DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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14 sprint cars, 14 months, ONE driver | Daily 8-21-2024
Today on the daily, can Kyle Larson win seven sprint car races in a row, a stacked late model field is headed for Lernerville, and Hunter Schuerenberg, the man of 1000 sprint car rides. Let's go!
It's Wednesday, August 21st, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.
After being fairly quiet through much of the year, sprint car silly season continues to ramp up, and today we had even more news. If you watched the Tuesday Daily, you knew that an announcement was likely coming for yet another driver for the 2KS sprint car in the midwest, and this morning we got that announcement. Hunter Schuerenberg will drive for the team starting this weekend at Knoxville for their championship night. From there, a schedule through the end of the season will be week-to-week. Kelby Watt was in this car last weekend for the Jackson Nationals, making the feature both nights and filling the seat after the departure of Chase Randall. And it is official that Randall will be in the Tiner Hirst 94 car out in California this week for the Gold Cup. There are some very intriguing rumors about Randall's sprint car future, especially for 2025. I'll keep you posted as things develop there. Back to Schuerenberg though, he's got four wins this season in 35 starts, with three of those victories coming against the POWRi 410 series, and one at Paragon with FAST. He was most recently in action at the Knoxville Nationals, ending up 15th in the Saturday B-Main. I did reach out, and this move to TKS means he's no longer with the Heidbreder team. He had been running some of these other cars alongside races in that black and gold 19. Team co-owner Ashley Heidbreder, and Schuerenberg himself shared to social media the news as well since I started writing this. I don't know that I've seen a driver jump between so many different cars in a single season as Schuerenberg has in 2024. We've seen him race the Hayward 19 then leave, the Ford 73, the Ikenberry 25, the Heidbreder 19, he had a brief appearance with the McGhee 11, and now into the TKS machine. Back in July, Steve with Master Gassers had Schuerenberg at 11 different rides since June of 2023, and as of today it's now 14. The other rides he's been in since last year include the Vermeer 55, the Kevin Newton 16, Jay Kiser's 23, Alex Bowman's 55, the Swindell Speedlab 39, the Zemco 1 in Pennsylvania, the Seidenkranz 64 360 ride, and the Tom Dunkel 17A 360 car. Is it a good thing that he keeps jumping rides, or a bad thing? I'm not so sure. Schuerenberg is definitely talented, you don't run run top five and top ten against the Outlaws and High Limit, win races and make the Knoxville Nationals feature if you don't know how to drive. But this is a strange situation. The TKS ride as well not known for stability, so maybe this is the perfect match. We'll see. Knoxville's weekly season ends on Saturday night, where Austin McCarl, Jamie Ball, and Mike Mayberry all appear to be headed for track championships.
It's only Wednesday, but a busy weekend of dirt racing starts today. At Chico, the Gold Cup Race of Champions begins with day one of four. Tonight is 360 sprint cars, and then 410 action starts Thursday with the Kubota High Limit sprint cars. Because of his day job with Hendrick Motorsports, no Kyle Larson during the 410 portion of Gold Cup, but he will be racing a 360 tonight. So if you are out there and want to see Larson race, today is your only chance. That 360 field tonight though, will be absolutely stacked. Besides Larson, you'll also see Tyler Courtney in a car for Tiner Hirst, plus Shane Golobic, Andy Forsberg, Sean Becker, Ryan Bernal, and many more. At the moment Larson has won six straight sprint car races, so we'll see if he can get number seven. I'll have to go looking to see when the last time a driver won seven races in a row was. If you can't get to Silver Dollar Speedway tonight, Flo will have live coverage of tonight's 360 show.
For the late model folks, ahead of the Lucas weekend at Port Royal and the World of Outlaws at Atomic, the FloRacing Night in America series is at Lernerville tonight for $20,000 to win. This will be the first time to the western PA track for the Flo series. Ricky Thornton Jr. still leading the championship, and he's the most recent winner, going back to Fairbury when RTJ won driving for Kevin Rumley. Bobby Pierce and Jason Feger not far behind. Because both tours are in the same region, tonight's field will feature a mix of drivers from both, including RTJ, Bobby Pierce, Brandon Sheppard, Hudson O'Neal, Devin Moran, Tim McCreadie, Nick Hoffman, and more. I'd say that RTJ is probably the favorite tonight, as he won the Firecracker 100 there back in June. And he looked stout at Batesville before losing that tire while leading. After tonight, the late model teams will have Thursday off before racing starts back up again on Friday.
Yesterday on the show, I mentioned the $10,000 to win super late model race at Stateline Speedway, and said I thought that either Max Blair or Dave Hess Jr. would likely win, and I was right. Hess started outside front row for the 40 lapper, and picked up the big check. Blair finished eighth after starting 19th. We'll see how many of these guys head to Lernerville tonight, and Port Royal this weekend with plenty of big money available. And a side note here, we talked yesterday about issues for Beaver Dam Raceway and 411 Motor Speedway. Stateline has actively been for sale for a year, and just recently had the asking price reduced to $525,000. So if you've got half a mill lying around and want to operate a race track, here you go. It's located not far from Erie, Pennsylvania.
At Ransomville last night, Mat Williamson took advantage of his home track knowledge to put in a dominating performance with the Super DIRTcar Series. He led every one of the 75 laps from the pole, and topped championship rival Matt Sheppard and Stewart Friesen went fifth to third. Williamson has been lights out this season at Ransomville in weekly competition, with four wins and ten top fives in ten weekly starts. He leads Gary Lindberg by a slight margin for the track championship. With Jimmy Phelps finishing outside the top ten last night, the Super DIRTcar Series championship is down to just Williamson and Sheppard. The gap between the two is 34 points. Money Mat is dominating the win column, but Sheppard's consistency has been the difference. The series goes quiet now for 10 days, with Mr. Dirt Track USA up next at Lebanon Valley at the end of the month. That's a nice $15 grand to win show, and it will award another Super Dirt Week guaranteed starting spot.
On Wednesdays we spotlight the many dirt racing podcasts out there, so hopefully you guys can discover some new content. This week, Winged Nation has Kyle Larson, Quicktime has Blake Walker, Hoogie's Garage has Cole Macedo and Joe B. Miller, Turn 2 Terribles has Robbie Kendall, Getting up to Speed has Troy Foulger, Caution Free has Leyton Wagner, and there are new episodes of the Dirt Reporters, the Dirt Nerds, and Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks. To see all the shows and their new episodes, visit dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
On this same vein, thanks to Mandee Pauch Mahaney for having me on her show this week. If you want to learn about my own motorsports journey and career, check that out. We also talked a lot about what goes on behind the scenes of this show and how I put episodes together every day. You can find the podcast version via the podcasts page at dirtrackr.com, or go check out Mandee's Dirt Track Untold YouTube channel. At the bottom of youtube.com/dirtrackr, you'll find a section dedicated to other dirt racing channels, Mandee's is there, as are those for a bunch of tracks, series, drivers, and more.
That's it for today's daily show. If you want even more dirt racing content, make sure to follow DIRTRACKR across social media. I'm always posting new things to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, so wherever you are, DIRTRACKR is as well.
Hope you guys have a great Wednesday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!