DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

Dirt racing news, results, discussion, analytics. Sprint cars, late models, modifieds, you name it. From national series, to top local shows. Brought to you five days a week. Email the show at info@dirtrackr.com.

UNO REVERSE! The likely swap coming after 2 years away | Daily 9-29-2024

Did Brandon Sheppard's drive with a damaged race car save his championship? We'll discuss that plus whether or not a swap to Rocket chassis will fix his performance woes. Plus weekend results, and I've got a streaming service gripe. Let's go!

It's Sunday, September 29th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

Last night's box score for the World of Outlaws Late Model Series feature at Rocket Raceway Park shows championship leader Brandon Sheppard finishing tenth, which under most circumstances would go mostly unnoticed. But his charge up from a 21st starting position after just sneaking into a feature transfer through a B, and then coming back from an early incident that left the nose heavily damaged, just might have been the drive that saved his championship. Both Bobby Pierce and Nick Hoffman needed to take a significant chunk out of Shepp's lead with these two races, but now headed to World Finals at Charlotte for the final three races, Pierce still trails by 44, and Hoffman by 50. They both picked up ground, Pierce ten points and Hoffman four, but I don't know that it will be enough as long as Shepp can stay consistent. It's not impossible for that lead to be erased in three nights, but it should be enough. If Pierce were to win all three features at World Finals, Shepp would need to finish seventh or better in all three to guarantee the title. For that B5 squad, things have really gone their way these last few weeks with some of the rainouts, and two top tens this weekend, even though they have been far from one of the fastest cars. That points penalty for Pierce looks like it just might be too much to overcome, even with all the success he's had. Back to Friday at Boothill, Ryan Gustin battled Brian Shirley and Dustin Sorensen, but came out on top for Outlaw win number five on the season. And last night at Rocket, it was all Brian Shirley, in a feature that latched down to the bottom fairly early on. Cade Dillard finished second, and Tristan Chamberlain went 17th to third. With these two shows now in the books, the World of Outlaws late models take the entire month of October off, with the final racing of 2024 coming up November 6th through the 9th at Charlotte.

Jumping back to Brandon Sheppard, I'm going to be really interested to see how the next few months plays out in his career. We know that he's out of the Longhorn Factory Team car after World Finals, and that he's going to spend at least some time in a family owned B5. He's got the final FloRacing Night in America show at Senoia on his schedule, and they previously talked about going to the Wild West Shootout in January. I don't know if Shepp will try and defend his Gateway Dirt Nationals win from 2023, as it is not listed on his schedule, and Gateway hasn't released the super late model entry list that I'm aware of. It seems clear though that wherever Shepp does end up beyond the Wild West Shootout, that he'll likely be back to driving Rocket chassis. The family just recently listed a 2023 Longhorn for sale, which I believe is the car that Ricky Thornton Jr. drove in between SSI and Koehler. And Shepp not being able to match any of the other top Longhorm teams' performance seems to be a key reason behind this split. They tried for two years to make it happen, and for whatever reason, it just didn't work. I know it wasn't for lack of effort on either Sheppard's or Longhorn's part. So will a swap back to Rocket suddenly fix all of the issues? It will be a big question going forward. Mark Richards and Rocket are obviously deep into this new version XR1, the 1.2, but it hasn't suddenly vaulted Tim McCreadie to the front of late model races. They battled their way into the Lucas chase on consistency, but still only have one win together. And at this moment, Jimmy Owens and Dennis Erb Jr. are the only other Rocket drivers in the top ten in a national series, and things were going so not well for Erb, that he tried something else for a few weeks. I think this situation with Sheppard is a perfect example of why this late model chassis stuff is so intriguing. Sheppard is one of the most decorated late model racers in history, with a lot of that success coming in a Rocket. He switches to Longhorn though, at a time where that brand is winning everything with Davenport and Pierce and Thornton and others, but he can't find the same speed. So now he's likely back to Rocket, but it's coming at a time where Rocket cars haven't won much on the national stage since the departure of Hudson O'Neal from the house car. So are drivers the missing link for Rocket, or is it something else? Drop me a comment with your thoughts on this one.

One other side note here, I have a bit of a bone to pick with the streaming services. I'm going to specifically talk about a DIRTVision situation here, but FloRacing and the other services are guilty of this as well, so I hope those folks are listening here too. In 2024, at a point where we spend several hundred dollars a year in most instances to watch these races, it is not acceptable to lose timing and scoring from a broadcast. At Boothill Speedway on Friday night, we had asolutely nothing during the World of Outlaws late model feature. No lap counter, no running positions, zero. Around 9:30PM eastern, the DIRTVision social channels posted that there were problems with the scoring loop at the track, and that's why we weren't getting information. We entered Friday with 54 points separating the top three in the standings, and I was trying to catch the infield scoring tower as it flashed by on camera each lap, to just see any information I could. In the midst of a really important main event for the story of the season, we have no idea where anyone is running. They should have had live points up on the screen the entire 50 laps, and our championship contenders highlighted on the rundown. A technical issue with track equipment is the blame here, and for some random Friday night weekly show, that's fine. You won't hear a word from me. But for a marquee national series in the midst of a potentially season-defining weekend, there needs to be some sort of contingency plan for if the track's system goes haywire. We've got a fleet of trucks carrying all of this equipment to the tracks every week, we're double boxing race battles, we've got onboard cameras, drones, and we've got studio shows, but a key part of the broadcast presentation is undone by a piece of wire buried at the start finish line. And nobody can fix it. At the very least, dedicate a camera to the scoring pylon and show it on the side of the screen. That would be better than nothing. This would be like watching Monday Night Football on ESPN, and they were like hey, things went sideways, we can't show you the score, or the time, or what quarter it is via on-screen graphics. That would be unacceptable. I've got friends that work at DIRTVision, and Flo, and other services, and they are great people. Love them. But we've gotta do better than this guys. If we want to be taken seriously, grow the sport, and be able to charge these kinds of prices, the standards have to be higher. There's my rant for the day.

Elsewhere this weekend, most of the other big time shows were lost to weather, including both World of Outlaws sprint car nights, plus Lucas at Brownstown, High Limit at Florence, and more. The BC39 did run the Thursday program, where CJ Leary won the USAC sprint car invitational, and Chase McDermand took the midget feature. Friday and Saturday were washed out. They are trying today to complete the event, which would mean a double header. Hopefully they are able to get that completed.

At I-70 yesterday, Brian Brown picked up the POWRi 410 win, leading all 20 laps from the pole. He topped Ayrton Gennetten and Kerry Madsen. Just 16 cars in that feature, but quality guys, including Garet Williamson, Blake Hahn, Danny Sams in the TKS machine, Zeb Wise, and Jamie Ball. Hunter Schuerenberg also made an appearance, he drove Chase Briscoe's number five car. According to Master Gassers, we're up to 15 rides for Schuerenberg since June of 2023. The man of a thousand sprint car rides continues to deliver. POWRi's 410 sprint car series is back in action this coming week at Texas Motor Speedway. They are again the pre-show to get the track in order for the High Limit sprint cars, which will race at the TMS dirt track the following weekend for their finale.

Weekend IRA wins went to Scott Bogucki, who was driving the Michael Dutcher 17GP, and Scott Thiel. The win at Plymouth for Thiel also clinched him the IRA championship, which is the first of his career. Justin Sanders swept the Fall Nationals weekend at the Silver Dollar Speedway, Aaron Reutzel was a Sprint Invaders winner at 34 Raceway, and hat tip to Brian and Mike Dunlap and driver Gary Taylor for their Saturday night midget win at El Paso County Raceway.

Weekend late model winners included Shane Sabraski in WISSOTA competition at ABC Raceway, Lucas regular Ross Robinson won at Potomac, and Jason Feger was a DIRTcar winner at Spoon River. And last night's Short Track Super Nationals win at Utica-Rome went to Matt Sheppard, who beat Stewart Friesen and Tim Fuller. Sheppard is likely headed for the north region and overall championships this season with the Short Track Super Series. He's still in contention in the south region standings, and he also leads the Super DIRTcar Series points.

Alright, that's the daily for today. Hope you guys have a great rest of your Sunday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!