DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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The best home field advantage in dirt racing | Daily 5-27-2024
Port Royal just might be out of beer today, and plenty more from the Weikert, plus which track has the biggest home field advantage in dirt racing? I've got some numbers, and it might surprise you. Let's go!
It's Monday, May 27th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.
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A bunch of stuff to talk about today around the Weikert at Port Royal for the Kubota High Limit sprint cars. Danny Dietrich your winner over Tyler Courtney and Rico Abreu. Easily the biggest win of Dietrich's career, and the most lucrative. It was $76,500, which included the prize money and the dice roll split. Hopefully Dietrich and the boys' hangovers aren't too bad today, because you know that squad was going to knock down some beer afterwards. Great racing over the second half with Sunshine leading laps, Dietrich then in there late, plus Anthony Macri and Rico in the mix. Two late cautions both looked like they could flip things, with Courtney nearly taking advantage. He had a slider into a three for the lead coming to the checkered, but a final yellow for a slowing Devon Borden put Dietrich out front for good. It was back to back for Dietrich, as he also won the Friday show at Williams Grove. He's jumped way up the list in season earnings, and only Brad Sweet, David Gravel, and Courtney have won more than him to this point. The 7BC finishing second, and Brad Sweet a non factor down in 18th, means we've had a change atop the High Limit standings. Courtney leads by one single point headed to Grandview on Tuesday. Courtney, Sweet, Brent Marks, Corey Day, Rico hold the five charter spots at the moment. We ended up with those three Outlaw drivers in the field using one of their four freebies. David Gravel was the highest finisher in seventh, made $7000 for the Sunday trip. Logan Schuchart was 10th, he got $3200, and Brock Zearfoss 15th, he got $2500. All three of those teams will be super trucking back to Fremont, Ohio today. If I remember correctly, the only other Outlaw drivers to use freebies this season was Landon Crawley at Riverside, and Buddy Kofoid at Kokomo. The next likely High Limit races for Outlaw drivers are Eagle on June 11th. That one will likely draw a bunch more than just three. And then teams will use two for the early nights at Eldora during Kings Royal week. Today is an off day, and then High Limit is back to it Tuesday at Grandview for $20,000 to win. I saw some were wondering if any teams would go to Fremont tonight, and while I do think it's possible, I don't know that I'd hold my breath for many, if any, High Limit teams to make that drive. Five and a half from Port to Fremont, and then basically seven back the other direction to Grandview.
A few other notes. I liked the onboard cameras that FloRacing was messing with last night. During the feature we saw them on James McFadden and Brad Sweet's cars. I think they had two each, one pointing at the right front, and another inside the cage pointing down at the driver. Obviously not a new invention by any stretch of the imagination, but not something we've seen a ton with the dirt racing streaming services. Live onboards add a not insignificant level of complexity to a broadcast and the necessary technical equipment. It would be cool if we were potentially headed in the direction like we see with Formula 1. A subscription to their streaming plan gets you access to onboards for every team. Being able to pick your favorite driver, and maybe double box their onboard with the main feed for a feature would be a great addition.
The other thing I wanted to get into today was the opportunity that Port Royal provides racers up against the big players in sprint car racing. I looked around a bunch this morning, and I don't believe there is a bigger equalizer in the game right now than Port Royal. The super power for the travelers, is the ability to just be fast anywhere. If you look through results for most race tracks the Outlaws visit, for example, it's almost all Outlaw winners. But not at Port. Maybe the drivers would have a better explanation as to why, but the main full time guys just don't come into Port and dominate, and that's with any series. I was trying to think about what other tracks that was true for, and the only other two I could come up with were maybe Haubstadt and Williams Grove. But the numbers are actually surprising. We've seen Brady Bacon, Carson Short, and others win at Haubstadt, but the Outlaws have still won nearly 50% of the races there back to 2017. The same is true at the Grove, it's up near 53% there. At Port Royal though, the Outlaws are only three for 12 since 2017, which is 25%. And just for argument's sake, I looked at the All Star races at Port as well. They fared even worse. In 24 Port All Star features from 2019 through 2023, series regulars won just three times. That's 12.5% percent. It's not California, or the midwest, or a track in Ohio. It's Port Royal that provides the biggest home court advantage in dirt racing, and it shouldn't be surprising that Danny Dietrich won last night. It seems as though big half mile race tracks like that usually favor the bigger teams because of engines and all the trick go fast stuff, but the Speed Palace doesn't seem to care about any of that.
Looking at other winners from Sunday, Mat Williamson won the Heroes Remembered 100 at Weedsport with the Super DIRTcar Series. He topped Peter Britten and Stewart Friesen for the $7500. Britten actually the championship leader through two races. Today's SDS race at Thunder Mountain has been postponed because of weather.
In late model racing, Josh Putnam was a Spring Nationals winner at Duck River. He bagged $10 grand while Donald McIntosh was crowned series champion over Pearson Lee Williams and Christian Hanger. The Spring Nationals have three races left on the schedule, but they are all non-points events. And at Fayetteville Motor Speedway, Ryan Gustin was a $10,000 winner.
Up at Huset's, it was an impressive win for Daison Pursley during their Sunday weekly program. From what I could find, just six previous winged sprint car starts for Pursley before yesterday. He's much more known on the non-wing side. He ran 11th on Saturday night at Knoxville, and then led every lap last night to score his first career winged 410 win. It wasn't a soft field there either, he had to hold off Kerry Madsen to get it done, and names like Tim Kaeding, Garet Williamson, Aaron Reutzel, Austin McCarl, Chase Randall, and many more were in that feature. Pursley drove this weekend in Brandon Ikenberry's Deuce 5 machine. Huset's will do it all over again tonight.
Looking elsewhere tonight, as I briefly mentioned earlier, the World of Outlaws will be at Fremont Speedway in Ohio. This will be the first Outlaw trip to Fremont since 2016. Chad Kemenah the winner that night over Donny Schatz and David Gravel. We talked about the tight points battle on yesterday's show, and I'd expect a solid field of cars with all of the Ohio teams that can participate. $12,000 to win, hot laps set for 6:30 PM eastern.
You do have other options as well on this Memorial Day Monday, so make sure to hit up the streaming schedule over at dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
Hope you guys have a great and safe holiday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!