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Restrictions lifted! (Briefly anyway) So who will take advantage? | Daily 7-1-2024

The World of Outlaws have lifted the restrictions on their sprint car drivers... Well, at least for a week anyway. We'll dive in today to talk about what this means, and who could take advantage. Plus we'll talk PA Speedweek, Summer Nationals, a busy stretch for XR, the World of Outlaws late models and more. Let's go!

It's Monday, July 1st, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

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Jeremy Elliott with a nice breaking story this morning on his Sprint Car Unlimited YouTube channel. He reported that the World of Outlaws are lifting any restrictions for the next week, allowing platinum teams to race anywhere they want without using up any of their alloted freebies. The reason being that there have been a bunch of rainouts so far this season, and teams can race this week if they so choose, to make up for it. Jeremy cited a source from the pit area on Sunday at BAPS, and I did confirm with a series official this morning that it's true. Both the Outlaws and High Limit did not schedule races during the fourth of July week to give teams a midseason break, and the Outlaws don't race again until next Wednesday, July 10th at Beaver Dam in Wisconsin. It's an interesting decision from World Racing Group, Brian Carter and series director Carlton Reimers, but it's not something we haven't seen before. In past years, teams have been allowed to race outside of their contracted restrictions on certain occasions, and this is a response to how the season has played out. I don't know that I would expect this to be some sort of foreshadowing for next season or beyond where Outlaw teams aren't under restrictions as part of their platinum agreements, but it's nice to see the flexibility. It could open a can of worms in the future, as teams and fans might view this as some sort of precedent, but any future situations will likely be handled individually as they have been in the past. One of the major selling points for High Limit in it's first major season was the freedom available for teams, and we have seen WRG soften it's stance based on what High Limit has done. It is interesting to look down the list of top sprint car drivers and see how many starts teams have made so far this season. Jacob Allen leads all drivers with 47 appearances, while Sheldon Haudenschild and Donny Schatz are on the low end for big teams, with each having only made 31 starts. Both have yet to use a freebie. So, how many Outlaw teams will actually take advantage over the next seven days? I think a few are in play, even during a week with not many 410 options. With PA Speedweek going on, I do think you could see guys like Brock Zearfoss and Logan Schuchart make some starts. From there, the other likely opportunity is Knoxville on Saturday. I know a few Outlaw and High Limit teams are heavily considering it, as I've spoken to a few in the last couple of days. I did see here a little bit ago that Cory Eliason is going there as well. A guy like Gio Scelzi would make sense with their team based in that area. Maybe Buddy Kofoid as well. The only other races that would make sense to me are maybe the POWRi shows at Lake Ozark for some of the guys further down the list. I do think though it's highly likely several Outlaw teams won't race anyway, including David Gravel, Donny Schatz, and Sheldon Haudenschild. We are heading into a busy part of the season with a lot of money on the line, and this week is a rare reset chance that some teams will take advantage of. If you are a sprint car fan, make sure you are checking out Jeremy's content, and go watch his video today for all the details on this news.

Around the country on Sunday, there was plenty of racing going on. At River Cities, the World of Outlaws late models were back for the rescheduled Friday show. We talked a bunch about the Outlaws last week, especially around the championship battle, but I did give you three other names to watch over the weekend. They were Brian Shirley, Ryan Gustin, and Max McLaughlin. And last night it was Brian Shirley going to victory lane. He dominated at River Cities, bagging his first Outlaw win in over a year. Going into last night, Shirley had five top tens in his last seven series races, and it was definitely looking like they had turned a corner. You know that win will be a big boost to that team. As for the other two, Max McLaughlin finished third last night and now has five straight top nine finishes. And Gustin ended up fifth. Gustin had mechanical issues the race before, but did lead laps, and I think more wins are probably not far off for him either. In the championship, Brandon Sheppard did stretch away a little, thanks to his 15th top ten in 20 races. Nick Hoffman ended up 12th after getting involved in a crash, he's now 30 points back. And Bobby Pierce took another step back with another DNF because of mechanical issues. He's fallen from third to fifth in the past two races, now 182 points behind. The Outlaw teams get a few days off, with a three day weekend at Deer Creek starting on July 4th.

Although the Outlaws are off, I'd expect at least some of the teams to race in that area for the next three nights. The XR Super Series has three straight this week, starting tonight at Proctor Speedway. Tonight is $15k to win, as is tomorrow at Gondik Law. They've then got $50,000 to win on Wednesday at Ogilvie. This week will double the number of completed XR races this season from three to six, with Devin Moran currently leading the championship. It sounds like we'll see Moran, Ricky Thornton Jr., Gustin, Hudson O'Neal, and several other national level teams participate tonight. Between XR and the Outlaws, teams can race each of the next six nights in a very small geographic area. Lucas is back Friday with a trip to Ohio on tap.

At Red Hill last night, Tyler Erb completed week three of the Summer Nationals with his seventh win of the season. He topped Jason Feger and Dillon McCowan. Those three keep finding their way to the top of these results. Feger did win the week three title, so that's now two weekly championships for him. The Summer Nationls are off today, with week four beginning tomorrow at Old No. 1 Speedway in Arkansas. Trevor Neville currently leads the modified championship with two wins. Mike McKinney and Michael Long have the most victories with three each.

And at BAPS Motor Speedway, Danny Dietrich stayed hot, picking up his second PA Speedweek win in two races. He topped Anthony Macri and Kyle Reinhardt. Speedweek is back to Lincoln tonight, after their Saturday race was rained out and postponed until August. Dietrich already has a 101 point lead in the speedweek standings, with Freddie Rahmer sitting second and Chase Dietz third. Anthony Macri is seventh after issues Friday at Williams Grove. That will be a tough mountain to climb for anyone to try and beat Dietrich this week.

Alright, that's it for this edition of the Daily. Dirtrackr.com is your place for all the latest news and press releases from around the sport, plus the daily streaming schedule, the analytics section, and much more.

Hope you guys have a great Monday out there, we'll see you back here on Sunday!