DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Tanner Holmes adds Knoxville help, who's using Longhorn's new shocks, where was David Gravel? | Daily 8-4-2025
A bunch of news and notes from around Knoxville today, including what some free agent crew chiefs are doing this week, should we take James McFadden seriously as a Nationals threat, who was absent last night from the Cappy, plus we'll talk Longhorn's new shocks and who might be using them. All that and more. Let's go!
It's Monday, August 4th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.
A busy show today, as it's obviously one of, if not the biggest week in dirt racing. A lot to get to, but before we do, a quick message from today's show sponsor.
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Knoxville Nationals week is officially here, and 410 action kicked off last night with the Capitani Classic. It turned into a dominating win for James McFadden, who led all 25 laps from the outside pole driving the Tarlton 21. Polesitter Daison Pursley finished second and Brian Brown was third. In a rare occurrence for Knoxville, the track did take just a bit of rubber last night, with that lane just off the bottom turning into the fast way around late. I'm sure Chris Dunkin will make some changes for the rest of the week, as that's just not something we see there very often. Usually when there is rubber down too, social media lights up, but things were pretty quiet last night. Big win though for the Tarlton team, and maybe a bit of a shot across the bow that we need to pay more attention to McFadden this week when we talk about possible Nationals winners. JMac's best career finish at the Nationals was seventh back in 2021, driving for KKR. He was 17th last year in the Roth machine. That Tarlton car again with the Toyota power under the hood as well. Going back a few weeks, they had the Kistler steam for the first two Eldora nights. Then swapped to Toyota for the two Kings Royal nights, and then the Kistler was back at Lernerville. I believe they were also on the Kistler steam at Knoxville back on July 26th. With what we've seen from Buddy Kofoid this year, including an Outlaw podium at Knoxville back in June, and McFadden's performance last night (he was also quicktime in his group), Toyota might be a threat. Just another interesting wrinkle to watch for this week. 75 cars checked in last night, and David Gravel was the highest profile absence. Kyle Larson also not racing, but he was at Iowa Speedway all day for the Cup race. Not a shock though to see Gravel not go. He hasn't raced the Cappy since 2022. I saw some folks wondering if he didn't race because of free passes for the Outlaws. Remember though, the Cappy and the Front Row Challenge do not count towards the four race freebie passes for Outlaw teams. Those two races are called out specifically in the platinum agreement contract. So Outlaw teams could run last night, and tonight without burning a pass. There were a number of others who didn't race that we will see later this week, but a lot of teams just saving their stuff. 75 cars on a night like last night means it's a tough field to make.
Looking ahead to tonight, action moves over to Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa for Terry McCarl's Front Row Challenge. $21,000 to win and last year's winner Kyle Larson will be in the field. It's not far away, but you won't get a huge car count for this one. Most teams will instead take the day off and not use up any equipment. I'd guess 25, maybe 30 cars tonight. They had 30 in 2022, 39 in 2023, and 24 last year. The event social media channel also mentioned Carson Macedo, McFadden, the McCarl brothers, Ayrton Gennetten, Ryan Timms, and Brian Brown are all confirmed. Others I've seen that are headed that way as well include Anthony Macri, Tim Shaffer, Justin Whittall, and Gage Pulkrabek. We'll see who else signs in. The Front Row Challenge will be live tonight on FloRacing if you can't get there.
Two other notes, both on free agent sprint car crew chiefs. I'm told that Clinton Boyles is helping out Bernie Stuebgen's Indy Race Parts team this week with Parker Price Miller in the 71 machine. Boyles recently splitting with Vermeer Motorsports and driver Hunter Schuerenberg. Boyles was replaced at Vermeer by veteran Mark Smith.
Also, I said on yesterday's Daily about the Kasey Kahne Racing changes that I doubted ousted crew chief Tye Wolfgang would be on the sidelines for long. And I was correct. Wolfgang is consulting for the rest of the week with driver Tanner Holmes and his family-owned 18T crew. Holmes missed a feature transfer spot in a B-Main last night by one position. Wolfgang picking up a little extra work after losing the crew chief role on Brad Sweet's car following the 360 Nationals prelim night back on Friday. As we talked about yesterday, team owner Kasey Kahne making the decision to replace that entire 49 crew after Sweet's car was light at the scales after 360 Nats prelim qualifying. Andrew Bowman, Tayte Williamson, and Kyler Kerkvliet sliding over from Kahne's nine team to the 49 for the remainder of the season. Wolfgang brings plenty of experience to Holmes' team, with the Oregon driver looking for his first Knoxville Nationals main event start. The 18T did make the feature on Saturday night at the 360 Nationals, but they crashed and finished well down the order. Holmes in the midst of his best sprint car season to date, with a win, 14 top fives, and 19 top tens in 40 races this season. That victory coming back in May with NARC, and Holmes picking up four High Limit top fives. He's splitting time this season between the family car and the Tarlton 21. He started the season in the 21, and will get back in it later this year when McFadden returns to Australia.
If you want some modified action this week, the Short Track Super Series is at Can-Am today and Mohawk tomorrow. These are both north region series events, and Matt Sheppard is set to take over the points lead from Stewart Friesen. Friesen on the road to recovery following that ugly crash last week at Autodrome Drummond. His wife Jessica shared to social media back on Friday that Stewart had successful surgery to address both his pelvis and leg, and that they will meet with a physical therapist soon. That will make way for Sheppard, who also currently leads the south region standings. Tonight is $5000 to win, with Mohawk $10k to win on Tuesday. Both of these are live on FloRacing.
Finally today, I got asked over the weekend about who in dirt late model racing might be using the new shocks from Longhorn. If you might remember back to May, Longhorn's Dynamics division debuted their own dirt late model right rear shock, called the LHD-1. This announcement came right around the time that it was revealed that Kevin Rumley was no longer working with Bilstein Shocks, and instead had moved to Longhorn full time. A number of the top Longhorn teams continue to run Bilsteins, including the Longhorn Factory team with Brandon Overton, and Rumley's own car still had Bilstein stickers on it at the Prairie Dirt Classic. I wasn't aware who might be using the LHD-1s, but to be fair, I also hadn't asked around about them at all. Doing some quick research this morning, I found three drivers who've been on them at least at various points. We know Jason Feger won with the LHD-1 right rear during Summer Nationals action, regional standout Shane Sabraski has used them, and the Adams Family team with driver Dillon McCowan has had them bolted on as well. At the moment, Longhorn is just offering the right rear, so you'd still need likely Bilsteins for the other three corners. If you know of others out there using the new shocks, drop me a note.
We'll wrap it up right there 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 Monday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!