DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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The sprint car driver who has no business doing what he's doing | Daily 3-26-2025
Today on the show, a sprint car driver who just has zero business doing what he's doing right now, plus guys chasing the MARS championship including Shannon Babb, the Super DIRTcar Series is about to get serious, and ride news for Max McLaughlin. Let's go!
It's Wednesday, March 26th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.
Today's Daily show is being supported by BAPS Motor Speedway and SprintCarUnlimited.TV. Coming up this Sunday, BAPS will kick off an expanded 410 sprint car schedule with the first of 11 races. Sunday's program will feature some of the best sprint car teams in Central Pennsylvania, joined by the 358 sprint car competitors. If you can't get to the track, watch it all live on SprintCarUnlimited.tv. The rest of the 2025 season at BAPS will feature ten more 410 sprint car shows, including Pennsylvania Speedweek in June, and the World of Outlaws in July. All races, except the World of Outlaws event, will be included in the track championship. And new this year, the BAPS point fund has been grown to $20,000. The champion will earn $5000, and additional money has been added for drivers finishing fourth on down. It was important to track GM Kolten Gouse to make sure they were taking care of their smaller teams, as well as the top drivers. Head over to bapsmotorspeedway.com to see the full schedule, and if you want to watch each of the ten championship races live, including this Sunday, plus the PA Speedweek show, the Kevin Gobrecht Classic, and the season finale Sprint Showdown in November, you can do that all season long on SprintCarUnlimited.TV.
We are through four High Limit races so far in 2025. No major surprise winners yet, and your top four in the standings are basically the same top four we had at the end of 2024. Brad Sweet, Tyler Courtney, Brent Marks, and Rico Abreu. There is a guy though who is up in the mix with High Limit right now, who really has no business being there. But at the moment, the list of names he's outperformed this year includes Justin Peck, Chase Randall, Tanner Thorson, Spencer Bayston, Kasey Kahne, Sye Lynch, Daison Pursley, and if you want to go even further, we can include Justin Sanders. And that guy who has no business being sixth in the High Limit standings, is California's Kaleb Montgomery. His wings are bare metal. His body panels aren't stickered up. He has no crew guys, except for some friends and family that tag along when they are available. But none of that stopped him from outrunning seasoned vets on a big track at Las Vegas. Or going 20th to 11th on a cowboy up night at Tulare. Or 16th to 11th at Kern County, again topping some big names. Or keeping his right rear tire together just long enough on a rubber down track at Perris to finish top five after going third quick in qualifying and making a dash appearance. And now, thanks to some added support and his recent success, Montgomery and his three car will be racing at Central Arizona this week, and Vado coming up. All races he never planned on attending. What's even better about all of this, is you can follow along over on his YouTube channel. He posts regular videos, super raw stuff, and you get to see it all play out. I know Chase Raudman talked about him this week, and hopefully some added attention will allow him to race more this year and keep his trailer stocked up. He's a guy who will continue to hurt some feelings this year across California dirt tracks. And watching from afar, it's tough to not become a fan of this guy, who has "breathe" and "execute laps" written in paint marker on his dashboard.
There is no national touring dirt late model racing this weekend, but the Nippy 50 at Maquoketa will likely feel like a big touring series race. $10,000 to win Friday and $15,000 to win on Saturday. The race this year is MARS sanctioned, and this event will kick off their 2025 season. Jason Feger is your two-time and defending MARS champion, and he's back this season looking for three in a row. Ryan Unzicker was Feger's closest challenger in 2024, and he's back as well. Other drivers expected to contend for the full season include Justin Duty, McKay Wenger, Bob Gardner, Tony Jackson Jr., Mark Voigt, and Shannon Babb among others. Babb is a notorious pick and choose guy in his career, and he's never run for the MARS title before. He's done the full pull with the Summer Nationals a bunch of times, including four series championships. And his only full national tour season was 2008 with the World of Outlaws. Two wins and a sixth place result in the standings. Babb will run Longhorns again this season, and was out testing last week at the Brownstown Bullring to get his cars dialed in. Remember he was one of the drivers who raced a Stormy Scott/Jason Durham Category 5 chassis a few times in 2024, making some starts for Steve Lampley. He'll definitely be looking for more this season, having only picked up a single win last year. I like this group though that Matt Curl and Jonathan Clayton have put together for the MARS season. It will be hard to pick against Feger, but I do think guys like Unzicker and Babb will keep him honest. We'll talk more Nippy 50 tomorrow, including some of the other names expected to race.
Up in the northeast on Saturday, the Super DIRTcar Series beings their championship season with the opener at New Egypt. The big block modifieds raced down south in Florida for DIRTcar Nationals, but those are non-points events. They are starting the season with 19 drivers declared at series full timers, and series director Dean Reynolds tells me they could get to 40 cars on Saturday. Back this season are a lot of favorites, including defending champion Mat Williamson. Matt Sheppard will be in search of his insane 11th title this year, and the list of challengers chasing them include Anthony Perrego, Jimmy Phelps, Tim Sears Jr., Jack Lehner, Alex Payne, Darren Smith, Felix Roy, Mike Mahaney, Larry Wight, Peter Britten, Mike Trautschold, Daniel Johnson, CG Morey, Justin Stone, Marcus Dinkins, Erick Rudolph, and Matt Stangle. A bit surprisingly, Matt Sheppard was not on the list of drivers who had multiple series wins in 2024. He'll need to rectify that to keep pace with Williamson. A driver we will see return to northeast modified action is Max McLaughlin. Remember back to February he revealed in a Facebook post that his late model ride had fallen apart because of sponsor issues and he was on the hunt for other seats. Just this week, Jame Weaknecht reported that McLaughlin will be in Norm Hansell's 357 at New Egypt, and that they will likely race together multiple times this year. Max a multi-time SDS winner in his career, and had his best championship finish in 2018 when he ended up third. His only two SDS starts in 2024 resulted in top five finishes, including at Super Dirt Week. Not shocked to see him get opportunities again in a modified.
We will shut it down there for today. If you want more dirt racing content, make sure to stop by dirtrackr.com for all the latest news and releases from around the sport of dirt racing. The front page there updates every 15 minutes, so as stories happen, they will be there right away. There is also the analytics section with a ton of free stuff, plus you can find a full archive of daily and conversations epsides, plus podcast listings for a bunch of other dirt racing shows. That's dirtrackr.com, D I R T R A C K R.
Hope you guys have a great Wednesday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!