DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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The anatomy of a sprint car team BATTLING to save their night | Daily 5-15-2025
Things went sideways early last night for an Outlaw team, and today we'll walk you through the entire process they went through at break-neck speed to salvage their race. Plus an update on Chris Madden's future, a surprise front runner at Oshweken, and more. Let's go!
It's Thursday, May 15th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.
Today's Daily show is being supported by our friends at ArrowVision. They've got a busy weekend coming up, with three different races to tune into. That includes a pair of Comp Cams Super Dirt Series late model events Friday and Saturday. Championship leader Billy Moyer leads the series into The Rev on Friday May 16th, and Texarkana 67 Speedway on Saturday, May 17th. Both shows are $5000 to win and $500 to start. Tyler Stevens and Tony Jackson Jr. are the most recent series winners. Grab an account and watch both of these over at www.arrowvision.live. Also on Friday night, if you can't get to Arrowhead Speedway in Oklahoma, you can check out the Dustin's Dream Memorial. A packed night of racing includes the McLarty Daniel Buick GMC All-American Challenge Series with $2000 to win for outlaw modifieds, plus B-Mods, stock cars, pure stocks, midwest mods, tuners, interceptors, and dwarfs. They will cap the night with fireworks and a light show. All season long, ArrowVision is the streaming home for the Comp Cams Super Dirt Series, the All American Outlaw Modified Series, and Arrowhead Speedway. You can grab an account and tune in over at arrowvision.live.
We had good racing out front at Oshweken Speedway last night for the World of Outlaws first sprint car race in Canada since 2017. That included two of the series best going at it late, and an unknown leading laps and grabbing attention. Pennsylvania driver and regular 360 competitor Jordan Thomas took advantage of a front row dash draw to win, and put himself on the feature pole. He led 11 laps before eventually finishing fifth. It was just the fifth career Outlaw start for Thomas, and definitely his best result. All four of his previous starts came at Weedsport, with a best finish of 13th. The win came down to a battle between Carson Macedo and David Gravel, with Gravel coming out on top for a series leading seventh win on the year. Sheldon Haudenschild charged from seventh to second, and Macedo was third. The Outlaws will do it all over again tonight, before moving to Cornwall on Sunday.
Back to Sheldon Haudenschild. Him driving from seventh to second in that feature was probably the easiest thing that 17 squad did all night. After picking up quick time in group A qualifying, the 17 broke an engine. You could see smoke starting to appear from that car during time trials, and Sheldon eventually shut it down before completing lap number two. We later found out from DIRTVision's Connor Wade that the car actually broke a u-joint, which is what caused the engine to go south. Throughout the rest of qualifying and hot laps, we kept getting these little check-ins on DIRTVision, and I wanted to you walk you through the incredible timeline. These crews are incredible with what they can get done in a very short amount of time, and this team had it even worse than just an engine swap. Since it was the u-joint, they needed to replace the engine, but also the full driveline. So here is how this thing played out. The clock starts with Sheldon checking up coming to the checkered on that second lap showing smoke. About a minute 15 later, the car is shown back behind the truck, with crew chief Kyle Ripper, car chief Luke Vaughn, plus Clinton Boyles from the Vermeer 55 and Cody Jacobs and Zach Patterson from the Big Game 2 getting started on pulling that engine. There are a handful of other guys in there as well, and at one point along the way we even see David Gravel with tools in hand. We then see the car less than two minutes later with Vaughn draining water as progress continues. In between qualifiers we get more peeks, and right about four minutes after we first saw the car behind the truck, the engine and all it's bits are completely gone. Then over the next 15 or so minutes, the rest of that driveline assembly is replaced, including the driveshaft and torque tube. They didn't even take the seat or any interior pieces out, just working around them. And then 20 minutes after Sheldon slowed up on the track, we look again to see the new engine has already been dropped into place inside the 17's trailer. We get a few more scattered look-ins as flight B of qualifying continued, and then once qualifying was complete, we are shown Sheldon climbing back into the car with the new engine in, wing on, and final preparations happening. Those guys wrapped up, and were able to get that thing fired off to get some heat in it, and check for any issues. The NOS 17 was then ready to roll from the pole of heat race one. From the moment the 17 lost power, to that first heat race pushing off was about 48 minutes. And from car back at trailer to Sheldon strapping back in was an astonishing 28 minutes. Less than half an hour to pull one engine, replace the entire driveline assembly, drop a new engine in, and have the car just about ready to push off. Incredible stuff, and big kudos to the DIRTVision team for being all over the process so we could see it unfold live. To finish second after all that was a great result, and if we maybe would have had a late caution, a battle between the 17 and 2 would have been fun to watch. Here's to hoping things go a little smoother the rest of the weekend.
A quick update on the Chris Madden segment from yesterday where we talked about his racing operation going up for auction at some point after the Dream at Eldora. GR Smith's Team 22 sent me back this message on his future with their team, quote "Chris Madden's next scheduled race is the Dirt Late Model Dream Weekend in the Team 22INC Motorsports #44. The team has been busy putting all its focus on preparing for next months crown jewel at Eldora" unquote. So as I said yesterday, this seems to confirm my assumption that Madden's deal with Team 22 will be unaffected by this news of him selling out his own race team.
Looking at racing coming up, there is a ton of late model stuff on tap, with both national tours in action tonight. The World of Outlaws Late Models are at Raceway 7, before hitting Marion Center on Saturday and Bedford on Sunday. Bobby Pierce still leads Nick Hoffman and Ryan Gustin in the standings, and this notably is the final weekend for a key Outlaw official. Race director Mitch Hedstrom is moving over to NASCAR after Sunday's show to work ARCA and Truck Series events. That means series director Steve Francis is on the hunt for a new official to fill that spot, and the job is currently listed on the careers page at worldracinggroup.com. Dirt on Dirt's Kevin Kovac reported a while back that Francis thinks the new hire could come from within the WRG family. That was what happened with the sprint car series when Mike Hess was brought in by High Limit. Current race director Doug Leonard was moved over from the Super DIRTcar Series to take that role.
The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series is at Eagle Raceway in Nebraska for three nights. Ricky Thornton Jr., Devin Moran, Jonathan Davenport, and Garrett Alberson have the four chase spots. But Brandon Overton, Hudson O'Neal, and Brandon Sheppard are still very much in the mix. O'Neal a winner at Eagle in 2024, and we documented his turnaround on the show yesterday. And if I remember correctly, Eagle was RTJ's first race with Koehler last season.
Other action to get into includes the Hunt the Front Series at Sugar Creek and Smoky Mountain for good money, the Northern Allstars at Circle City and Lawrenceburg, and lots of other local and regional action. Make sure to check out the streaming schedule at dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
Weekend open wheel action includes High Limit at Ransomville and Utica-Rome. We'll see if Brent Marks, Tyler Courtney, or Rico Abreu can eat into Brad Sweet's lead. We've also got the IRA at Dodge County and Plymouth, NARC at Ocean at Tulare, AFCS, and local racing across PA, Ohio, and elsewhere. And USAC has the midgets at Belleville Friday and Saturday, and Sweet Springs on Sunday. That Saturday Belleville show also features the Silver Crown Series. So lots of options out there for your dirt racing enjoyment.
We'll call it good right there for the week. Thanks as always for the support and tuning in each day. It's much appreciated.
Hope you guys have a great Thursday and weekend out there, we'll see you back here Sunday!