DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Help a rival, get beat?! Plus big changes for trio of late model teams | Daily 5-4-2025
Both late model national tours lose full timers, and we'll talk about what's next for all three. Plus Tim McCreadie looks sporty, weekend results, and a sprint car driver welds on a rival's car, and then gets beat by him. Let's go!
It's Sunday, May 4th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.
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We started the 2025 dirt late model season with a lot of teams declared as full timers for the two national tours. And that included a number that were signed on with both sides. As we get further into the spring here and more races complete, we are starting to see some of that expected attrition. Getting to the end with close to 20, or even over 20 teams just isn't realistic for the economics of the sport, and every week we see just how tough it is to run near the front in these World of Outlaws and Lucas races. In recent days we lost a trio of dirt late model teams from national touring action, which included one with Lucas, and sort of two with the Outlaws. We'll get back to that in a minute. On the Lucas side, we had no Ross Robinson at Circle City on Friday night. His team shared to social media a few days ago they are stepping back from the grind, and will go pick and choose the rest of the season. This ends a three plus year run on tour with Lucas, and actually 2025 wasn't going terribly. Four top tens through the first 14 races, and his best average finish in a season to date. He was finishing nearly a full position better so far versus 2024. Robinson was 13th in the standings after Port Royal, which is often where you'd find the seven team. His best points finish was his rookie year in 2022, when he ended up 10th. 13th and 12th were where he landed in 2023 and 2024. Robinson will now become a factor for some of those east coast late model shows, and I would expect some wins as the season goes along. The announcement from the team also said his wife Amanda is ready to do some racing again herself. Amanda actually outrunning Ross last week at Georgetown Speedway. She was 14th in the Lucas feature there.
On the World of Outlaws side, Kyle Bronson was a no-show up at Mississippi Thunder, and his 40B team is no longer full time. They are still planning a very heavy schedule, but they will focus on improving their team and getting in a lot of testing going forward. Bronson with just two Outlaw top tens through this early part of the season, and clearly missing some of the speed they had last year and in 2023. This is a driver with wins on tour with both the Outlaws and Lucas, and things not up to their expectations here in 2025. Remember this team was fourth in the Outlaw standings in each of the last two seasons. As I said though, still an ambitious schedule on tap, and that includes all five races in Illinois this week between the Flo series and Lucas.
The other loss for the Outlaws is Jimmy Owens. I said on the show last Thursday that this was going to be a decision week for Owens and his team, as they still had status with the Outlaws, while also being signed on with Hunt the Front. They were planning on the the Hunt the Front shows, but when those got cancelled, they just decided to stay home for the weekend. Koehler Motorsports though not giving up completely with the World of Outlaws. Team owner Bobby Koehler sent me a message on Thursday to update their plans with the second team, and said that while Owens will continue to follow Hunt the Front, and run pick and choose, they will keep up their owner points with the Outlaws. Chris Simpson actually raced under the Koehler banner at Mississippi Thunder, and a pair of top ten finishes has the Koehler team just outside the top ten in those team points. No word yet on if the deal with Simpson will continue, or who Koehler could partner with for future Outlaw shows. That series off for about two weeks now.
Jumping into some of the weekend racing, we saw some new dirt late model winners, which was a nice change of pace. Brandon Overton dominated the Lucas race Friday night at Circle City for his first national tour score since Smoky Mountain last June. It was his first Lucas win as well in the Longhorn Factory Team. This was exactly what this group needed after falling out of the Lucas chase last week. They are still outside looking in, but only five points behind Garrett Alberson. This could be one of those getting the monkey off situations. First national tour win out of the way, and likely more to come. With Lucas at Florence last night cancelled, they were one of several Lucas teams who supertrucked overnight to Mississippi Thunder to race with the Outlaws. Overton led laps and ended up with a podium there as well.
Those Outlaw wins at Mississippi Thunder went to Tyler Erb and Nick Hoffman. Terbo hadn't led laps in an Outlaw feature since this Mississippi Thunder weekend way back in 2022, and his last win was at Atomic in April of 2022. And Hoffman's win last night was his first since Norman County in June of last year. I said not long ago that it's likely Bobby Pierce will run away with the Outlaw championship this season, as we just haven't seen enough from Ryan Gustin and Hoffman. This was a resounding response though from Hoffman. Second Friday, and the win last night. He still trails Pierce by 76 points, but it was nice to see some different winners. Hat tip as well to Tim McCreadie. Three straight top seven finishes now, including laps led last night, and pair of top five runs this weekend. That car looks much more competitive now that it's a Longhorn, and McCreadie admitted to Dirt on Dirt's Kevin Kovac after Friday's race that setups have changed a lot since he was last in a Longhorn. Remember he was the Rocket house car driver for much of 2024, and started this season in Rockets under Boom Briggs' ownership. I was trying to find the last time a Boom Briggs' owned car led laps in an Outlaw or Lucas race. I think it was in 2023 when Max Blair won at Lernerville, and then led at Muskingum County. Before that, it may have been 2020 with Briggs himself. McCreadie might be a darkhorse pick for some wins this season.
Moving on to some sprint car stuff, High Limit back to racing with the two wins at Texas Motor Speedway going to Brent Marks and Rico Abreu. Both first time winners in 2025. Rico has now won three of his last four sprint car starts going back to Knoxville with the Outlaws. Two more podiums though for Brad Sweet, he's yet to finish outside the top five in a High Limit race this season, and his championship lead is suddenly 83 over Tyler Courtney. We are now into a very busy stretch for High Limit, with 13 races coming up between now and the end of May. I want to spotlight Kasey Kahne here real quick with High Limit. Five top tens in eight races, which included two more at Texas. His average finish is six positions better right now versus 2024. I don't know what's working better here, if maybe Kasey is just rejuvenated with the NASCAR opportunity, or if Andrew Bowman is finding his spot as a crew chief, but these guys have been good. I hope it continues.
At Eldora, just one of two Let's Race Two nights got completed. David Gravel and Brady Bacon picked up wins on Friday. No changes atop either the Outlaw or USAC sprint standings. Donny Schatz had his best run of the season with a second place finish. And a career best run for Zach Hampton rolling some hot bottom. Three to one in his heat, an incredible eight to three in the dash, and a sixth place finish after starting third in the feature. That eight to three dash run is the most positions gained in an Outlaw dash this season.
Other weekend sprint car winners included a Ryan Bernal Ultimate sweep at Placerville, Justin Sanders and Joel Myers Jr. split winged wins there at Placerville, Kaleb Montgomery a CRA winner at Santa Maria, Trey Osborne won the weekly show at Montpelier, Jake Blackhurst an IRA winner at Wilmot, and Ryan Timms won a great race through lap traffic in 410 action at Knoxville. Brian Brown bounced back from a heat race crash to finish second in that one, he chased Timms all the way through. And how about Cory Eliason welding on Brownie's frame after that crash in his driver's suit. Had to share this photo from Brown of that. Always one of my favorite things about racing, watching competitors help each other out. Brownie tangled with Carson McCarl at the start of heat two and needed some work to get that car put back together for the feature. Eliason actually started on the pole of that one, but ended up fourth. Hopefully Brownie at least bought him a beer afterward.
Alright, I think that's plenty for today. Hope you guys have a great Sunday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!