DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Rumors, confirmations, and a little bit of speculation | Daily 12-5-2024

Gateway starts, the Outlaws acknowledge the change, sprint car silly season still chugging along, and Chili Bowl entries heat up. Let's go!

It's Thursday, December 5th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

Today's show is being supported by our friends at Knoxville Raceway. Starting this week, four-day ticket packages are on sale for the grandaddy of them all, the 64th NOS Energy Drink Knoxville Nationals presented by Casey's. Go to knoxvilleraceway.com to order online, or call the ticket office at 641-842-5431. Get in early and secure your spot for four nights in Knoxville, Iowa, August 6th through the 9th at the sprint car capital of the world. The best drivers, the biggest car count, with big money up for grabs including $195,000 to the winner, $15,000 to start the Championship A Main and a $100,000 bonus if the winner is using Keizer wheels and hubs. This event has had seven consecutive sell-outs so don't wait, order your tickets now at KnoxvilleRaceway.com!

The Gateway Dirt Nationals inside the Dome in St. Louis start today. On track activity starts at 3PM central time, with Thursday and Friday split field prelim days for both the late models and modifieds. Today's late model field is highlighted by Brandon Overton's debut in the Longhorn Factory team with Riggs Motorsports, plus Jason Feger, Brandon Sheppard, Shannon Babb, Tyler Erb, Ryan Gustin, Jonathan Davenport, Tyler Carpenter, Joseph Joiner, and Ashton Winger. The Friday field features Ricky Thornton Jr., Bobby Pierce, Devin Moran, Nick Hoffman, and Hudson O'Neal. The modified entry list includes guys like RTJ, Jimmy Owens, Drake Troutman, Mike McKinney, Kenny Wallace, Jake Timm, Mike Harrison, Rodney Sanders and Tanner Mullens. Late model prelims are $5000 to win, and modified prelims are $3000 to win. The respective big shows on Saturday are $30,000 and $10,000 to win. Understand that the next three days are not like really any other late model or modified racing that happens all season. Guys are going to get moved. There are going to be pissed off drivers and crew guys. There are going to be damaged race cars. At this event, nobody has brought their brand new, perfectly aerodynamic Eldora piece. The gloves are off, and things will probably get nasty. If you are looking for potential picks, past event winners include Bobby Pierce twice, Tyler Carpenter twice, Tyler Erb, and Brandon Sheppard. Scott Bloomquist won the inaugural event in 2016. Mods have seen Tommie Seets Jr., Ray Bollinger, Mike Harrison, Derek Losh, Tyler Peterson, RTJ, and Drake Troutman win. If you aren't in St. Louis this week, FloRacing has live coverage all three days. If you need a Flo subscription, hit up dirtrackr.com/floracing.

If you want other racing this weekend, All-Tech Raceway in Florida is hosting a free fan appreciation weekend. They'll have sport compacts, crown vics, and regional ASCS sprint cars, with both Friday and Saturday featuring free grandstand tickets. And at Golden Isles in Georgia, they've got $20,000 to win for 604 crate late models Friday and Saturday. This one will draw a lot of southeastern based teams, and some other guys who decided to not race the Dome.

With the racing stuff out of the way, let's dive into some news things from the last few days and hours. Updating yesterday's Daily show, we talked about the World of Outlaws Late Model Series losing their title sponsor in CASE Construction, and I did get a response from World Racing Group about the move. The statement I was provided reads in part quote "We are appreciative of three great years of partnership with CASE Construction Equipment and we wish them the very best. We expect to announce a new title sponsor for the World of Outlaws Late Model Series in the near future" unquote. So obviously confirmation there of CASE's departure, and we'll wait and see on their announcement for the next series entitlement. I was not provided a timeline for that announcement, but it hasn't been uncommon for those deals to get announced right before the season starts. So it could potentially be into January before we know anything publicly. It is good to hear though that they are going to be replacing CASE. The Outlaw season starts January 22nd at Volusia, with a million dollar point fund on the line and $225,000 to the champion.

In sprint car silly season news, we've been hearing since the World of Outlaws banquet that changes could be coming for Landon Crawley and the Jason Sides 7S car. I had even reached out to Landon in recent days for some clarity, and he told me last week that they were still working on the plan for 2025. The 16 year old driver spent the 2024 season out full time with Outlaws for his rookie run, and he ended up with four top tens and a 10th place finish in the standings. But yesterday afternoon, Crawley announced via his Facebook page that he's going to join up with car owner Michael Dutcher and drive the 17GP next season in an 80-90 race schedule. No specific races or series were mentioned, but Chase Raudman mentioned on his Crawley video yesterday that Dutcher is exploring series options, with him even curious about High Limit. Dutcher had been a non-wing guy, but has started transitioning to winged competition, and I think the 17GP ran something in the neighborhood of 40 races in 2024. The car was driven by a bunch of different guys, including Justin Henderson, Cale Thomas, Scott Bogucki, Kelby Watt, Justin Peck, Jadon Rogers, Cole Duncan, Ayrton Gennetten, and Hank Davis. Crawley has some funding behind him, so that could help Dutcher elevate his program next year. As for the Sides 7S, it's my understand their plan is to remain full time with the World of Outlaws next season, and that they are currently on the hunt for a new driver. One rumor I've heard is Parker Price Miller as a potential here. PPM's own deal went sideways late this season with High Limit, and he finished the year with Brandon Ikenberry in the 25. PPM would be a seasoned shoe with Sides who could probably get that team some good finishes. If a deal doesn't get worked out, I could see Kraig Kinser filling in here for some races, but I'm sure Sides' will have other options as well. It sounds like at the very least, Chris Windom did some poking around on this deal with the NOS sponsorship. We've talked previously about Windom's status with Vermeer being unknown, and it sounds like maybe that is still the case. One other related note here, going back to Ikenberry. There are rumors his 25 deal might be going away. That car won with Daison Pursley at Huset's, and had a number of other drivers in it in 2024 after Lachlan McHugh parted. Hopefully that doesn't end up being the case.

Finally today, we've had a number of Chili Bowl entry additions, with the list now at 197. That includes Corey Day back in the Willie Kahne owned car. This pairing obviously coming off the Turkey Night score and they won a Chil Bowl prelim night last year. Defending winner Logan Seavey is back in the Swindell SpeedLab 39, and Brady Bacon and Justin Peck have been added as well. And then last night, we found out a number of other additions, including six cars for Chad Boat. He's got Daison Pursley, Zach Wigal, Chris Windom, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., and then two TBAs. My assumption is that one of those TBAs will be for NASCAR driver Ty Gibbs. My other thought on the Boat TBAs is Tanner Holmes. He said in a recent video that there is a good chance he'll be back at Chili Bowl in 2025, and he made his two previous appearances with Boat. And back to Landon Crawley, he mentioned in his Facebook post racing at the Chili Bowl with Hayward Motorsports. The final two notable entries are a pair of cars we saw during the USAC midget west coast swing, and that's the two Silva Motorsports entries. Tyler Courtney listed in the 23C, and even though he has been fairly non-commital about it in interviews and comments, Kyle Larson is listed in the 1K. Even this week on the EPARTRADE interview, Larson talked about running High Limit in Australia, and some vacations for his offseason plans, but did not mention Chili Bowl. With Larson now appearing to be in, the next logical question is what about Christopher Bell. He told Jeff Gluck in that piece a few weeks ago he didn't have plans for the event, but as I said then, a call to Keith Kunz could easily fix that. No KKM cars are listed yet, so I'm sure it's still a possibility. Chili Bowl entry watch continues.

We'll call it good for there today and this week. A quick show note, if you are a Spotify person, or want to be, I'm now adding the video versions of the Daily show to Spotify. So you can still listen there, but also watch if you are so inclined. Video versions of the last five episodes are available now, and will be going forward for each Daily. Just another small way to try and improve the daily across platforms. You can now watch on YouTube, Facebook, and Spotify. And you can listen at dirtrackr.com/daily, plus Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, and any of the other number of podcast platforms and apps.

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