DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

Dirt racing news, results, discussion, analytics. Sprint cars, late models, modifieds, you name it. From national series, to top local shows. Brought to you five days a week. Email the show at info@dirtrackr.com.

Teammates... But not really | Daily 4-3-2024

Coming up, Logan Seavey gets laps in his new late model ride, James McFadden is back in the states and ready to race, and did you know that being teammates often doesn't really mean anything? Let's go!

It's Wednesday, April 3rd, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

The month of April is here and that means the $20,000 to win Weldon Sterner Memorial presented by Chuck's Auto Parts Solutions at Lincoln Speedway is right around the corner. The 20th anniversary race was originally scheduled for the 2023 racing season but Mother Nature had other plans. Now, the April 20th race is set to be the first big paying race of the season in Central PA. This event is loaded with giveaways for fans including filled tote bags for the first 1,000 fans - 500 will be available at each general admission gate, a football toss with cash prizes, t-shirt toss, a pre-race fan zone event and more! In addition to the $20,000 winner's share, drivers in both the 410 and 358 sprint divisions will be competing for an increased purse that is spread throughout the field along with additional contingency prizes. It's a no brainer if you're a race fan or race team to be at Lincoln Speedway on April 20th! For more info, check out lincolnspeedway.com. Big thanks to the folks at Lincoln for their support of the show.

After a six week break in between races, the Kubota High Limit sprint cars are back to racing next Tuesday night at Riverside International Speedway. And one driver who's been missing through the first four races that will finally debut is James McFadden. His visa issues and traveling to the US from Australia kept him from the first four High Limit races, between East Bay and Golden Isles. I'd heard a few days ago that everything was finally worked out, and Roth Motorsports shared yesterday that McFadden will be in action this coming weekend. The plan is to race with the World of Outlaws at US36 and Arrowhead before starting his High Limit season on Tuesday. While McFadden was away, Dominic Scelzi filled the seat of the 83 to keep the team in the owners championship fight, which is what matters for the charter situation at year's end. Scelzi finished 12th and 13th at East Bay, and 13th and 14th at Golden Isles. The 83 is 14th in the standings at the moment, 41 points out of the fifth and final charter position, which Corey Day holds. Missing four races will be too large of a hole for McFadden to dig out of for the drivers championship, but they do still very much have a chance on the owners side. As we've talked about though, this will all be contingent on the Toyota sprint car engine being reliable enough for these guys to start building some consistency. Buddy Kofoid in the other Roth car had problems early at Volusia, but has been better as of late with four straight Outlaw top tens. McFadden will be jumping into a hyper competitive High Limit field that's seen three winners in four races, and the top 12 in the standings all separated by just 63 points.

An interesting side note here about Roth Motorsports, do you know they operate their two sprint car teams almost completely separately? Brent Ventura keeps McFadden's car in the Indianapolis area, actually in Brownsburg, while Kofoid's 83 is housed in Knoxville with crew chief Dylan Buswell. This was the case previously, with the Roth car at one point being kept at Kasey Kahne Racing in North Carolina, while the 83JR was in California. But pretty crazy to see both cars on a national schedule now, but kept apart. In other forms of motorsports, team cars are often tied very closely together. That's what I was used to with NASCAR. But it's not uncommon for sprint car teams with multiple cars to operate in this way, with different shops and different equipment. I've been told that one such top multi-car team at the moment utilizes very different chassis between their two cars. On some level that makes a bunch of sense, with driver preferences, but you'd also think they'd want to share information. But clearly that wouldn't be possible with varying equipment. What would work for one car, wouldn't necessarily work for the other. I've also heard of examples where two teams under one banner basically refused to share information between the two sides because of the competition aspect. At the end of the day, that teammate is just another car to beat when the racing starts.

Jumping to Logan Seavey, and his upcoming dirt late model schedule. We talked late in February about Seavey getting an opportunity to run some super late model shows in 2024, with potentially 12 or 15 races possible. Seavey will be driving a Longhorn with Clements power owned by Chris Bragg with heavy support from Vinny Guliani. The plan is to debut Seavey in the car with the FloRacing Night in America Series at Spoon River on May 8th, with follow up races at Lincoln on May 9th, and Brownstown on May 13th. The plan all along was to test Seavey in the car in early April, and that happened this week at Rocket Raceway Park. Guliani posted a few photos and a video from the test, and Seavey looked pretty comfortable. I timed the one lap at about 13.7, which is very reasonable for Rocket Raceway Park. This isn't Seavey's first time in a dirt late model, if you might remember back to a few years ago, he got to test the Rocket house car at Farmer City after striking up a friendship with Mark Richards during covid. With Seavey's talent, and Guliani's knowledge, I would expect that it won't take long for this new combination to get up to speed. This run of late model races will be in addition to a nearly 100 race USAC schedule already set for Seavey, and there is talk of some winged sprint car races as well, between potentially as many as three different teams. As I mentioned before, it would not be outside the realm of possibility for Seavey to run near 150 races in 2024.

In some schedule news this week, the Jim Hurtubise Classic at Terre Haute, originally slated for Friday, has been cancelled because of weather. USAC says the grounds are already saturated and frigid temperatures are forecasted. So with Terre Haute cancelled, the weekend ahead will just include a stop at Red Hill on Saturday for the USAC National Sprint Cars. With six races complete so far in 2024, Logan Seavey is the championship leader over CJ Leary and Kevin Thomas Jr.

If you want some more dirt racing content this week, might I point you towards the other various podcasts out there. Winged Nation has Bryce Lucius and Brad Sweet, Quicktime has Justin Henderson, Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks has Troy Morris, Hoogie's Garage has Devon Borden and Kyle Moody, Across the Groove has Larry Antaya, Plum Wild has Matt Selby, Getting up to Speed has Gauge Garcia, and there are new episodes of the Dirt Reporters, Dirt Track Confessions, Turn 2 Terribles, Racing Roundup, and the Driver's Project. To see a full listing of all the dirt racing podcasts and their most recent episodes, head over to dirtrackr.com/podcasts.

That's it for the Daily show today. If you don't already, make sure to hit up dirtrackr.com/theslider and sign up for our free email newsletter. It goes out periodically with pieces from writers that aren't me. I started it up to highlight others who are creating content in the sport and use my platform to help elevate them. I'd say you guys hear from me plenty. In the past that's included some well known names like Matt Weaver and Pat Sullivan, plus some new and emerging voices like Spence Smithback, Jacob Hord, and Jordan Wilman. Sign up free to get those delivered right to your email inbox, and at dirtrackr.com/theslider you can also view all of the past issues.

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