DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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A swap BACK to Rocket... Outlaw storm chasers?! Hunt the Front, High Limit shakeups! | Daily 6-29-2025
One World of Outlaws late model series driver quietly swapped chassis, and he's been doing pretty well. Plus a Hunt the Front series shakeup, a new High Limit points leader, and a lot more. Let's go!
It's Sunday June 29th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.
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Over the last few weeks, if you are dialed in to dirt late model racing, a name you've been seeing up towards the front a little more often is Ashton Winger. Winger is back out full time with the World of Outlaws this season after a few years away, but it's been a battle so far. The season didn't start great down south, and he didn't really start to find his footing until the May shows at Mississippi Thunder. He did lead laps and finish second at Swainsboro before that, but just no consistency. In May though, things turned around, and he started stacking up top ten finishes with the Outlaws, and bagged a MARS win at Tri-City. If you remember back to 2024, Winger decided to start campaigning his own chassis, moving away from Rockets. He and father Gary partnered with Doug Stevens in Goergia to build what they call Fusion Chassis. Running this different design continued into this season, that was until a few weeks ago. Things seemed to be going fine until the Dream week at Eldora. Winger pulled in during the B-Main on the Flo series night, and they appeared to break something after bouncing around in their Dream prelim heat race later that week on Friday, and never raced again. DNS in the prelim B, and DNS in the Saturday heat race. Nine days later, when they went to Wilmot with the Summer Nationals, suddenly the Fusion logos were gone from the car. That includes on rear spoiler and the halo. Some of you might even remember that Wilmot night, because it was the race in which he flipped wildly in the feature. There were folks who thought that was the Fusion he flipped, but it sounds like it was actually a brand new Rocket. Since then, things have been going pretty well. Third at Davenport, fifth and seventh at Pevely, second at Springfield, and third back on Friday at River Cities. I don't believe he's addressed it, and there aren't any Rocket logos on the car, including on the halo above his head. The only real public acknowledgement about it was a Brandon Sheppard Racing Facebook post about a quote "all Rocket Chassis podium" at Springfield. Over the last year or two, it seems like the news has usually been a driver and team switching away from Rockets, so it's notable that we have someone switching back. This might be a situation like Jimmy Owens, where there was a switch out of necessity, but it also could just be they wanted a change. It seems to be working though, and Winger back in a Rocket now gives them three higher profile guys running them. That includes Sheppard in the Rocket 1 and his own B5, plus Tyler Erb. Sheppard has had absolute crap luck lately, but Erb has been winning with the Summer Nationals. Longhorn continues to really dominate the national tours, but maybe there is some hope of a Rocket resurgence.
With the World of Outlaws late models over the weekend, Nick Hoffman went back to back at River Cities and Norman County. The two victories bring him back within 100 points of leader Bobby Pierce, with the gap 76 headed today to Nodak Speedway. Winger was involved out front in that Friday race, leading laps, bending sheet metal, and tangling with Drake Troutman. He also dropped an F-bomb live on DIRTVision after the race. If you are curious how Donny Schatz's nieces fared, they were both B-Main runners on Friday, but made the feature last night, with Laela Eisenschenk finishing 16th, and Amelia Eisenschenk finishing 17th. You can watch action today from Nodak live over on DIRTVision.
Weekend Hunt the Front and Northern All Stars wins went to Cory Hedgecock at Lake Cumberland, and Devin Moran at Florence. Hedgecock beat Jason Jameson and Joseph Joiner, while Moran topped Josh Rice and Joiner. Because of a tough night yesterday for Zack Mitchell, plus Ricky Weiss' travel issues, we have had a shakeup in the Hunt the Front series points. Jimmy Owens now leads, wth Hedgecock second, 24 points back, and Mitchell down to third, 26 out. Dalton Cook is fourth, and Joiner has climbed to fifth with those two podiums. Joiner's recent run of speed continuing, and at a point where he needed it to stay in the championship fight. Hunt the Front right back to it this coming Saturday with a stop at Senoia.
Summer Nationals is still rolling along as well, with Trey Mills winning back on Thursday at Macon. He just barely held off Brandon Sheppard at the end to win the Herald and Review 100. Sheppard had to drive through the field twice in that one after starting deep, then having to pit later. Jason Feger won Friday at Farmer City, and last night at Highland. BShepp leads the week three championship heading to Clarksville today.
Switching over to sprint cars, three nights at Lucas Oil Speedway, and three different Kubota High Limit winners. Aaron Reutzel survived a late race slider from Tanner Thorson to win on Thursday. Rico Abreu bounced back from tough few weeks to go fourth to the win on Friday, in a race where Tyler Courtney and Ashton Torgerson also led laps. And then last night, Sunshine finally got it done after leading laps the previous two nights. That was Courtney's first High Limit win of 2025, and second overall sprint car win. The series goes quiet now for the July 4th holiday, but they go into the break with Reutzel now the points leader. He jumped over Brad Sweet, and leads by nine. We talked earlier this year about Reutzel potentially being a championship contender here, and it's starting to get serious. Courtney is third, Rico is fourth, and Brent Marks fifth. We spotlighted Tanner Thorson on the show last week and his coilover setup that is starting to pay dividends. He was good all three nights, going second, third, fourth and leading some laps. He's likely too far back to contend for the title, but he's very much in the franchise conversation.
Up in Wisconsin, David Gravel and Carson Macedo split the World of Outlaws sprint car wins at Cedar Lake. It didn't seem to bother Gravel on Friday that his front nose wing was wonky late in the going. And Macedo battled Gio Scelzi last night, before Scelzi lost a right rear tire late and ended up 18th. I was glad to see Kelby Watt walk away from a nasty crash last night where he flipped out of the ballpark in between turns one and two. I believe I saw that was his only car, so hopefully we'll see him back on track again soon. The Outlaws on a break now until July 10th.
Other sprint car winners included Cale Thomas with the All Stars at Mercer, Justin Grant has now won three straight with USAC. He topped Logan Seavey and Kyle Cummins at Fremont. They race again today at Millstream. Max Guildford and Joel Myers Jr. were IRA winners, Paul Nienhiser took the MOWA show at Jacksonville, and Ryah Timms was a winner again at Knoxville. As for PA Speedweek, they haven't gotten a show in yet with rainouts. They will try again today at BAPS Motor Speedway to get things rolling.
Finally today, there was a tornado back on Thursday around Albert Lea, Minnesota. Minnesota DOT cameras caught the tornado live, and damage was reported in the area, but thankfully, it sounds like no injuries. In this photo however, you can see some trucks on the highway. If you look closely, you might recognize those two trucks. The first is the World of Outlaws sprint car series command center, and the second is the tech trailer. They were en route to Cedar Lake, and I'm sure just a bit nervous to look out and see a tornado in front. Hat tip to the TSR social media folks for spotting this.
That's the show for today. Hope you guys have a great Sunday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!