DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Do you trust the recent speed from these dirt late model teams? | Daily 4-22-2025

We've seen several dirt late model teams make significant turnarounds in recent weeks, but with so little national tour races happening, are we getting accurate views of where they are with their performance? We'll talk about that today, plus Knoxville's stacked lists of weekly competitors and how the Iowa track is really becoming an oasis for weekly competition. Let's go!

It's Tuesday, April 22nd, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

The theme for this opening segment today is "do you trust them." I've got five dirt late model drivers that have had some strong results here lately, and the question is do you trust that these are legitimate turnarounds, or do you think they will regress back to where we'd seen them previously once we get into some more national touring and bigger shows. For some context, we've had a lot of regional dirt late model racing on the main stage here as of late. The last Lucas show was a month ago, and we've had just two Outlaw races in the past four weeks. That doesn't mean we haven't had some very strong fields, but outside of the Illini 100, we haven't really had a full field of national tour guys. The five drivers I want to ask you about today, are Mike Marlar, Hudson O'Neal, Dennis Erb Jr., Carson Ferguson, and Brandon Sheppard. We'll start first with Marlar. Solid runs in March at I-75 with Hunt the Front, and Smoky Mountain with the Outlaws. But at Atomic, he flipped to an Infinity Chassis, and in the races since, not including this past weekend, he went 4th, 4th, 2nd, 4th, and 3rd between Lucas, Northern Allstars, and racing at Wheatland. This past weekend though, 11th at I-75 with the Spring Nationals, and 16th at Tazwell after tire issues. Next is Hudson O'Neal. He struggled during speedweeks, but hiring Jason Durham to lead that team looked to have paid immediate dividends with what should have been two Lucas top fives between Atomic and Brownstown. He swept the Spring Nationals weekend at Wheatland, and was second on Friday night at Paragon. He did outrun Brandon Overton and Jonathan Davenport at Wheatland, which is no small feat, but neither Paragon or Wheatland were full fledged touring fields. So, do you trust them? Moving on to Dennis Erb Jr. I've seen a few questions lately about this chassis status, and yes he's back on the Rocket after that early season Capital experiment was dropped after DIRTcar Nationals. The Rocket was back out at Clarksville at the end of February. Smoky Mountain wasn't good, but two solid nights at Swainsboro, same thing at Maquoketa, and a decent Illini 100. In MARS action this past weekend, 8th at Cedar County, and two podiums at 34 Raceway. On the Lucas side, way down the order is Carson Ferguson in 12th in the standings. Just one top five and three top tens on the season. He's usually good around the southeast, but the past two weeks he's been out of his comfort zone a bit at Wheatland and with MARS. 7th, 6th, 4th, 4th, and 2nd. Can he maintain that back on tour with Lucas this weekend? And finally, Brandon Sheppard. Things really looked like they started coming around at the Nippy 50. Some good runs there then leads into the 11th to the win charge at the Illini 100. Vintage BShepp on an Illinois bullring. He backed it up with the MARS win last Thursday at Cedar County in the B5. It sure felt like he and Rocket were back. They had a respectable 6th place finish Friday at 34 Raceway, but then looked like they missed it bad for Saturday night, and ended up 19th a lap down. So was that the outlier, or the team regressing? In the comment section below, for these drivers, let me know the answer... Do you trust them?

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Coming up this week is the season opener for the Knoxville Raceway track championship season. And last week they released a list of drivers that had already registered for their three sprint car divisions. 12 pro sprints, a very strout 16 360s, and an even larger 410 list with 22 registering for the championship season. Their social media post also mentioned they expect more to be added before this weekend's opener. On all three lists are a lot of the usual suspects you'd expect for Saturday nights at Knoxville, including names like McCarl, Garner, Mincer, Higday, Ball, Selvage, Brown, and Phillips. There are some here though, especially on the 410 list that will ratchet things up a bit. That includes Scott Bogucki, Kerry Madsen, Ryan Timms, Ayrton Gennetten, JJ Hickle, and Cory Eliason. Landon Crawley also on the list in his new deal with Johnny Herrera. I don't think anyone really expects all 22 teams to run every single Saturday night, but regardless, this is a stout list. If this was a touring series, I think you'd sell some tickets and some streaming to see this group. The 410 title will not be an easy one to win this season there. I do want to say though, it's great to see Knoxville being rewarded for really committing to their weekly program. They have continued to add money to the pot for these teams, and it's working. I feel like we are at a time where track championships for things like 410 sprint cars and super late models have really been diminished. And that includes in some hot bed areas like Central PA. It wasn't all that long ago that sprint car team owner John Stehman was quoted in a piece at sprintcarunlimited.com saying track championships don't really intrigue him. The line was quote "they are nice, but they don't pay much." That Stehman 23 was previously a car that had competed for titles. For a lot of these teams that run regionally, it makes a lot more sense, especially financially, to just chase the bigger paying races. And that's even more true for those teams that can actually win. At Knoxville though, teams are racing for over $40,000 in purse money weekly, with those shows $6000 to win and $1000 to start. There is also a $20,000 check waiting for the champion at season's end. Knowing that, it's easy to see why so many cars have registered to run weekly. For you, are the track championships something you even pay attention to anymore? I know some folks don't care about even the series titles, but let me know what you think.

That's the show for today. It's quiet right now, but if you want to figure out what your streaming options are across the dirt racing services, head over to dirtrackr.com/watchtonight. I believe it's the most viewed single page over at dirtrackr.com. We try and make sure that list is as complete as possible, so you can see what is available to tune into if you can't get to the race track. All listings include track and series running, car types, start times where available, and links to watch.

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