DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Different house car, same battle | Daily 2-2-2025

Ricky Thornton Jr. comes roaring back, Brandon Sheppard battling, Brian Shirley's terrible week, plus we'll talk one of my most hated topics in track prep, weekend sprint car action, and more. Let's go!

It's Sunday, February 2nd, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

We started off this past week of daily shows with me wondering if we needed to start worrying about a handful of late model drivers after some of their opening night performances. And we'll start this week by saying that one answered back fairly emphatically about where they are. And that is Ricky Thornton Jr. Things went sideways last night on a tough All-Tech surface went RTJ crashing late, but he won Thursday and Friday, led laps last night, and was in contention before that late crash. That team going home after Volusia and getting their car fixed instead of going to the Hunt the Front shows seemed to pay big dividends. RTJ drove like a man possessed, which included an eight and half second win on Friday night. He did get lucky on Thursday with Moran having that late flat tire, but let's not forget before that he'd driven up from eighth. The car will need repairs again, because that crash last night was pretty ugly, but if this is the RTJ we are getting this year, it's going to be a long season for his competition. Devin Moran went to victory lane last night, which felt deserved after his poor luck on Thursday. At least for the Lucas portion of speedweeks so far, Moran has been the most consistent. He's on the only driver with top fives in all four races, and one of two with top tens in all four. Not uncommon to see Moran open the season well during speedweeks. The other in that top ten stat is Daulton Wilson. And as you might have guessed, Moran and Big Perm the top two in the standings. Hudson O'Neal did have a better week, including winning that Hunt the Front show at Needmore. But that was in Kevin Rumley's car. 10th at All-Tech Thursday, fourth on Friday, and was running towards the front last night before an excursion through the infield ended his night. He's still got work to do down in 14th in the standings. The other one we're going to keep talking about is Brandon Sheppard. Nobody has had to battle more than he has in this opening stretch, which included a come back after a flip on Friday. The Rocket house car still missing any sort of race winning pace, but Shepp has kept them in contention. In four races his starting positions are 19th, 20th, 27th, and 18th. B-Mains all four nights, but an average finish of 9.25. He leads Lucas in feature plus minus, going 19th to 7th, 20th to 13th, 27th to 7th, and 18th to 10th. The last time Sheppard was full time with Lucas was 2022. In 53 starts, he was in Bs just twice that whole season. Last year with the Outlaws en route to the title, three Bs in 40 races. On the FloRacing drive home on one of the nights, Michael Rigsby did say that Mark Richards talked about having three different drivers in the last 12 months, and that they were all different. That certainly can't be overlooked. But despite the past with Sheppard, it does seem like it's going to take some time for this combination to find it's way again. Jumping from the Longhorn house car to the Rocket house not a magic bullet for either side. Also, Brian Shirley... Viscious week. The fire at Needmore, then a nasty hot laps crash last night. And that was after B-Main ends Thursday and Friday. That team will be licking it's wounds coming up and having to fix more race cars. As for bright spots, Daulton Wilson certainly one. Like I mentioned earlier, second in the standings. His series status will remain a question I think, along with probably Tim McCreadie, Max Blair, Jimmy Owens, and Drake Troutman. And Tyler Erb solid so far, three Lucas top tens in four races and third in the standings.

I will bring up as well the challenging track all weekend. If I don't say something, I'm going to hear about it. There was added track work all three nights, and things didn't get over until late last night. Obviously nobody wants that. Outside of something egregious or just especially negligent, I don't care about track prep, and the conversation around it. It's lame and played out, and it's just the nature of the sport. I'd rather have extra track work and banger races, then no track work and bad shows. Also, nobody wants things to go badly. A lot of effort is put into making things as good as possible, and sometimes it just doesn't go the right way. If folks think it's easy to make these tracks right, feel free to hop in a grader or pack truck at the next race and help out. The late model teams are off today, with action starting back up tomorrow. They've got practice at Ocala Monday before racing starts Tuesday.

Also in Florida the last three nights was the start of DIRTcar Nationals with the ASCS 360 sprint cars. 50 plus cars the first two nights, and 48 the last night. I did see some grumbling about purses and Volusia being tough on cars, but that didn't stop teams from showing up. It makes you wonder if WRG and Volusia aren't on their way to having a marquee 360 event with this early season racing. Outside of the 360 Knoxville Nationals, Trophy Cup, World Short Track at Riverside, the Gold Cup, and the Stewart Alley Memorial at Eagle in 2024, very few shows drew this many 360 sprint cars. Although after the whooping that Justin Peck and the Rudeen team put on everyone all three nights, guys may not come back next year. Peck dominated every lap Thursday and Friday, and then had to start deeper last night after a poor draw. He went eighth to fourth though on the opening lap, and was the leader by Brian Brown right near half way. So a complete DCN sweep for Peck. Brady Bacon, Brownie, Cole Macedo, Scotty Thiel, Emerson Axsom, and Danny Dietrich all in the top ten all three nights. It's tough though to really know or understand if there is anything to take away from these three nights when looking at the bigger picture. All these guys that ran up front won't be with the ASCS all season, and it's difficult to really know if pace in 360 shows is going to equate to speed next week against the World of Outlaws when the 410s get bolted in. I will say for Peck, he ran World Finals late in 2024 with Rudeen, and had two podiums and an 11th. This Rudeen part of his career is off to a very good start. We saw this team win an All Star title with Zeb Wise, and it at least makes you sit and take notice about what could be possible with High Limit later this year. Other than that, I don't know that I'd read too much into what we saw the last three nights. Volusia is quiet today, with modifieds back Monday and Tuesday, and the Outlaw season starts Wednesday.

Down under in Australia, James McFadden kept to his winning ways taking down the Australian Sprintcar Championship just days after winning the Grand Annual Sprint Car Classic. He topped Lachlan McHugh and Kerry Madsen in the finale. I know it wasn't a clean or easy weekend at Murray Bridge, but you'll have that in big time racing sometimes.

Other weekend winners included Cory Hedgecock, who won the Southern All Stars opener at I-75. Cody Overton won the crate show at All-Tech driving for Big Frog, and Cole Falloway and Curt Spalding were modified winners at Volusia.

Alright, that's the Daily for this Sunday. Thanks as always for tuning in. Hope you guys have a great rest of your day out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!