DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Budget racer, premium wins; Hunt the Front heating up | Daily 6-24-2025

At a time when big money, big horsepower, and the newest parts win all the races, one driver showed us you can still do more with less. Plus we'll talk Hunt the Front's Joseph Joiner finding speed, Kyle Larson's upcoming sprint car plans, and more. Let's go!

It's Tuesday June 24th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

Pennsylvania Speedweek presented by Red Robin Gourmet Burgers and Brews is almost here. From June 27 to July 6th, the Keystone State is the place to be to see some of the best sprint car drivers in the nation battle it out on Pennsylvania's most iconic dirt tracks. This year each race pays a minimum of $10,000 to win with the Mitch Smith Memorial at Williams Grove on July 4 paying $20,000! And the C&D Rigging Point Fund is at a record $35,000! In the heart of the PA Posse's home, Central PA's marquee event, Pennsylvania Sprint Speedweek, has a storied history of being the most anticipated week of racing. The coveted title has been won by some of the biggest names in sprint car racing including, Fred Rahmer, Greg Hodnett, Danny Dietrich and Lance Dewease. Can Anthony Macri make it three Speedweek Championships in a row? A feat that only Fred Rahmer has on his resume. Can Danny Dietrich be the first driver to win both Ohio and PA Speedweeks in the same year? Bring the whole family and experience the thrill of live racing! Don't miss the most electrifying week in racing! Pennsylvania Speedweek – ten nights, one unforgettable experience! For more information go to pa speedweeks dot com or find them on Facebook and X!

I posted a Bill Balog photo to the DIRTRACKR Facebook page yesterday, and shared a few of his stats from the Huset's weekend. Since Saturday night, I've been thinking a lot about Balog's situation, and how rare it seems like it's become for smaller teams to win big time dirt racing shows nowadays. Looking through both the Outlaws and High Limit on the sprint car side, Balog and Travis Arenz are really the only two drivers that you wouldn't call traditional favorites that have won this season. And if you look at the late model side, there really hasn't been that type of win in 2025. Tyler Bruening won back at the start of the Lucas season, he's maybe the closest thing we have, although that is a good team with a lot of touring experience. Balog started the year with no sponsor on the hood of his 17B, but did pick up Kevin Newton's Honest Abe Roofing back in March for some added support. And outside of himself and crew member Dennis Gregg, he really doesn't have a crew chief or a typical crew setup. Beyond himself and Gregg, Balog regularly relies on friends and family to help out on the road through the season. But none of that stood in his way over the weekend at Huset's. A win, two seconds, and a seventh, and a six figure boost to his bank account. After finishing second to Kofoid on Thursday night, he changed engines for Friday, which was a good move, as it led to the win. Balog called it quote "another wore out motor, but it runs really good." We are something like 36 races deep into this World of Outlaws schedule, and at this moment, Balog has the same number of national touring wins as Sheldon Haudenschild, Logan Schuchart, Brent Marks, and Justin Peck. And he has more wins than Tyler Courtney, Gio Scelzi, and Donny Schatz. 2025 hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows for Balog, they had truck issues earlier this year, and while he is qualifying better and starting features better than 2024, some of the finishes haven't quite been there, and his average feature finish is down just a bit. But Huset's and Talladega earlier this year showed that when things are right, Balog can beat anyone. It's a bit strange to call a guy who's won ten championships with another series an underdog, but man if you were looking for someone to root for beyond the usual favorites, this is your guy.

We are still about six weeks away from the big race weeks at Knoxville, with the 360 Nationals happening July 31st through August 2nd, then it's the Cappy on August 3rd, followed by the Knoxville Nationals starting on August 6th. The track though is already starting to share some entry and prelim night information across their website and social media accounts. We'll talk more about a lot of that in the future, but I did want to point out today that Kyle Larson is among the entries for the 360 Nationals, which will be the first time he's appeared in the event since 2022. For his career, he's only raced the 360 Nats three times, 2012 and 2013, and then again in 2022. His best finish was third in 2013. The NASCAR Cup Series is at Iowa Speedway that same weekend, so the travel won't be a problem for Yung Money. It's only about 40 miles between the two race tracks. It will likely mean though that we won't see Larson run the Capitani Classic, but that's not an event he's raced at since 2020 anyway. It does suck that the two tracks will be running against each other on that Sunday. The Cup race is set for 2:30 local time, with Cappy hot laps at Knoxville slated for 6:45. They don't completely overlap, so it would be possible to see both events if fans hustled. If you're going to be around Iowa Speedway for the NASCAR events, Knoxville would be a very nice nightcap, especially knowing Larson is racing, along with Rico Abreu, Ryan Timms, Brian Brown, and I'm sure a lot more entries to come. One more note on Larson, he will be at Lucas Oil Speedway this week for the Thursday High Limit show. High Limit will be at Wheatland Thursday through Saturday, but Larson is only running that Thursday race. Remember, this Thursday was originally on the High Limit schedule for Lake Ozark, but the event was moved over to Wheatland a few weeks ago.

The other main topic I want to hit on today is the recent speed we've seen from Hunt the Front's Joseph Joiner. The Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series has a big weekend coming up, with $10,000 to win Friday at Lake Cumberland, and then a $20,000 to win race on Saturday at Florence that is a co-sanction with the Northern All Stars. Joiner is coming into these races off a stretch of five straight top eight finishes with the Summer Nationals, racing a bunch of tracks he'd never seen before. And then on the way home, they hit up Cherokee Speeday on Saturday with the Southern Thunder series, and Joiner bagged $10,000 and his fourth super late model win of 2024. Had some things fallen different with the Hell Tour at Wilmot with those cautions, we could also have been talking about him winning that night, as he led a bunch of laps. Things at the Dirt Late Model Dream didn't go how Hunt the Front would have wanted, and Joiner is currently ninth in the HTF series standings, but if he can keep this speed up that we've seen the last two weeks, he should easily climb back up. They still have a bunch of racing to do with that series in 2025, and he's only 82 points back of points leader Zack Mitchell. It seems like Capitals always take a beating when it comes to the online commentary, but Joiner has been making his work. And I doubt there were a whole lot of them hanging around those Summer Nationals shows. The addition of Taylon Center this season in that consultant slash crew chief role, and his guidance is paying dividends. We've seen with so many other drivers how important it is to have a knowledgeable crew chief, and the difference it can make to lighten the load for a driver on a race night. And we are watching that play out in real time with Joiner. Instead of needing to be involved in every little detail and change, he can leave that to Center and the crew. With the Outlaws way up north, and Lucas off, I think both of these Hunt the Front shows this weekend could draw some good car counts. Don't sleep on these shows Friday and Saturday.

If you want some racing tonight, the Summer Nationals begin week three with a stop at Springfield Raceway in Missouri. Jason Feger and Ryan Gustin were the champions of the first two weeks, and I believe that Feger is leading the overall standings. Trevor Neville is indeed still in control of the Modified Nationals standings. Once we get a bit deeper here, we could see some movement with the modified guys, as they will be able to start throwing out some of their worst finishes. Those guys aren't racing today though, as Springfield is a late model only event for the Summer Nationals. Springfield though will have weekly divisions in action alongside the late models tonight. The rest of the week three schedule includes Tri-City, Macon for the Herald and Review 100, Farmer City, Highland, and Clarksville.

Elsewhere, the Short Track Super Series at New Egypt has been postponed because of the heat wave. They will try to run that show again on July 8th. And tonight's Harris Clash at Boone Speedway has been pushed back to August 5th because of wet weather.

That's the Daily for today. Don't forget you can watch the Daily show completely ad free over at patreon.com/dirtrackr. That is one of the perks of the top tier membership I have named "reserved seating." You can sign up free as a member on Patreon, but the premium tiers do have added benefits. So check that out at patreon.com/dirtrackr.

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