DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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The late model aero guy you probably don't know about | Daily 5-28-2025

Lucas changed it's speedweeks schedule, but will it really be that big of a difference? We'll discuss, plus we know that aerodynamics are a big deal in dirt late model racing, but have you ever seen them actually visualized? Those topics and more today. Let's go!

It's Wednesday, May 28th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

There is again a boat load of things to watch over on FloRacing this week. That includes the Modified World Championship at Mississippi Thunder, USAC at Knoxville, High Limit, MARS late models, NARC, and more. To get a FloRacing subscription, you can sign up and help out DIRTRACKR at no additional cost to you, by heading over to dirtrackr.com/floracing. Flo is home to a ton of big dirt racing series and events all season long, and they've also got plenty of paved racing, drag stuff and more. And you can explore an entire world of other sports and events as well through the other FloSports verticals. So dirtrackr.com/floracing, or you can click the link below in the video description, or the FloRacing links at dirtrackr.com.

We haven't talked about this yet on the show, but going back to last week, the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series announced a complete reconfigure of their early season Speedweeks schedule for 2026. Now, instead of basically being done before DIRTcar Nationals, Lucas has shifted all of their events until after DCN and the Daytona 500. The season will open February 19th at All-Tech, and run through March 7th at Golden Isles. Series director Rick Schwallie cited the need for a longer offseason, and unpredictable weather as reasons for the move. If you take a step back though, and look at the full picture, with Hunt the Front back at Needmore, and Screven holding Winter Freeze in early February, speedweeks will still be busy and packed with races. There will be days off between Needmore and Screven, and again between Volusia and All-Tech, that hadn't previously been there. But there are still 25 scheduled races between January 22nd and March 7th. This idea of an effectively non-existent dirt late model offseason is true for those teams that decide to race at the Dome in December, and then the Wild West Shootout at Vado in January. But let's be real here, neither of those are sanctioned events, and teams can skip them if they wanted time off. The Lucas schedule is done in October, and the Outlaws in very early November. Even with the Outlaw season starting again in late January, those teams would still have the rest of November, all of December, and a decent amount of January off. At some point, the teams need to shoulder some of the blame for creating their situations. I'm not advocating for less cars at the Dome or Vado certainly, but I'm apt to have a bit less sympathy for those guys. If there are events to be raced, some of these teams just can't help themselves. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. But as is the case for a lot of stuff, it's like the teams need to be saved from themselves. For some comparison, right now on May 28th, the driver on the sprint car side with the most starts is Anthony Macri. He's raced 28 times this season. But in late model racing, we have guys at nearly 50 races already. Both Brandon Sheppard and Tyler Erb have 49 starts. So do I think that Lucas moving these races until after the Daytona 500 will suddenly give teams a longer offseason? No, I don't. A few will take advantage. But most will head south in January or early February to run. And this might even allow more teams to go to Vado, especially knowing they wouldn't need to super truck back to Florida or Georgia if they are chasing Lucas. We'll see how it all eventually plays out, but those are my early reactions to the news. Drop your thoughts, let me know what you think about the Lucas change and how it will affect the teams.

For you tech nerds out there, something else I want to point out from recent days, was a find online by my guy Bozi Tatarevic. Bozi is a motorsports content creator and is deep in on the tech stuff, and he's also a mechanic and pit crew member for the Lexus sports car team in IMSA. He's a great follow on social media if you are into such things. But he found an entire article about CFD for dirt late models. If you don't know, CFD is computational fluid dynamics, and it's something where engineers and aerodynamicists can use the simulation of fluid movement over surfaces to understand things like aerodynamics. Air moves very similarly to fluids. CFD is such a big deal at some of the top levels of world motorsport, that in some series CFD time is actually limited. The article is fairly extensive, but it shows using some interesting and fairly intuitive plots, and what air is doing as it moves across the surface of these late model bodies. You can see the top, bottom, both sides, and front and rear visualizations. The article is several years old, but a lot of it is still very relevant. The CAD drawing of the car, and the simulations were done by Matt Furman, who is still a dirt late model regular around Iowa. He was most recently in action with the Flo series at Marshalltown. As a fun connection, we've actually talked about Matt Furman's work before here on the show, we just didn't realize it at the time. About a month ago, we talked about those little flange pieces that were spotted on Ricky Thornton Jr.'s car. They looked to be sealing the body panels off from where the roll bars went through. These were designed and built by Furman, he calls them deck grommets, and he hopes to be selling them soon through Lucky Dog Manufacturing. Seeing this CFD work, it's not surprising to see parts and pieces like this designed by the same guy. As you peruse the piece, you'll see how important the right side of the car is, and why there is so much skew. He also gives several top down views, including one where you can really visualize the movement of air with the car in yaw. I'm certainly no aero expert, so I won't try and explain any of this like I am. But I would recommend giving the piece a read. I will link to it below in the video description.

The Short Track Super Series modifieds racing last night at the Action Track USA. Always entertaining to see big cars on a little race track. I think if I was Mike Gular though, I'd be making sure Paul Mancini was getting left off the Thanksgiving dinner invite list this year. Gular led most of that race, but late in the going he ran up on the car of Mancini, and despite almost turning him multiple times, the 7M would not come off the bottom and let the leader through. In the final set of corners, second running Matt Sheppard made a hail mary move through the middle, and with Mancini in the way of Gular, beat the 53G back to the checkered for the win. It was back to back wins for Sheppard, who also won with the Super DIRTcar Series on Monday. Gular settled for second and Alex Payne was third. On track, and afterwards in his interview, Gular was a lot nicer about it than I think a lot of other drivers would have been. As Dominic Scelzi says, lap cars have no rights. The Short Track Super Series is off today, but they race again on Thursday at Airborne Park.

Up at Mississippi Thunder, it's a big week for modifieds, as the track gets set to host what they are caling the Modified World Championship. $300,000 in purse money available, with Saturday night paying $100,000 to win and $3000 to start. The track is open tonight for practice, and then racing gets started on Thursday. The entry list for the event is across 130 modifieds, and several big late model guys are coming in with the national tours both sitting quiet. Names to watch this week include Cade Dillard, Ethan Dotson, Dan Ebert, Jake Timm, Mason Zeigler, Ricky Thornton Jr., Dustin Sorensen, Drake Troutman, and Tyler Erb. And that list doesn't include all the big modified guys coming in, like Rodney Sanders, Kyle Strickler, Tanner Mullens, Jim and Joe Chisholm, and a whole lot more. The weekend also includes a $10,000 to win finale for USRA stock cars, and that field has swelled past 60 entries. This event replaced the XR Big Deal that happened at MTS in 2024. This year's event is being backed by FloRacing and RacinDirt, while XR moved the Big Deal to Ogilvie Raceway in Minnesota. That one will happen later this summer, in July.

That's it for today. Don't forget, if you want even more dirt racing content, make sure to follow DIRTRACKR across social media. That means Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and more. Wherever you are, so is DIRTRACKR.

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