DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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How bad do you want to go dirt racing? | Daily 9-23-2024
Where there's a will, there's a way, especially if you want to go racing bad enough. A fun story for you today on that front, plus the man of a thousand sprint car rides is officially on the market again. Let's go!
It's Monday, September 23rd, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.
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A few days ago, I was messaging with a sprint car driver about a certain situation, gathering some info for a daily show. This is a driver who's name you'd know, but not one that's at the top of earnings lists or power rankings. In the course of that conversation, he was talking about some struggles they'd had with their truck and trailer, but that they powered through because he wanted to support a specific race. He finished the sentence with quote "I just love to race" unquote. Those five words I think in a lot of instances would be easy to gloss over, but I've been thinking about them ever since. I spend a lot of time on this show talking about drivers that race for a living, and it's easy for a lot of them to become jaded about their chosen vocation. And in turn, I think we forget as well sometimes that guys don't start going racing every week because of money or fame, but just because they love to race and compete. I say all of this, because I want to throw your attention to a specific driver, and use him as an exmaple of the types of racers that make up the bulk of the folks we see every week competing at dirt tracks across the country. Scrolling Facebook yesterday, I came across a photo of non-wing racer Trey Osborne from Eldora after Saturday night's 4-Crown action. Trey is a guy that stands out in the pit area, literally, as unlike most of the jockey sized race car drivers around him, he's six feet, eight inches tall. He ran the Silver Crown race, finishing 11th after starting 18th, and was 16th at the end of the USAC sprint car feature. In 12 career Silver Crown races, he's got two top five finishes, including a podium at Salt City back in July. And he's made 21 USAC sprint car appearances, with a best finish of 14th, back during a Kokomo Smackdown prelim night a few weeks ago. When you think about guys scraping together resources just to be able to go racing each week, Trey is the definition of that. Open trailer towing his sprint car and a four wheeler behind a regular cab, half ton Dodge pickup. The photo I referenced from Eldora shows Trey, still in his firesuit, loading up the back of that Dodge pickup with used sprint car tires. In the post, he said he wants to try and run some winged sprint car races towards the end of this season, and obviously he'll need rubber for that. This isn't a guy that is going to order a pallet of tires from Hoosier, but that won't stop him from getting the supplies he needs. He took advantage of all the high dollar High Limit teams in the pit area discarding tires after the event. They were done with those Hoosiers, but Trey will get good laps out of them. This guy is a racer, and I love seeing the effort and dedication just to be able to compete every weekend. To go a step further on Trey, I can find at least two occasions this season where he ran two races at different race tracks on the same day. The first was on May 25th. He ran the Hoosier Hundred at IRP that morning after it had been rained out from the day before, picking up a top ten finish. When that was over, he drove the 43 miles south to Paragon, and ran the non-wing 410 show that night, finishing fourth behind Ricky Lewis. He did it again just a few weeks ago, only this time the drive between races was much further. He ran the Ted Horn 100 at Du Quoin, but had brake problems and had to retire early. He then jumped in his truck and drove more than four hours and 250+ miles to Lake Ozark for the POWRi WAR show. He missed hot laps, broke a steering heim in the first heat race, but then went 17th to ninth in the main event. He stuck around the next day as well, picking up a fourth place finish behind Mario Clouser's win. Trey is the embodiment of "how bad do you want it." If you want to go racing bad enough, you'll find a way. And no matter how he performs, it's hard to not have respect for that. Hat tip to Trey and all the other racers out there like him who fight and scrap each week just to be able to show up.
Moving into a bit of news today, I said on the Sunday Daily show that there were rumblings around Eldora that Hunter Schuerenberg would be out of the 2KS following the weekend, and that move is now official as of a little bit ago. TKS Motorsports and owner Troy Renfro announced the move this morning, with the language being that their schedule had quote "officially concluded." Schuerenberg joined the TKS team following the departure of Chase Randall and after some fill-in driving from Kelby Watt. Schuerenberg gave up the Heidbreder Motorsports ride in the process, which was then taken by Ayrton Gennetten. Gennetten has won twice in that car since, including a POWRi show at Lake Ozark, and the first night of the Hockett/McMillin Memorial at Wheatland. Schuerenberg made 11 appearances with TKS, running the Knoxville weekly finale, the Outlaw weekend at Huset's, and High Limit shows at Port Royal, Lernerville, and Eldora. He made six features in those 11 starts, with a best finish of 13th, that came at Lernerville. TKS said in the release they are working on a plan for the rest of the season, and as of me writing the show today, there is nothing yet from Schuerenberg on his future. Knowing Hunter though, the man of a thousand sprint car rides will have something in place soon.
Before we close out today, I had some commenters upset at me yesterday that I didn't mention the Grandview Speedway Freedom 76 winner. So here you go, Alex Yankowski won the $30,000 358 modified show on Saturday night. No streaming coverage from this one, but I did find a YouTube channel called Weekly Thrills on the Hill that has an event video that looks to have been shot from the grandstands.
That's it for the show today. If you want even more dirt racing content, find DIRTRACKR across social media and give us a follow. We are active on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram. So wherever you are, we are as well.
Hope you guys have a great Monday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!