DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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A driver needed. A driver missing. A driver back. | Daily 8-26-2025
Josh Richards' return confirmed. Where was Spencer Bayston. What will Jason Meyers do. Those topics and more today. Let's go!
It's Tuesday, August 26th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.
Today's Daily show is being supported by BAPS Motor Speedway and SprintCarUnlimited.TV. Coming up on Wednesday, that's this Wednesday, August 27th, the 2025 BAPS 410 sprint car schedule continues with another round of their season long championship. This will be a 410 sprint car-only show, and all the heavy hitters will be there including Danny Dietrich, Anthony Macri, Chase Dietz, and more. They've got free camping, free parking, and kids 12 and under are free. The infield spectator area will also be open. If you can't get to the track, watch it all live on SprintCarUnlimited.tv. Sprint cars will be on track for hot laps at 7PM. Just a handful of 410 races remain on the schedule in 2025 at BAPS, and a track championship is on the line. Head over to bapsmotorspeedway.com to see the rest of their schedule, and if you want to watch each of the championship races live, including this Wednesday, plus the Kevin Gobrecht Classic, and the season finale Sprint Showdown in November, you can do that all season long on SprintCarUnlimited.TV.
We told you here on the Daily show back on Sunday that it was looking like Josh Richards could make his return to dirt late model competition coming up this weekend at the Hillbilly 100 at Lernerville Speedway, and Rocket Racing team owner Mark Richards confirmed that yesterday to Kevin Kovac and Dirt on Dirt. Richards hasn't raced since 2022, and this will be his first time back in a Rocket 1 since leaving the team after the 2016 season. Josh tested with the team back in June at Sharon Speedway, and a car prepared for him was spotted in the Rocket shop earlier this year. It looks like Josh will run a similar wrap to what Brandon Sheppard runs on the house car, but with a black number instead of a white number. Beyond this weekend, I was also told that Richards could race again at the Pittsburgher 100 in October. We know that the new hot thing from Rocket right now is the XR2 chassis that was revealed several weeks ago, and since then a number of dirt late model teams have gotten their hands on one. If the Rocket Racing social media accounts are showing us the right car, it appears as though Richards will be driving an XR1.2. They posted a photo of Sheppard supposedly working on the car, and the sticker on the halo shows it's a 1.2. That surprises me a bit, as you'd think they'd want two cars out there to compare notes, but maybe Richards likes the 1.2 better. Also, I honestly thought this story would be a bit bigger than the attention it's gotten, but maybe I've underestimated things. Or maybe it's just been so drawn out since we starting talking about a possible return months ago that people have lost interest. A five time national champion returning to racing after basically disappearing from the sport for three years seems like a big story to me, but it doesn't seem as though the audience agrees. Curious what your predictions are for how Josh will do coming up this weekend. Drop them in the comments below.
By the way, if you are in the market for a dirt late model, it seems as though there are a lot of XR1.2s available. It could just be a coincidence, or it could be everyone making shop space for new XR2s. In recent weeks we've seen Dan Ebert, Dalton Cook, Clay Harris, Matt Cosner, Demetrios Drellos, Bruce Kane, Mike Weeks, and Brent Larson among at least some that have been selling older Rockets. A quick search on Facebook will show you a bunch more out there.
In racing action last night, the Kubota High Limit sprint cars were in Oregon for a stop at the Douglas County dirt track in Roseburg. A nice midweek stop between racing in California and the Skagit Nationals coming up this weekend. 27 cars on hand, and I've seen comments wondering where Spencer Bayston was with the Works Limited 57. The original word that was going around was that Bayston would run the car with Paul Silva for the entire High Limit west coast swing, but apparently that wasn't true or things changed. I went back to look at the FloRacing story that Kyle McFadden wrote a few weeks ago, and at the bottom is a correction saying Bayston was only running the California races and not racing at Douglas County or Skagit. I don't know if that was the original deal, or if things changed. It's possible that things changed when the Schatz deal got made. Turning that car around from Skagit to Vado would be a tall task. A friend told me this morning that we could see Bayston back in the car for Trophy Cup in October, and there may be some much sooner racing as well. Keep an eye on the news for that one. Obviously Donny Schatz is getting in the car for the World of Outlaws races out west, as was revealed yesterday. Brief sidenote, I shared to Facebook and Patreon today that Schatz hasn't won in California since 2017. We'll see if the powers of Paul Silva can change that for the ten time Outlaw champ. Brent Marks the High Limit winner last night, topping Tanner Thorson and a hard charging Corey Day. It was Marks first ever win on the west coast, and his first High Limit win since Port Royal back in May. It's been a up and down stretch here lately for Marks with the win last night, but also a 15th at Gold Cup, an 18th a Placerville, he was 25th at Lernerville, and missed the Joker's Jackpot feature. But he was eighth at Tulare, and third on his Gold Cup prelim night. Overall, Marks having a solid, but quiet season. He's improved over 2024 in a bunch of stat categories, but triple digits back on the championship battle. Behind, I do wonder if Tanner Thorson's wing slider was working properly, if he would have had a shot to win last night. He ran second with the wing moved pretty far forward, and he revealed on social media that the ram didn't work late in the race. Brad Sweet charging from 13th to fifth, and Justin Sanders suffering a flat tire, means the points lead is now 21. Gio Scelzi able to make up a bit of ground for the 7BC, but Rico Abreu losing some points as well finishing seventh. Up next is three nights at Skagit with $126,000 to the winner on Saturday. Remember this is the weekend where NARC scheduled the Louie Vermeil at Calistoga against High Limit and Skagit. That will likely suck some cars away from making the long trip north.
Another storyline to watch around High Limit in the coming days will be what Jason Meyers does with the 14. If he wants to earn that High Limit franchise, he's going to need to find a driver for several races coming up, and that includes this weekend at Skagit. Corey Day is slated to run the NASCAR Truck race at Darlington on Saturday, so he's out. And Day has future conflicts as well. Day also has the Dennis Roth Classic at Tulare on his website schedule, which is a direct conflict with High Limit at Eldora. There were rumors that Meyers spoke with Justin Sanders, but he's committed to the RSR 87 through at least this weekend. So what will Meyers do? The pool of available drivers is pretty small, so can he find a part timer or convince someone to get out of their normal ride for a weekend, or will he just park the team until Day can come back? With Kasey Kahne off tour, it's possible that the team could still earn the franchise even if they miss races, but I'm assuming that would mean some sort of hardship waiver from the series for missing shows. Right now, the six eligible teams for earning a franchise after year two would be the RSR 87, Tanner Thorson's 88, the Rudeen 26, the Buch 13, the Myers 14, and the CJB 5.
If you are looking for some racing today, XR's Stock Car Rampage gets started at Sports Park Raceway in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Ricky Thornton Jr. was fastest in practice last night, and others participating included Ryan Gustin, modified racers Zack Vanderbeek and Jim Chisholm, and a lot more. Racing starts today, with action culminating tomorrow with a $100,000 to win feature. That is one of the options you can find over on the streaming schedule at dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
We will shut things down 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 Tuesday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!