DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Lucas chase shakeup, High Limit drama, Givler v. Schott at Lincoln | Daily 10-13-2024

We're down to three for the Lucas title, it happened again between Brad Sweet and James McFadden, David Gravel might have saved his title hopes, Stewart Friesen unstoppable and a lot more today. Let's go!

It's Sunday, October 13th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

Eldora Speedway's final big event of 2024 starts this coming Thursday, with the 44th Dirt Track World Championship. The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series finale highlights the weekend, with modifieds, super stocks, and steel block late models also on the card. If you're going to be in town, make sure to stop by The Whistle Stop and grab something good to eat. It's just a seven mile ride straight south of the race track to Ansonia. All week you can get breakfast, lunch, dinner, pizza, and you can get some food to bring back to the track with you. And when you stop in, they've got a full bar so you can enjoy a nice adult beverage. Andrew and his staff do a great job, so if you stop in, tell them DIRTRACKR sent you. If you want to ride a little further south, head to Sure Shot Tap House in Greenville, Ohio, a great place to eat, drink and play. They've got a full menu, plus all sorts of adult beverage options on tap, self pour, plus the Bullseye Game Lounge upstairs with duckpin bowling and 24 arcade games. When you're not at the track, keep yourself fed and entertained with these two establishments, the Whistle Stop and Sure Shot Tap House. Thanks to them for their support of Eldora and this show.

Let's roll through a bunch of different topics from the last few days of racing. I want to start with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series at Brownstown and the championship chase. Ricky Thornton Jr. bounced back in a big way, thanks to the Friday night victory and a second place finish last night. We head to Eldora this week and he's 50 points clear of Jonathan Davenport and Devin Moran. And I think in terms of winning this title, and the finale being at Eldora, that cushion could end up being really important come next Saturday night. We don't need to talk about Davenport's prowess at Eldora, and obviously that special race car, but things do line up in his favor. Barring a crazy track surface like we saw at the Dirt Track World Championship last season that created chaos, Davenport is the guy to beat. Needing to overcome a 50 point deficit though definitely gives an edge to RTJ. Davenport can gain 10 points by going quicktime, so if he does that and wins the main event, RTJ still wins the title by finishing fourth. That's the case because the first tiebreaker is victories, and RTJ has Davenport beat there. The same would be true with Moran, who is tied in the standings with Davenport. If neither Moran or JD goes quick time, that means RTJ can finish as low as sixth. The one big caveat here though, is Thornton wasn't particularly good during the World 100. 10th and 14th in the prelims, and 20th in the big show. If he's that far down next Saturday, even that 50 point cushion won't save him. The other driver I haven't mentioned here is Tim McCreadie, and that's because the Rocket 1 is basically out of this fight. He trails RTJ by 165, and JD and Moran by 125. He's not technically mathematically eliminated, but as soon as everyone signs in, there aren't many paths for him. Thornton can sign in, finish DFL in the feature, and still beat McCreadie by 30 points if TMac is quicktime and wins. McCreadie had a near spin on Friday and finished 19th. That one bad night took him completely out of this. And before we move on, big hat tip and a welcome back to Mike Marlar. Second Friday, and the big winner last night. He hadn't led laps since Lernerville in June, and hadn't won since Golden Isles in February. He looked like a completely different guy than we've seen the last few months. Lucas hits the track Friday at Eldora for preliminary action.

At the Texas Motor Speedway Dirt Track, Brad Sweet and Brent Marks closed out the 2024 Kubota High Limit sprint car series season with victories. Sweet outdueled Daryn Pittman on Friday, and Marks took advantage of Pittman held up in lap traffic on Saturday to sneak by for the win. Marks hadn't won a High Limit race since Grandview way back in May, and there was clearly some relief from him afterwards. I'll be really curious to see if this $50,000 check and securing a High Limit charter position will be enough to keep him on the road for 2025. We talked last week about him mulling his future, and between the 19 and the questions around the Roth 83, we could have two teams that secured charter spots not return full time to the series next year. In that case, I don't know if those charters would go to the next two teams down the order, that would be the Meyers 14 and the Buch 13, or if they would just award two more after next season's racing. I have to believe that there will be, and has been a lot of jockeying from Brad Sweet and his team trying to secure drivers and teams for next year. Looking at the 16 full timers that completed the season, I think there could be as many as seven with major question marks for the future, and that doesn't include Cory Eliason and the eight car. That seven does include Marks and McFadden, the CJB 5, Parker Price Miller, and we don't know what will happen with the Meyers 14 as I still haven't heard a clear schedule for Corey Day. There are potentially two others I could see making changes as well. So if all of those teams don't return, can Sweet fill the gaps with new full timers, or poach from the Outlaws. We'll see. Speaking of Sweet, he again tangled with James McFadden last night, in a situation that looked similar to Salina earlier this year. Racing inside the top ten, Sweet tried to take advantage of a wider line into three from McFadden with eight to go, and it did not go well. The track was narrow for most of that main event, and I think Sweet saw that as his one chance to try and move up, but the full send dive was ill advised. McFadden saw it late and tried to drive out of it, but to no avail. He went tumbling into the turn four wall off the right rear of the NAPA 49. JMac obviously upset, and Sweet did admit it was his fault. I think under normal circumstances, this is a bad look for sure, nobody wants to get wheeled, but when Sweet owns the series, it's made much worse. He's going to take more heat because of his position. Similar to the scales incident. What's the line from Top Gun, "you need to be doing it better and cleaner than the next guy." I definitely think that applies here. Afterwards on the track, McFadden told Tony LaPorta quote "not the way I want to end my deal over here" unquote, which seemed to confirm that he won't be back in the US full time next year. That's been the rumor for a while, and we discussed that last week also. Two other quick mentions, Ryan Timms good again in the Liebig 10, fifth and third. And Tyler Courtney strong enough late to take back second in the standings by one point over Rico Abreu. Now we'll wait on silly season to play out for High Limit, and for their schedule.

With the World of Outlaws sprint cars, David Gravel likely saved his championship hopes driving through the field at Lincoln Speedway back to ninth after a second lap crash saw him get upside down. There didn't actually end up being much damage to the Big Game 2, with those guys just replacing the top wing for the most part. Carson Macedo did gain ground, but probably not enough as the difference between Macedo and Gravel headed to Joliet is 72 points. Donny Schatz left with the win after Sheldon Haudenschild caught the turn three wall all by himself while leading on lap 26. Sheldon out gave the lead to Schatz, who drove on to win number five on the year. While High Limit is done, the Outlaws still have two nights at Joliet, two at Riverside, and then three at World Finals still to come. We did have some heat race drama last night when Dallas Schott climbed the left rear of Jordan Givler in heat four. Both went tumbling into turn one, and while Givler was being interviewed on DIRTVision, Schott gave him a little shove and had something to say about the incident with some choice language. It's certainly not something we see everyday, and Schott was eventually DQ'd for the rest of the night because he had a crew member come out onto the race track, who could also be seen flipping someone off as they walked back to the pits.

The other big show on the weekend was Super Dirt Week at Oswego. Stewart Friesen basically putting a butt kicking on the big block field, leading all 200 laps for his sixth career event win. That tied him with Brett Hearn for the most all time. The racing and the track were great though, and I think Oswego is really starting to settle in as the home of Super Dirt Week. Jimmy Phelps and Mat Williamson also on the podium, and Williamson was able to cut down Matt Sheppard's Super DIRTcar Series points lead a bit with just World Finals left. Just 15 points separate the two. Williamson also took down the 358 win, while Matt Janczuk was your sportsman modified winner, and Beau Ballard took the pro stock victory.

Other weekend late model winners included Ryan Gustin and Chris Simpson with the MLRA, Ethan Dotson was a $20,000 Comp Cams winner at Magnolia, Michael Page won a pair of crate features at Dixie, and Cory Hedgecock was a $12,000 winner at Richmond.

In sprint car action, Logan Seavey and Briggs Danner split USAC wins at Lawrenceburg. 84 points separate Seavey and Brady Bacon for the USAC sprint car title with just one race weekend left. Cole Duncan won the FAST finale at Atomic, while Brandon Spithaler claimed the championship. He didn't have a great finish, but Zane DeVault had mechanical woes all night that took him out of contention. Joe B Miller and Hank Davis were weekend ASCS winners, and POWRi midget wins went to Daison Pursley, Cannon McIntosh and Jacob Denney. In California, Tanner Carrick was a Sprint Car Challenge Tour winner, and we've got even more intrigue with the NARC sprint cars. Cole Macedo won at Tulare last night, and with Justin Sanders losing an engine and finishing 16th, Macedo has retaken the championship lead. 11 points separate the two with just three races left.

We'll call it good right there for today. Feel free to drop your thoughts and comments on the dirt racing weekend below. I'm sure several of these situations you guys will have opinions about.

Hope you guys have a great Sunday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!