DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Rocket Chassis' new design, Austin Kirkpatrick reveals first production late model | Daily 7-7-2025

Brandon Sheppard was fast this past weekend with Lucas, and he did it in a new Rocket design. We'll talk about at least a few of the updates, plus Austin Kirkpatrick's AK Racecars is open for business, Lucas Lee and Tyler Erb both win but were not happy, and a more today. Let's go!

It's Monday, July 7th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

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There is no question that this past weekend's Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series events were good ones for Brandon Sheppard and the Rocket house car team. A win at Atomic on Friday night, pole on Saturday, laps led, and a third place finish at Muskingum County. We talked on the Sunday show about Atomic being Shepp's first Lucas win since February of 2024. I also wondered if this wasn't maybe the real start of a Rocket 1 turnaround, because even this season it seems like we've seen a few false starts. After BShepp won the Friday heat race at Atomic and stopped to get interviewed, I started getting messages about his car. Sheppard mentioned a few places this weekend that the Rocket 1 was a new car and that the crew at Rocket had been working hard to get it together. Most times when you hear drivers talking about getting new cars together, they aren't referring to chassis redesigns, but instead just a fresh chassis from the builder. In this case though, word on the streets is this Rocket is another new iteration. The stickers on it still say Rocket XR1.2, but is this the time for XR1.3? or 1.2.2. Or maybe even Rocket XR2. Even on just the little stuff we can see that isn't covered by body work, there are differences. The big one that's easy to spot is the bar over the driver's left shoulder that goes down in the door. With the angles of photos, it can be difficult to find direct comparisons that show the exact same angle, but I grabbed a screenshot from Fairbury back in May when Sheppard was a heat race winner, and we can compare that to the images from Atomic last Friday night. That down bar to the driver's left previously was much straighter, with the bend a lot higher up. Now that bar is much more rounded and looks like it disappears into the door bodywork at a sharper angle. Also, if you look in front of the driver, that bar on the front left that you often see drivers with their hand on when they are rolling around has been relocated. Before, it was longer and welded up much more closer to the overhead halo. Now it's much lower, actually below the little roof support. It looks as though Mark Richards and his team have made some significant changes to the safety cage around the driver. And my assumption is that if there are changes in this area, there are likely other differences as well. Some friends in the late model pit area have confirmed to me that this is a new design and direction for Rocket, but the full scope of the changes isn't quite known yet. That more rounded down bar does resemble what we see on the Longhorn, and that was a comment I got sent a few different times. Not that Rocket couldn't get it's hands on a Longhorn if they wanted to dissect it, but BShepp would also be intimately familiar with those designs given his time as Longhorn's house car driver the previous few seasons. Whatever Rocket has done, it definitely paid dividends this past weekend. I'm sure if the speed continues, Rocket customers will be clambering to get their hands on one. But very clearly some new stuff happening on the Rocket side.

Sticking with dirt late model chassis news. Austin Kirkpatrick, who is known for his different designs under his AK Racecars brand, announced last night that he's going to start selling chassis. His first production ready design is called the REV1 and he's taking orders now. The announcement came in a YouTube video where Kirkpatrick walks viewers through the entire process for the design, showing off CAD renderings, stress tests on the chassis and roll cage, and talking about the use of generative AI in the design of certain parts. Besides wanting to build a car that goes fast, Kirkpatrick also focused on driver safety, and repeatability in the build process. It's not uncommon to hear racers and teams talking about getting quote "good" cars or "bad" cars fresh off the build jig, and he's hoping to mitigate that with tigher tolerances and a newly designed jig. Kirkpatrick has been proving out his car concept this season with Ross Bailes in the seat. The car with the wild looking wrap has made starts all over the southeast and at Eldora during the Dirt Late Model Dream. Bailes has had speed in the car, including at the Wild West Shootout, and Kirkpatrick went 17th to eighth with the Southern Thunder Super Dirt Series a few weeks ago at Cherokee. That was the race that Joseph Joiner won. Even if you aren't in the market for a dirt late model chassis, go check out his announcement video on YouTube. I'll link to it below. Super interesting stuff.

In Sunday racing action, Chase Dietz closed out PA Speedweek with the win at Path Valley. He got around Ryan Smith inside ten to go to earn his first win of the week, and his first career speedweek score. He's got four total 410 wins this season, with all coming at different tracks. Dietz had an up and down speedweek, with some podium runs, but also a crash at Lincoln, and a 12th place run at Hagerstown. Anthony Macri's top five run was more than good enough for him to wrap up his third straight PA Speedweek title. The only other driver to do something like that was Fred Rahmer. Macri never outside the top five in any of the seven completed speedweek races. He had a win, and four podiums to go along with the title.

With the Summer Nationals, week four closed out with a Tyler Erb win at Duck River, but it was Jason Feger who won the championship for the week, beating Erb by just one point. Erb won three times in week four, but things for him were undone by a 20th place finish at LaSalle. Feger's average finish for the week was four, while Erb's was 5.3. Terbo though seemingly not pleased with missing out on the championship two weeks in a row, saying last night in victory lane quote "apparently this is two weeks in a row I've got f'ed out of ten grand." Erb dropping a few f-bombs in his post race interview though ended up feeling pretty tame compared to Modified Nationals winner Lucas Lee going off later on. That was maybe the angriest win interview I've ever seen. Lee not happy with Chase Holland, who he got stacked up behind on the start. In an expletive-laden rant Lee called Holland a quote "bozo clown", and said he could quote "go beg some f'ing money", among other insults. It felt a lot more like a guy who'd just gotten crashed and was out versus a driver who'd just won his eighth career series event. Lee looking as well like he had a few things to say to some folks in the crowd as he wrapped up the very brief interview. So much for having fun out there racing your car. Maybe a good thing for everyone that the Hell Tour is quiet today. The fifth and final week of the year starts tomorrow night at Shadyhill Speedway.

Two things to close out today. First, the Texhoma Racers Hall of Fame announced it's next class of inductees in recent days. Later this year, in September, 10 individuals are getting the nod, including a mix of drivers and other motorsports contributors. The list includes Johnny Rutherford, Joe Wood Sr., Wayne Johnson, James McElreath Jr., Bruce Jennings, Eddie Hill, David Farmer, Ronnie Jones, Jeff Taylor, and Jim Uselton. For more information on the induction ceremony, find the Texhoma Racers Reunion & Hall of Fame on Facebook.

And finally, shout out to sprint car driver Brody Ferguson today. Brody was injured in a crash at Skagit Speedway over the weekend and is headed in for back surgery today. He's been a regular at Skagit all season, on top of making some micro starts at Deming Speedway. Hoping for a quick recovery for Brody and hopefully he can get back to a track soon.

That's the Daily for this Monday. Hit that subscribe button on YouTube or podcast places, and follow on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram for more dirt racing content.

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