DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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RTJ's schedule problem and 2025 plans in flux, Kyle Larson back in a sprint car | Daily 11-24-2024
A busy day at Merced on tap, including a bunch of racing for Kyle Larson, Carson Macedo, and Tyler Courtney. Plus weekend results, the first 100 Chili Bowl entries, and I've got some news regarding Ricky Thornton Jr's possible 2025 dirt late model plans being in flux. We'll discuss, let's go!
It's Sunday, November 24th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.
It's been a tough few days for Doug Lockwood and his team at Merced Speedway. They had to initially push their Friday-Saturday USAC midget event to Saturday-Sunday. And then yesterday, they got everyone signed in, but had to postpone the night anyway, because they couldn't get a soggy track surface into a raceable condition. So today you'll get a double dose of action from Merced. They'll run the first program with hot laps at 12:30PM Pacific, run all the way through. Then they'll rework everything, and have hot laps on track again for the second show at 5:30PM local time. The USAC midgets will not qualify for the second program, with them instead setting heat race lineups by feature position in the first show. They had 33 midgets signed in yesterday, so I'd expect that again. With the schedule shifting, you will get a double dose of Kyle Larson also. He was initially only going to run a single Merced show, Saturday, because he had to be at the NASCAR Awards Banquet on Friday. But now with the change, he's expected to race both programs alongside teammate Tyler Courtney. Also, Silva and his guys will be busy because both Sunshine and Larson are signed in for the 360 sprint car action as well. Sunshine in the Works Limited 57W and Larson in the 57. This will be Larson's first time back in a sprint car since the Gold Cup, and his first dirt race since a micro appearance at Millbridge in October. That 360 program also has DJ Netto, Carson Macedo, and others. I definitely wouldn't sleep on that one. Remember as well we are watching this USAC midget championship battle between Daison Pursley and Cannon McIntosh. Pursley's lead was chopped from 87 to 61 after Tulare, and McIntosh is trying to sweep the two top series titles in 2024, as he's already taken down the Xtreme Outlaw midget championship. McIntosh now needs 15.25 points per night over the final four to pull even with Pursley. The odds still definitely favor Pursley, but he can't afford any issues. And since I mentioned odds, if you are betting USAC today, Larson is the favorite at Merced at +150. If you aren't headed for Merced today, you can watch all of the action live over on FloRacing.
Speaking of Flo, stick around later this week. We might be doing a very cool giveaway thanks to my friends at FloRacing. I'll have more details on that maybe on the Tuesday show.
At Duck River last night for the The Gobbler, we had late drama in the super late model feature. Tanner English started on the pole and looked to be on his way to a flag-to-flag win, but when a lap car nearly spun in front of him, his avoiding action allowed Oakley Johns to slip by. Johns led the final two circuits and picked up the $6000 win. English ended up second with Sam Seawright third. This was originally an XR Super Series event, but the sanction was dropped earlier in the week, and the purse cut down from $15,000 to win, to $6000. Bobby Pierce officially the XR champion for 2024, and we'll have to wait and see what this series does for next year. No announcement of a schedule yet, and owner Barry Braun says no decisions will be made anytime soon. As for Johns, it was back-to-back weekends with wins for the Tennessee driver, as he'd won the previous week at his home track of Tennessee National Raceway, also a $6000 score.
The other good late model payday from this weekend was Crate Racin USA 604s at Needmore. Joseph Brown led all 50 there, and topped Cody Overton and Mark Whitener for $10,000. Blue Gray 100 winner Trent Ivey was fourth. With Thanksgiving week coming up, the only decent paying action on the schedule for next weekend is crates at Swainsboro, also for $10,000 to win.
Moving on, we are at the time of the year where we start shifting at least some attention on the open wheel side of things, to Chili Bowl. Practice inside the Tulsa Expo Center is on January 12th, you've got prelim nights January 13th through 17th, and then Chili Bowl Saturday is January 18th. As is customary, we don't get a look at entries until the last grows to 100, and that happened back on Friday. Bryan Hulbert and the Chili Bowl folks gave us the look at the first exactly 100 entries, and there are a few notable things to point out. In this first 100, we do have eight TBAs. That includes three for Hayward Motorsports, one for Trifecta, one for JET, two for Speedquip, and one for Pat O'Dell. Five-time golden driller winner Sammy Swindell is on this first round of entries, and we've got lineups in for Reinbold Underwood and Alex Bowman. Reinbold's three cars will be driven by Hayden Reinbold, their regular USAC driver Mitchel Moles, and Lucas champion Ricky Thornton Jr. returns to the team after a B-Main appearance in 2024. This will be his fourth Chili Bowl, and we'll come back to him here in a minute. As for the Alex Bowman Racing team, they are bringing four cars to Tulsa. Their list includes Jake Swanson, Kevin Thomas Jr., CJ Leary, and new this year, Briggs Danner. Danner was a Chili Bowl main event starter last year for the first time, and I think is one of the more interesting talents in the country. He's definitely overlooked, and isn't a name you hear often when we are talking about the next guys in open wheel racing. He's always in a car though through the season, and ABR will have him in a very good car in January. He's a guy who could sneak up and win a prelim night. The Chili Bowl entry list will continue to grow significantly in the coming weeks. The early entry deadline is December 6th. You can see the fill list over at chilibowl.com.
Back to Ricky Thornton Jr. here, there is an intriguing situation developing with his confirmed Chili Bowl entry. I had a few friends point this out to me, but the Lucas season starts 10 days earlier this year than it did in 2024, and now Golden Isles and Chili Bowl overlap. Like I just mentioned, Chili Bowl is the 13th through the 18th, and the Lucas opener at Golden Isles is the 15th through the 18th. So in knowing that, does this mean RTJ and the Koehler team are not going Lucas after winning the 2024 championship? Well, the answer right now is we don't know. And we don't know, because they don't know. I traded some messages with Ricky back on Friday and he says the team has not decided on a dirt late model national tour yet for 2025, and the plan right now is to attempt everything and see where they end up. At the Chili Bowl, drivers can request certain prelim nights, and as long as Ricky goes early in the week, Monday or Tuesday, he can be to Golden Isles Wednesday for the first Lucas night. Things will obviously get complicated though on Saturday. If Ricky locks into the Chili Bowl feature through his prelim night, what decision will they make? We know weather can often be an issue during speedweeks, especially that early in the season, so that could potentially help with those decisions. Lucas doesn't usually count every race of speedweeks for the championship anyway, but I believe you have to attempt all the shows to be able to drop. There were rumors before 2024 that RTJ was mulling his late model tour options, and it's clear from this that maybe they aren't as locked into Lucas as I previously thought they were. This will be something to watch that week, and it makes me wonder as well what will happen with Tim McCreadie. He's been a regular at the Chili Bowl since 2005, missing just a single year, 2012. I know he was on the hunt for a Chili Bowl ride, but with him getting announced as full time Lucas with Boom Briggs as an alliance team with Rocket, maybe that will change his plans also.
Alright, that's the daily for today. We will continue to have shows all week coming up, including Thursday, so if you need to escape those family functions, we'll be right here for you.
Hope you guys have a great Sunday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!