DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Sammy Swindell and a sprint car unlike any other at Knoxville | Daily 8-8-2024

Knoxville favorites take a beating, who's in and who's out after night one, plus we'll talk North South 100 for Lucas, and show you guys a very interesting sprint car experiment that appeared at Knoxville on Wednesday. Let's go!

It's Thursday, August 8th, 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. Jeremy is on-site in Knoxville all week covering everything Knoxville Nationals, and has already been pumping out content. Today he's got stories about Gio Scelzi, and Jacob Allen, plus a bunch of video content. 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. Make sure as well to go subscribe to his Sprint Car Unlimited YouTube channel. He's got a daily sprint car show, weekly longform interviews, and right now you can watch reactions from both Gio and Jacob from last night, post race. And everything on his YouTube channel is free. Thanks to Jeremy for his support of the Daily show this week, go check his stuff out.

Knoxville Nationals night one in the books, and as usual, no lack of storylines to dive into. The format and the amount of cars always ends up catching some guys out, and last night it was two potential favorites. Both David Gravel and Donny Schatz are on the outside looking in, and before yesterday you may have gotten me to bet on one missing out, but not both. Gravel is right in the points range for a Saturday B-Main start, and Schatz will be back Friday to try again, as he's way down in 25th in event points. This is uncharted territory for Donny. Looking at their nights, both guys with issues, but very different problems. Gravel qualified well, but couldn't do anything in his heat race and needed last lap B-Main heroics to make the night's feature. He went 24th to 15th in the main event. Schatz though really seeming to lack pace all around. A poor qualifying lap set him back from the start, but he did win his heat race from the pole. And then he could have salvaged the night with a good feature finish, but he was only 18th after 25 laps, actually getting lapped right at the checkered. The TSR 15 squad with some significant work to do before a Friday Hard Knox appearance. There were definitely a few track prep rumblings last night, and those who went out late in qualifying appeared to be at a significant disadvantage. But that doesn't explain everything, and there were plenty of guys who went against the trend. Names like Brock Zearfoss, Kraig Kinser, Brandon Wimmer, Sam Hafertepe, and Jamie Ball all qualified after Donny, and went faster. And passing was possible in the feature, with Anthony Macri going 21st to 10th, Gravel 24th to 15th, and the night's winner came from sixth. As for the good news, based on previous seasons, we are probably looking at eight lock-ins from last night. That includes feature winner Gio Scelzi, and second place runner Jacob Allen. Jacob was impressive after not running the Nationals last year, going four to two in his heat, and leading 22 laps. And Gio looked like a man on a mission, especially late. He charged from sixth to the win, making a ballsy move between Allen and the lap car of Matt Juhl to take the lead. Gio is high point man, followed by Anthony Macri, Scott Bogucki, Corey Day, Brent Marks, Sheldon Haudenschild, Chase Randall, and Allen. I think Allen should be safe with 453 points, and then Justin Peck in ninth with 450 might be just outside. That's an interesting top eight though, with everyone but Allen and Marks back in the Saturday main event from 2023. The next five after Jacob looking at a potential Saturday B, are Peck, Juhl, Gravel, Williamson, and maybe Zearfoss. And then everyone from Reutzel in 14th on back will be back Friday. Names in that group also include Schatz, PPM, Danny Dietrich, Buddy Kofoid, and Kerry Madsen.

Looking ahead to today, another 55 cars on the pre-entry list. Highlights in tonight's field include Logan Schuchart, Tyler Courtney, Brian Brown, Rico Abreu, James McFadden, Daryn Pittman, Brad Sweet, Carson Macedo, and last year's winner Kyle Larson. Odds are that at least a few of these guys will be outside looking in come Friday and Saturday. As we talked about yesterday, those heats will again be key for the night, and the streak stays alive of no back row transfers. Jace Park got the closest, going ninth to sixth in heat five. Drop me a comment and let me know who you've got in tonight's action.

Staying with Knoxville, I wanted to point you towards a science experiment that was in the field last night. I know that some of you noticed that Sammy Swindell was in attendance, and ended up having a miserable night. No time in qualifying, didn't get to run a heat, and then was 9th in the C-Main. Their Wednesday was undone by a brand new u-joint coming apart after just three laps. I was told that one of the clips that holds the u-joint together wasn't installed properly when it was built, and just fell out. They had to cut the driveline out of the car to fix it, and then they ran the C-Main just to feel the car out. They will obviously be back on Friday. But the car itself is very different than anything else around it in the pit area. It's not using a traditional torsion bar setup, but instead coilover shocks all the way around. The rear shocks are about where you would expect them to be, as is the left front, but the right front is actually mounted in-board, with a cantilever setup. The car is owned and was designed by Shawn Wood, and it was built by Flea Ruzic. Flea and Sammy play guitars together, and Flea recruited him to come take a look and offer up any feedback, since Sammy has done coilover cars before. In the midst of all of that, Sammy agreed to help them test it and drive it at Knoxville. Coming into the week, the car only had about 15 laps on it. I talked a bit with Flea about the project, and he said the three of them like the challenge of trying to figure this car and concept out, and he recognizes it's not for everyone. He said the coilovers give them more options, have less bind, and are quicker reacting. They can also change spring rates easier. They are equipped for the challenge though, because you likely won't find three more capable car builders anywhere else in the Knoxville infield on one team together. It's a risky proposition, and the odds are certainly against them on Friday and Saturday, but I love the attempt at trying to do something different, and I'm rooting for them. Just like I did, you might be asking why coilover cars don't appear more often, and the answer is really that risk. I had another friend tell me you can basically go buy a Maxim, four 1000 pound torsion bars, and be pretty close in the ballpark for setup. If you're trying to run a series or track for points, you don't have the time to experiment with something like coilovers. You stick what what you know. In an era though of very little experimentation in sprint car racing, I like stuff like this. And it's stories like these that make me really love doing this show. I get sent some photos, I then fire off a few messages, and I can then share a cool thing with you guys. Thanks to Flea and all of those out there in the industry who share their insights and answer my messages and stupid questions. And a big thanks to Paul Arch for the great images of the car.

Moving on, it's obviously a big sprint car focused week, but I don't want to gloss over a dirt late model crown jewel that's happening this weekend. The North South 100 for the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series at Florence Speedway begins tonight. Dual $6000 to win features tonight and tomorrow, and then $75,000 to win on Saturday. No World of Outlaws this week, so most of the heavy hitters will be in attendance. That obviously includes the Lucas regulars, but expect as well to see Bobby Pierce, Brandon Overton, Ryan Gustin, Kyle Bronson, and plenty more. Besides the big money on the line, which Pierce won last year, we've also got a tight on-going battle for the final Lucas chase spot. Hudson O'Neal has it with SSI Motorsports, and Tim McCreadie trails by just 20 points with the Rocket house car. This will also be our first look at the new setup for Koehler Motorsports and Ricky Thornton Jr. That 20RT squad now has Chris Madden as crew chief, and Ricky Arnold and DJ Williams as crew members. They are rolling out a brand new Longhorn Chassis, and what I'm assuming will be a more permanent wrap, incorporating the sponsors RTJ brought with him. Remember that the car Thornton had been running was Jordan Koehler's 114, with a 20RT sticker just slapped on both sides. I was hoping either RTJ or the team would give us a teaser of the car on social media, but no such luck. So we'll have to wait until later today when they roll it out at the track. If you aren't headed for Florence y'all, you can watch all weekend live on FloRacing.

There is also plenty of other dirt racing going on this weekend, so stop by dirtrackr.com and check out the streaming schedule for your other options. I think we are going to call it good right there for today. With so much going on, there is a reasonable chance we either do a bonus daily tomorrow, or maybe another livestream. So stay tuned for that.

Hope you guys have a great Thursday out there, we'll see you back here soon...