DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Struggles and epic charges at Fairbury, wild incidents mar Indiana Sprint Week start | Daily 7-28-2024

A career milestone for David Gravel, Bobby Pierce's two epic comebacks, big names struggle at Fairbury, a scary one for Stevie Sussex, and much more. Let's go!

It's Sunday, July 28th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

If you missed it back on Friday, I posted a new video in the sprint car build with Zach Hampton playlist. I took the entire length of the nearly 14 hours of footage and shrank it down to eight minutes. So you can see the entire build, from bare frame to completed sprint car, in a cool time lapse. I'll link to it below if you haven't seen it. I also posted it to the DIRTRACKR Facebook and TikTok accounts as well.

Busy dirt racing weekend around the country, and we'll start with the big show, the Prairie Dirt Classic at Fairbury. I think what was most surprising leading into the main event, were all the names who didn't qualify. That included Hudson O'Neal. He had an incident with Tyler Millwood in his Friday feature, and was basically done for the rest of the event. He was a DNS in the third B last night, so they clearly had no interest in trying to drive through the field. Don't forget that car won the PDC in 2023. Bobby Pierce had mechanical issues again, and needed a provisional to start the 100 lap feature. And Jonathan Davenport, who is a past PDC winner, went out last night in a B, finishing fifth in LCS number two. He hadn't run the PDC since 2022. I definitely would not have had those three not making the main event on my bingo card. Fortunately for Pierce though, he was able to use that provisional and start 24th in the 29 car PDC finale. Brandon Sheppard led the first 20 laps from his front row starting position, but from there it was all Nick Hoffman. Hoffman, who's been great this season, drove up from eighth to take the lead on lap 21, and nearly went the distance. He seemed untouchable for much of the race. Behind him, Pierce rallied from 24th to fourth, only then to make contact with Tim McCreadie on lap 62, spin around, and go right back to the tail. And Ricky Thornton Jr. went 21st to second, and was in the mix late. I felt like he probably had the pace to challenge Hoffman driving that Rumley machine. But one too many smacks to the wall in turn four broke something in the rear suspension, and he slowed onto the frontstretch on lap 92. RTJ posted to Twitter that it was a broken jbar. He's back with Kevin Rumley later this week for the USA Nationals. Pierce though wasn't done yet, and after that spin, drove back through the field to second, and then was helped by a late caution that erased a two-plus second lead for Hoffman. From there, the battle was on, and Pierce used the high side in one and two on the final lap to drive by Hoffman to score his first career Prairie Dirt Classic win. Hoffman ended up second, and Daulton Wilson was third. Epic night for Pierce, and he clearly wasn't going to be denied after all the trouble they had through the week. 24 wins now on the season, and still a chance at this World of Outlaws championship. Sheppard still leads, but he gave up some ground after finishing 15th. Hoffman trails him by 26, and Pierce has closed to within 104 having won five straight series races going back to Deer Creek on July 6th. 18 race nights left in 2024, so there is time for Pierce. The Outlaw teams have today off, but it's a short break as they head to Wilmot on Monday, and then the USA Nationals at Cedar Lake start Thursday.

As for the other World of Outlaws series, it was a two night event at Williams Grove for the Summer Nationals. And Friday night we had a PA Posse stunner. TJ Stutts started on the front row with David Gravel, was able to roll the top side to the lead on the opening circuit, and he never looked back. Stutts led all 25 for his first career Outlaw victory, holding off the best in the business right now, and bringing the Morgan Cup back to the Grove. Posse wins have certainly not been uncommon at the Grove, but Stutts was likely not the guy you were betting on. Just six top tens in 66 previous Outlaw races going back to 2017, and the last time he led laps in a feature was during that 2017 season. Certainly a moment he won't forget, and a nice pay day as well, taking down $17 grand. Gravel settled for second, with Carson Macedo third. Last night, we ended up with a good battle between Gravel and Donny Schatz, with the two swapping the lead, before Gravel took over late. Schatz took a few looks at the Big Game 2 in the final few laps, but couldn't get a move done. So another $20,000 to Gravel, his 12th Outlaw win of the season, plus a big career milestone. Gravel now with 100 career Outlaw victories, currently sitting eighth all time. He trails Joey Saldana by five for P7 on that list. This was also six straight top two finishes in Outlaw races, which has not been good for the close points battle we had just a few weeks ago. Schatz is now 100 back after his second place result last night, while Carson Macedo is 136 back in third, and Gio Scelzi 188 behind in fourth. I said last week this was Gravel's time, and he's seized control as we get into this second half of the year. He leads all drivers in the country with 13 wins, and he's sitting on $550,000 in earnings so far. The Outlaw teams are right back to it today, with a Sunday show at Weedsport where Gravel has won three of the last four races.

For my non-wing folks, Indiana Sprint Week is off and running with the first two races complete. Logan Seavey won Friday at Lincoln Park, to make it four straight series wins. He topped Kyle Cummins and Briggs Danner. Those top two swapped last night at Kokomo, with Cummins just beating Seavey through lap traffic on the final circuit to score the win. Brady Bacon was third after leading the first 17. Seavey now 84 clear of Bacon for the championship battle, while Cummins is the early sprint week title leader. Some nasty crashes and incidents through these first two nights. We had Kale Drake leave the ballpark at Putnamville, going through a wood fence and it looked like into the parking lot. He was okay. We also had a couple of ugly ones last night at Kokomo, with CJ Leary going for a ride, and Kevin Thomas Jr. with a big one battling for the lead with Bacon. The scariest one of all though was Stevie Sussex on Friday. He pulled into the infield late with his car engulfed in flames. He got out under his own power and into the ambulance, but did suffer some significant burns. He's since been released from the hospital, and his wife shared to Facebook that he will not need surgery. That's great news. It sounds like there was maybe some sort of mechanical failure that led to the fire, and not any sort of crash or contact. Definitely ready for all of these scary fires this season to chill out. Sprint week continues today at Lawrenceburg.

In other weekend open wheel action, Tasker Phillips and Emerson Axsom won the 410 and 360 features at Knoxville. Huge fields there for both divisions in advance of the Knoxville Nationals events coming up. Rico Abreu and Tyler Courtney with strong runs in the 410 show as well. Kalib Henry and Cale Thomas were AFCS winners, Scotty Thiel and Joel Myers Jr won the IRA shows, and Ayrton Gennetten was a POWRi winner. Out in California at Santa Maria, it was a tough night for both the NARC championship contenders, as Justin Sanders bowed out of the lead with what looked like a broken steering gear and Cole Macedo crashed. Out front, we had an epic run to the finish with Justyn Cox and Chase Johnson battling for the win. Cox though tangled with the lapper of Dustin Freitas coming to the checkered and flipped. He was furious afterwards, as you could have expected. Johnson went on to the win. I have not seen updated points, but Macedo may have taken the lead back even with the crash. And in weekend midget action, Cannon McIntosh and Chase McDermand split the Xtreme series races. Cannon Mac well in control of that title right now.

Other weekend late model winners included Dale McDowell sweeping the Southern Nationals shows between North Georgia and Tazewell. Dylan Yoder and Drake Troutman split ULMS victories, Sammy Mars was a WISSOTA winner at Gondik Law, and Michael Norris was a RUSH winner at PA Motor Speedway. Hat tip as well to Mike McKinney who was crowned Modified Nationals champion at Fairbury. Also, keep an eye on Hagerstown today. Danny Dietrich is making his super late model debut there in a field that will also include Gregg Satterlee, Rick Eckert, Mason Zeigler, and more. And you can watch it live on FloRacing if you are curious.

I know there was some other news that broke over the weekend, and there are a few things to talk about, but we'll save those for tomorrow and call it good there today. Make sure to hit up the streaming schedule at dirtrackr.com/watchtonight for your other viewing options today.

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