DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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DAVID GRAVEL IS BETTER THAN KYLE LARSON! (::ducks::) | Daily 5-29-2025

David Gravel is the best sprint car driver in the country. Even over Kyle Larson and Brad Sweet. At least, that's what my new rankings system says. Right or wrong, come along for the discussion, won't you? I'll even give you a chance to respond. Let's go!

It's Thursday, May 29th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

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Not long ago on the show I teased that I had been working on a sprint car driver ranking system, and I want to take you through it a bit today. The idea of who is the best or the fastest is never really a question we can truly answer, because it can change from year to year, race to race, or even lap to lap. When looking at dirt racing as a whole, there are various methods out there at the moment for trying to settle on such things, including Bill's system at sprintcarratings.com. If you aren't familiar with that site and are a sprint car fan, it's a must. He doesn't go too deep into his methodology, but it does say that a perfect rating is 1.0 and that the rating itself is based on results, wins, money, average finish, and level of competition among other things. He's come up with what is effectively a math formula based on a bunch of different factors. And as results get added, that formula updates the list. Right now, he's got David Gravel ahead of Kyle Larson and Rico Abreu. His main rating system is based on a rolling two-year period, but you can get ratings for individual seasons. We also have something like the dirtondirt.com top 25. Each week through the season, a panel of 10 voters makes their own decisions, results are compiled, and you've got their list of the best 25 late model drivers. The methodology here is completely unknown, as it's just based on what each voter thinks or feels, and that could change each week. At the moment, they've got Bobby Pierce over Jonathan Davenport and Ricky Thornton Jr., with JD hopping RTJ this week after the Show-Me 100. The TLDR of my ranking system is that right now, with all World of Outlaws and High Limit races going back through the 2017 season, David Gravel edges out Kyle Larson for the best sprint car driver. They are trailed by Brad Sweet, Carson Macedo, and Rico Abreu in the top five. Buddy Kofoid, Sheldon Haudenschild, Logan Schuchart, Tyler Courtney, and Donny Schatz are the rest of the top ten. Getting into the details and the nerdy stuff, my own approach for this first run at a sprint car ranking system is more math based, like Bill's, but it goes in a much different direction. I'm a numbers and data guy, so that shouldn't surprise you. But instead of using stats and money to make a determination, I created a system using what's called the Trueskill algorithm. Trueskill is based a bit on a rating system originally developed for chess players, but it expands things to allow for many competitors at once, versus just two players. It was originally developed by Microsoft to rank players in online gaming environments, but it's used in many different places now, and it's simplicity lends itself well to racing. It doesn't care about track conditions, or qualifying wings, or race payouts, or what Daily YouTube show hosts think. All it cares about is your skill, what uncertainty we have about your skill, and making small adjustments to both as we add results. In simple terms, everyone starts with a base score, and then updates happen incrementally as we feed it races. Every driver ends up with a skill metric, an uncertainty metric, and we use both to calculate a final score. The more races we have from you, the better we quote unquote know you, so uncertainty goes down. So now that you understand a bit more about how the rankings were created, let's talk about them. When I teased them last week, I ended up with a Facebook comment from someone calling me an idiot. No way David Gravel is better than Kyle Larson. But that's the debate, right to it's core. This ranking system isn't based on feelings and vibes. And for comparison, Bill's sprint car ratings also have Gravel above Larson at the moment. If we go back to the earlier part of the results I fed the rankings system, say 2017 up through 2020, Kyle Larson very clearly ahead of all drivers. But in more recent times, other drivers rise, including Gravel, Macedo, and Sweet. Yes Larson wins a lot, and is fast, but he also has missteps and gets caught up in stuff sometimes. Him not racing for points also changes things. There are likely nights where Larson could probably continue racing after trouble, but they park it because it doesn't matter. That results in some worse finishes. Gravel or Sweet or Macedo can't do that. They stay in the fight, and it benefits them. Larson was 24th three weeks ago at Lakeside. Gravel hasn't finished outside the top 20 in an Outlaw show in more than a year. On the flip side though, not racing all the time benefits Larson too. He can pick and choose to race where and when he wants. The full time guys play the hand they are dealt. The scores are so close among the top two, that we can get close to calling them 1A and 1B, but just like there is an argument to be made that Larson is better, there is also one to be made that Gravel is better. And in this case, what Larson does outside of the sprint car doesn't matter. It's not part of the conversation. We are only talking about sprint cars vs sprint cars. Before we close this out, here is the top 25 sprint car drivers current as of today. And remember, this is only taking World of Outlaws and High Limit races into consideration. No regional or local stuff. As you look down through this list, do you agree with the order? Disagree? Let me know! Sometime soon, I will also take all Lucas and World of Outlaws late model results I have and do the same thing for those drivers. We can probably also do midget racers, between USAC and Xtreme.

Before we shut it down for the week, just a few things I'll be watching for this weekend around the country. First, who will come out on top of the big money modified show at Mississippi Thunder. Can a modified guy win, or will one of the late model stars bag the big cash. With High Limit, can the four drivers behind Brad Sweet find a way to close down more between Lawrenceburg and Butler. Brad hasn't won since Central Arizona in March, and we've seen some bad luck and missteps lately. In North Dakota, can Donny Schatz finally break through for an Outlaw win on home turf. He's still winless since Lincoln last October, and his season continues to be very up and down. His last River Cities win was way back in 2019, and his last Red River Valley score was 2021. Around late model racing, regional stuff takes center stage with both national tours off. The big places to watch include MARS at La Salle, that one pays $25,000 on Saturday and should draw a lot of touring guys. There is also Hunt the Front at Swainsboro on Saturday, and Northern All Stars among many others. Your favorite drivers will be scattered, or sitting idle with Eldora looming. Other racing to check out includes Western PA Speedweek for sprint cars, USAC at Knoxville, Xtreme Midgets, NARC and the SCCT at Placerville, Short Track Super Series at Airborne Park, and the full compliment of local action. If you want to see your streaming options all weekend, stop by dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.

That's the Daily for this final week of May. Enjoy the dirt racing weekend out there, and we will see you back here on Sunday!