DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Bad beat adds fuel to the fire, a sprint car driver hurt, and a wrecker... Wrecked? | Daily 3-16-2025
The theme of today's show is things that are too small. That includes sprint cars being too small for six foot six YouTubers, and fuel tanks being too small for 30 lap races at Las Vegas. Plus an update on Aaron Reutzel's injury, a bizarre crash at Port Royal, and a whole lot more. Let's go!
It's Sunday, March 16th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.
Well, certainly no lack of things to react to from the dirt racing weekend. If you are looking for information on the High Limit franchise announcement from Thursday, I did do a bonus episode on Friday where we ran through everything. We aren't talking any of that today, so jump back to that show for the whole rundown.
And I guess we'll start with High Limit at Las Vegas. Not the smoothest of starts for the sprint car series, and a lot of it was out of their control. The weather wreaked havoc on the Thursday program with wind and rain. They tried to run the Thursday show Friday, but weather affected the truck series race, so they ended up cancelling. Things better last night on the weather front, but then there were other problems. That included Aaron Reutzel appearing to catch a rock to the visor during the dash. He slowed to a stop, and spent the night in an area hospital. His RSR team shared to Facebook that he has a broken nose and needed stitches, but his CT scan was normal. No word yet on if he'll be able to race on Wednesday at Tulare. Reutzel one of a few guys who don't run a rock screen on his car. Justin Sanders did the start the feature in Reutzel's place, but was out very early. There were also several flat tires in the feature, and it makes you wonder if rocks weren't the cause for those as well. The Las Vegas surface has long been known to have rocks in it, and a lot of attempts to get them out seem to continue to be unsuccessful. With these tracks that get so little use, that's a tough thing to overcome. In the feature, nobody had anything for the 69K machine and Daryn Pittman, that was until inside ten to go. Pittman's car started to stumble and run out of fuel, and Corey Day was able to take the lead. It was reported that Pittman, Rico Abreu, and Brent Marks were all running out at that moment, and competition director Mike Hess was forced to throw an open red for a fuel stop. Supposedly they weren't entirely sure on fuel usage, so the lap count in the driver's meeting was set at 65. They only made it to 60 though before cars were running out. This was very much a symptom of nobody having raced at Las Vegas since 2019. It is worth noting too, Kyle Larson pointed out that the cars that ran out were running smaller fuel tanks then he and guys like Corey Day. He said they had three gallons left at the fuel stop, but wasn't sure that would have lasted them the final five laps. This will obviously continue to fuel the debate over mandating larger tanks (pun intended). The World of Outlaws rulebook does not mandate a minimum or maximum tank size, but it does say that teams are encouraged to run a 33 gallon setup. It also says lap counts will be based on that number. And if you are curious, the High Limit rulebook fuel section is a word-for-word copy of the Outlaw fuel section. I'll leave the debate about tank size up to others, but it's never great to need open reds for fuel. After the restart, Day was able to hold off Kyle Larson to the end to score his first sprint car win of 2025 in his first start. Brad Sweet was third, Tyler Courtney fourth, and a nice top five for Brady Bacon. Justin Peck went 22nd to seventh in the Rudeen 26. It did appear as though they had the Ford power back under the hood. With Las Vegas now done, the teams will head to California to for three races this week, including Wednesday at Tulare, Friday at Kern County, and Saturday at Perris. Brad Sweet your defacto championship leader behind non-full timers Corey Day and Kyle Larson.
Jumping back to the Travis Pastrana, Cleetus McFarland sprint car situation. That car did run on Friday for some practice laps, but with Pastrana in the seat. Cleetus McFarland, who's real name is Garrett Mitchell, shared to Facebook a few days ago that he was going to drive it, but backed out after deciding he wasn't going to fit in the seat and in the cage. They did peel "Hell Yeah Brother" off the wing cap late and replaced it with Pastrana. Team owner Brian Ridge told FloRacing they realized this on Wednesday. So Pastrana got some laps in with Aaron Reutzel and Kyle Larson helping him out. There will supposedly be a content piece coming on his YouTube channel.
A few states away in Texas, the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series got in both of their race nights at Kennedale Speedway Park. Vastly different tracks each night, with very windy conditions Friday eventually leading to a rubber down surface early in the feature. Things were better last night, with a lot more moisture down and a multi groove race track. Gio Scelzi led flag-to-flag on Friday, with Buddy Kofoid getting by Sam Hafertepe last night to score the win. Both of those were first time winners this season. Gio hadn't won an official Outlaw show since Beaver Dam last July. David Gravel had two more top five runs, and he's inched away more in the standings. Logan Schuchart now second with a fourth and a sixth, he's 62 back. Carson Macedo third and eighth, he's third 64 back. Kofoid is now 106 back in fourth, and he, Sheldon Haudenschild, and Gio all needed these good weekends to try and stabilize these big triple digit gaps to Gravel. The series sticks around Texas this week with two nights at Cotton Bowl coming up Friday and Saturday.
The World of Outlaws late model weekend at Smoky Mountain was shortened to just the Friday show with severe weather around the southeast all weekend. On a very slick track, Bobby Pierce led all the laps and held off Jonathan Davenport for the win. It was Pierce's first Outlaw win of the year, and his first win of any kind since back at the Wild West Shootout. He's now jumped up into the championship lead by 12 points over Nick Hoffman, after previous leader Ryan Gustin had a tough night finishing in 19th. There were a number of big names well down the order on Friday, including Brandon Sheppard, Brandon Overton, Tim McCreadie, Brian Shirley, and Hudson O'Neal all finishing 17th or worse. Some good runs for several guys though, including Dale McDowell in fourth, and Sam Seawright in seventh. It's now decision time for all of the full timers on the fence about their series choice. The Outlaws are in Georgia coming up, with Lucas at Atomic and Brownstown.
Other weekend late model winners included Ben Watkins with the Southern Thunder Super Dirt Series at Lancaster. I was a bit surprised to see that one only draw 15 cars. Quality field though, with Kevin Rumley super trucking back from Smoky Mountain to get Hudson O'Neal there. He was third. Timothy Culp topped Billy Moyer at Springfield with the Comp Cams series, and Michael Norris was a weekly winner at Port Royal.
Other weekend sprint car winners included Cap Henry in the Attica season opener. He beat Craig Mintz and DJ Foos. The FAST series opener went to AJ Flick, who got around Brandon Spithaler late. And Freddie Rahmer was the Lincoln winner on Saturday. Chase Dietz and Danny Dietrich also picking up more podium finishes. In non-wing action, Kyle Cummins took the No Way Out 40 at Paragon over CJ Leary and Robert Ballou. And Ricky Lewis won both USAC CRA shows at Imperial Valley.
At Port Royal, the Short Track Super Series win went to Dillon Steuer in a late barn burner over Matt Sheppard. Big win for Steuer, and a fun battle to the finish. Also, did you guys see they crashed one of the tow trucks there? During hot laps, a wrecker was trying to dive into the infield around a modified and ended up on it's side. Hopefully everyone was okay there, but a very odd scene and not something you see everyday.
We will shut things down for today right there. There isn't much racing happening on this Sunday with Williams Grove cancelling their season opener. It does look like Duck River is going to give it a go for their late model show today.
But, hope you guys have a great rest of your day out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!