DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Chili Bowl crackdown results in drivers tossed | Daily 1-19-2025

Kyle Larson survives two crashes, the mistake that will leave Chad Boat and Daison Pursley wondering what if, drivers DQ'd over failed tire tests, and the Lucas season is off and rolling. Let's go!

It's Sunday, January 19th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

Certainly an entertaining last few days off racing across the sport. We obviously had Chili Bowl rolling along, plus the start of the Lucas season at Golden Isles. We'll start first today with action at the Chili Bowl. It turned into a sketchy feature with Kyle Larson and Daison Pursley running in the fluff over the cushion, and Larson somehow surviving not one, but two crashes, to win his third golden driller. With 17 to go, Jacob Denney and Brenham Crouch tangled in front of Larson, and he ended up riding over the top of Crouch's car. He managed to escape that one without any major damage, and then with three laps to go he almost junked it at the start finish line, riding up on the wall and getting big time sideways. He sort of got saved by the caution, as they threw it for debris on the track. The NOS banners on the front stretch wall had been torn off and were laying on the race track. Pursley would have had a chance there, but it was negated. At the end, Pursley not able to mount a big enough charge to try a slider, and Larson went back to victory lane for the first time since 2021. Dairson Pursley ended up second, with Shane Golobic making some late moves to third. Matt Wood-owned cars finishing third, fourth, and fifth, between Golobic, Ryan Bernal, and Landon Brooks. Buddy Kofoid went 14th to sixth, Logan Seavey ended up seventh, while Christopher Bell and Corey Day were 10th and 11th. Tim Buckwalter the night's hard charger, going 22nd to 13th. In terms of the battle for the win, it's hard to look past what happened in the pole shuffle and wonder what would have been different had Pursley started up front. He advanced all the way from the first group in the pole shuffle to group eight. And he actually ended up being faster than Landon Brooks in that eighth group, but his car ran out of fuel. So they advanced Brooks to face Larson in the ninth and final group. Along the way though, nobody had anything for Pursley's pace, and there is a very good chance I think that Larson didn't have the speed to match Pursley if the car doesn't run out. It took Pursley some time in the main event to work by Brooks starting third, and then obviously he couldn't get by Larson. I know all that stuff about ifs and buts, but Pursley and Chad Boat will be wondering today "what if."

The other storyline we followed all week in Tulsa was the more stringent tech process brought about by event tech director Cody Cordell. We talked last week about the additional tire sampling, the checks for legal frames, other safety stuff, and traction control. And before the event was over, things did advance to the point of people being kicked out and DQ'd. Before Saturday even got started, there was talk of someone being kicked out for prepping tires, although it sounded like just the person was booted, and not a team, car, or driver. I still don't have the full story or know the name on that one. And then yesterday afternoon came the Blue Ridge Labs report showing two samples not meeting the benchmark. And those samples belonged to the cars driven by Clinton Boyles and Hunter Schuerenberg. Both were DQ'd for Saturday's action. I do want to give Boyles some credit here though, as he went on camera on Flo and talked about the situation with Cordell. Boyles said he did some wet grinding on the tires with Simple Green, and that was enough to get flagged on the lab report. Cordell explained that it doesn't take much to alter the chemical compound of the tire, and really anything more than water could show up after that wet grinding process. Cordell did say from the lab graphs that it was clear Boyles wasn't quote unquote doping the tire, which is what a lot of people talk about with this testing. But other things, like this griding process, can make tires fail. Boyles said the tire was ground a month ago in advance of coming to Tulsa. Both Schuerenberg and Boyles will be allowed to race next season, but over the next few days, if any other samples come back as failed, which would mean drivers from Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, they won't be allowed to run in 2026. Cordell made that clear in a driver's meeting earlier in the week. So it's very possible we are not done with this story. We'll see what else pops up in the coming days. I do think it's also worth pointing out, we had no rubber down race tracks this year. Obviously they shortened the Saturday feature down to 40 laps from 55, but there was never even a hint of rubber on the track. That feels like it might not be a coincidence. Feel free to leave your comments below on the whole event, Larson's win, Pursley's fuel issue, and the tech process.

Down at Golden Isles, the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series season, and speedweeks as a whole, got rolling on Friday with race number one. Even with some threatening weather, they still had 44 cars in attendance. There was one notable absence though, and that was Mike Marlar. There had been talk he was back with Lucas full time, but then suddenly he didn't show up to Golden Isles. In a Kyle McFadden story from yesterday, car owner Greg Bruening said he and Marlar had a lengthy discussion, and Marlar decided he's not running either tour in 2025. He's going to instead go pick and choose and focus on events that work best for him. Definitely a last minute adjustment it sounds like, and you have to wonder if it's tied to Marlar's performances at the Wild West Shootout. Five races, but just two top tens. He also had runs of 14th, 19th, and 22nd. Not what you would expect at an event like that from a guy like Marlar. In an interesting twist, Marlar's teammate, in Tyler Bruening, started on the Friday pole, and even though he fell back to fourth or fifth at one point, rallied late and scored his first career national tour victory. And he did it driving by Brandon Overton, outrunning Devin Moran, and holding Jonathan Davenport off at the end. This wasn't a freight train on a rubber down track, this was Bruening fast and making moves. Davenport ended up second, and Overton was third. The Saturday and Sunday shows at Brunswick were rained out, so speedweeks now shifts to Volusia this week for the World of Outlaws opener which starts on Wednesday. Lucas as a series is off until January 29th at All-Tech. I'm assuming that not all speedweek shows count again for Lucas, and if that's true, it's good news for guys like Hudson O'Neal and Ricky Thornton Jr. Both were not running at the finish, and neither were particularly fast to start. And Brandon Sheppard needed a big charge to salvage a seventh place run after starting 19th in his first night back in the Rocket house car. I'll leave the overreaction Sunday to others, but just wanted to point those out. Interesting to note as well that Ricky Thornton Jr. now has Nathan Sletto as crew chief. RTJ won the Lucas title with Chris Madden in charge, then captured the Flo title with Ricky Arnold handling things, but Arnold has since departed, and now Sletto. Sletto previously wrenched on RTJ's mods, and he's joined on the crew by new guy Zack Frields. So wholesale changes to RTJ's squad as he begins his title defense.

We'll wrap the Daily up there for today. We are going to be following a bunch of stuff this week, as more sprint car full timers are expected with both High Limit and the Outlaws, we'll also talk the late model rosters, and speedweeks continuing, and then anything else that pops up.

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