DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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The dirt late model driver you and everyone else is UNDERRATING | Daily 3-24-2025

Cade Dillard's pick and choose decision nearly pays off immediately, a prime midwest dirt track has a very murky future, and we've got a scorching dirt late model hot take on the show today. Let's go!

It's Monday, March 24th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

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On the Monday Daily show, I said that I had a Ricky Thornton Jr. hot take that I would share this week. And that sharing is happening today. Yesterday's take was that the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series will have the best championship battle in the country in 2025. And today's scorching hot take is that Ricky Thornton Jr. is an even better race car driver than you think he is, and better than he gets credit for. Let me explain. So, we obviously know the historic season that RTJ had in 2023. Without the Lucas chase, he easily wins that championship. The universe made things right in 2024, with Thornton getting that first Lucas title, even though he needed to race for a few teams to get it done after the shock parting from SSI Motorsports mid-season. He ended up settling at Koehler Motorsports, and after a weekend where he won at Atomic and finished second at Brownstown, he's tied for the Lucas points lead with Devin Moran, and already has six victories on the year. So why the hot take territory on RTJ? Because this guy has done all of this with multiple crew chiefs. And not one or two, but like five or six. In just the last year or so. At SSI he had Anthony Burroughs. Those two were a stout duo, together for multiple seasons, winning everything in sight. But things on the crew chief front have been incredibly unstable since the SSI departure, but through it all, RTJ just keeps winning. When he joined Koehler, Kenny Payton was initially leading the way for the 20RT team. But down the stretch in the 2024 Lucas championship Chris Madden was hired as head wrench, and he stayed through the end of the season, and celebrated that title at Eldora. When Thornton went to Senoia late in the year and swept the Flo series finale weekend, which also won him the championship there, Ricky Arnold was crew chief. If you're keeping score at home, the crew chief counter right now is at four. Over the offseason though, Arnold departed Koehler Motorsports, and left racing completely, again leaving the 20RT searching. Through speedweeks here in 2025, Thornton brought in Nathan Sletto as team boss, and things didn't slow down. Five wins and the DIRTcar Nationals championship. But Sletto has gone back to the midwest to race modifieds, and RTJ raced this past weekend with effectively no crew chief. Again, a win and a second. If you want to go even further, we can throw Kevin Rumley in the mix too. Thornton raced in that car a handful of times last season, picking up a win at Fairbury. So that's officially six. Across dirt racing, we've seen crew chief changes make or break drivers. There are plenty of high profile examples even from recent seasons. But for the 20RT, none of that seems to matter. New crew chief, old crew chief, hell, no crew chief. And if you're thinking through all of this that maybe Thornton is the problem when it comes to this crew chief carousel, and that maybe he's hard to work with, friends in the industry tell me that's not the case. It just sounds like the Koehler team has been the victim of circumstances. Anyway, Monday hot take... Ricky Thornton Jr is underrated.

I did want to double back to another late model driver we talked about last week, and that is Cade Dillard. He recently fell off the World of Outlaws late model series, and we talked about his feelings towards series officials for decision making, and his plans to shift to a pick and choose schedule. Dillard spent this past weekend in his modified, running the XR $100,000 to win Dominator at Salina. That event drew 66 cars, and Dillard nearly walked out with the cash. He was leading with three to go when his right rear tire gave up the ghost. After that, and a few other shenanigans (it was a bit of a messy night), Jim Chisholm drove to the front and bagged the big money. Already a USMTS winner this season, that check should fit nicely into his bank account. I said it was a bit messy, and only nine cars were on the lead lap at the end. MRP shows 11 DNFs, including some big names. Up next for XR is $50 grand to win for 602 late models at Fayetteville and $100,000 to win for sport compacts at Kokomo. Both of those are in April.

In some business of dirt racing news, Lucas Oil Speedway in Missouri has named Casey Shuman as the track's assistant general manager and competition director. He will work alongside track GM Danny Lorton. Shuman takes the role after two years running I-70 Motorsports Park near Kansas City. And he takes over for Ernie Leftwich who was briefly in this position. Leftwich previously ran the MLRA series, and he slid over to the track after that series was shuttered in the offseason. Leftwich though, along with a few other previous MLRA folks have since moved over to the Comp Cams Super Dirt Series. Shuman brings a lot of experience to Wheatland, as he not only ran I-70, but was the World of Outlaws Late Model Series boss for several seasons, and he and wife Brooke also operated the WAR sprint car series from 2015 to 2019. He also has a lot of seat time, making open wheel starts from coast-to-coast for 20 plus years. But while this is a good pickup for Lucas Oil Speedway, it's probably not good news for I-70. In recent years, that track had hosted High Limit sprint cars, the MLRA, POWRi divisions, the All Stars, and the USMTS. We reported last October that I-70 was headed for a reconfigure, with plans to take the track down from just under a half mile, to likely a 1/3 mile setup. But all of that is now in doubt with Shuman moving on, and no public updates from the track in months. The website is also down currently. It's a shame, because it's a great facility there with a ton of modern amenities. It does seem like maybe the drag strip on the property is still operating, but I wouldn't expect anything to happen on the dirt.

We'll call it good there for today. If you want more dirt racing content in your life, make sure to follow DIRTRACKR at places like Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. Fresh content gets posted to those places, and others, all the time. So check that out.

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