seth Bergman won with the ASCS Sooner Region at Creek County, and Steven Snyder Jr. picked up $10,000 in the KKM Challenge micro show at Plaza Park.
That's it for the daily show today. You can check out the streaming schedule over at dirtrackr.com/watchtonight, and grab a new DIRTRACKR sticker at shop.dirtrackr.com.
Hope you guys have a great Sunday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!