DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Did Paul Silva figure something out with Kyle Larson's sprint car? | Daily 8-6-2024

Kyle Larson does it again, another sprint car team makes a late change right before the Knoxville Nationals start, and what exactly does Paul Silva have up his sleeve right now? We'll discuss. Let's go!

It's Tuesday, August 6th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

Today's episode of the Daily is being supported by Jeremy Elliott's Sprintcarunlimited.com. If you are a sprint car fan and are looking for in-depth coverage, breaking news, driver interviews and videos, and more, hit up sprintcarunlimited.com. I'm going on year four or five I think, as a paid member of Jeremy's site, and I'm there multiple times a week reading his stories and commentary. I particularly like the weekly Top 50 he does, sharing a bunch of news and notes from around the country. Jeremy is on-site in Knoxville all week as we speak covering everything Knoxville Nationals, and is one of a very few deep into sprint car reporting. A membership to sprintcarunlimited.com is usually $35 for the year, which is already not much. That's less than $3 a month. But through the Nationals he's running a 20% off special, where you can get a full year for just $28. Use code SCUMOM2024 at checkout to take advantage. That's SCUMOM2024 for 20% off. Don't forget as well to go subscribe to his Sprint Car Unlimited YouTube channel. He does a daily sprint car show, plus weekly longform interviews, and right now you can go watch chats with Kyle Larson and Corey Day from last night, and pit walks from Knoxville and Osky. All for free. Thanks to Jeremy for his support of the Daily and his contributions to sprint car racing.

Alright, jumping into today's show. The Front Row Challenge went down at Oskaloosa last night, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little disappointed with the car count. $21,000 to win, a ton of bonus money and giveaways available, and only 24 cars signed in. Under normal circumstances, maybe I wouldn't think it was a big deal, but knowing there are something like 100 410s parked 26 miles away, that's tough to swallow. I know a bunch of teams want to save their stuff, not take risks before the biggest sprint car week of the year, and I'm not trying to spend other people's money, but man. I'm disappointed for the McCarls. Anyways, I digress. Even though they had 24, there was some serious quality in the field. PPM and Corey Day led the feature to the green after taking the top two spots in the foot race, which they run instead of a dash or a redraw. Day was quickly in control, with action hot behind him. Kyle Larson started 13th, but was second by half way, and then the battle was on between he and Day for the victory. Yung Money took the lead after a lap 17 restart, and Day did everything he could to try and win. There was even a wild moment where both drivers had to climb the cushion to miss the spun car of Danny Dietrich. That could have been absolute disaster. Down the stretch though, Day had one too many bumps with the cushion and the 57 got away. It was event win number four for Larson, and he took down the $21 grand. Day ended up second with Carson Macedo third. Larson has now won his last three sprint car starts, going from B-Main, to 21st to the victory Friday at Pevely, 12th to the win in the Ironman 55, and 13th to the win last night. Don't tell me there's no passing in sprint car racing. I do think it could be an issue if Larson and Paul Silva can't find a way to qualify better come Thursday, but maybe it doesn't matter. Tuesday around the area is quiet for sprint cars. You do have outlaw karts again at English Creek tonight, and the Nationals kick-off party starting at 5PM. I said yesterday it's at the race track. That is incorrect. It's actually in the downtown square. Prelim action starts on Wednesday.

Sticking with Larson and Silva, I've had a number of friends send me photos of the 57 over the last few days pointing out the interesting exhaust header configuration they are running. Normally, you see the header pipes pointing straight back towards the rear axle on these cars, but Silva has made a change in recent days, so that now the ends of the pipes are pointing up and outwards away from the car. This photo is from Osky last night, and it shows the muffler installed. We saw this same setup at Pevely over the weekend, but with no mufflers, which you can see in this image from DIRTVision of victory lane. And if you are curious, this isn't something we saw Silva have on the 57 previously. The car ran with mufflers at Attica for the Brad Doty Classic, in the straight back configuration. And this photo is from the Kings Royal week at Eldora, no mufflers, and straight back pipes. So what exactly is Silva doing here, well, I couldn't exactly get a 100% consensus. I messaged a bunch of sprint car friends yesterday, people way smarter than me on this, and got a few different possible explanations. The closest thing I could get to a consensus was that Silva is trying to control heat off the pipes. Those pipes and the mufflers create a significant amount of heat, and that can affect both the tires and the rear suspension components, like the shocks and arms and such. Some other potential answers were to keep some of the fumes away from Larson inside the car, and some drag racers turn pipes up like that in hopes that they gain traction. The force of the exhaust out of the pipes is actually pushing the car down further, at least that's the idea anyway. My favorite explanation though, and this feels like it would be totally on-brand for Paul Silva, is that he's doing it just to give something for people to look at and talk about and focus on, like a distraction. Everyone will be focused on the pipes, while he's actually doing something else to find some speed. This is a classic racer thing to do, especially for inspection. Let the officials find this smaller thing, so they don't notice the big thing you're actually doing. I'm not saying that's what's happening here definitively with Silva, but it's the most entertaining possibility. Whatever Silva has figured out though in recent days since the Kings Royal, it's clearly paying off. Larson went from missing the show at Eldora, to now three straight wins. Feel free to drop your thoughts in the comment section below, and thanks for coming along on this week's DIRTRACKR sprint car conspiracy tech minute.

One sprint car news item that came out of Knoxville late last night, is that Kelby Watt is out of the Bill Rose six car mere days before their prelim night Thursday. Watt had been filling in for Rose, since he was injured in a heat race crash at Fremont back in May. In what I believe is 13 Outlaw appearances since then, Watt had made 10 main events, with a best finish of 12th, that came this last Friday at Pevely. The team had signed in for the Capitani Classic on Sunday, but they never appeared on track. In Watt's place, the team announced that Robbie Price will pilot the six car for the Knoxville Nationals. Price has been running out west all season after departing the Sides Motorsports car at the end of 2023. He's got a 360 win at Skagit, and a NARC 410 victory at Willamette. In response, Watt will return to his family owned 1K for the Nationals, with a sponsorship announcement coming soon. It sounds as well like Watt has something potentially lined up for after the Nationals, so we'll stay tuned on that. Both Watt and Price were in the Nationals C-Main in 2023.

If you are looking for dirt racing action today, you do have some options. The Short Track Super Series is at Mohawk tonight for $10,000 to win. This is a north region show, with Stewart Friesen leading that championship. Mat Williamson holds a small three point lead over Matt Sheppard in the overall battle. After tonight, they'll be right back to it on Wednesday at Cornwall. You can watch this one live on FloRacing. There is also some IMCA and regional action, plus XR's Northern Storm at Ogilvie. To see all of your potential choices, head over to dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.

That's it for the daily today. Hope you guys have a great Tuesday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!