DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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A dirt racing DQ you know about, and one you don't | Daily 8-31-2025

A huge sprint car championship shakeup, two disqualifications to talk about, including a quiet one; we'll talk weekend racing, and a ton more. Let's go!

It's Sunday, August 31st, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

It's World 100 week at Eldora, with the Baltes Classic today, and the World starting on Thursday. If you're going to be in town, make sure to stop by The Whistle Stop and grab something good to eat. It's just a seven mile ride straight south of Eldora Speedway to Ansonia. All week you can get breakfast, lunch, dinner, pizza, and you can get some food to bring back to the track with you. And when you stop in, they've got a full bar so you can enjoy a nice adult beverage. Andrew and his staff do a great job, so if you stop in, tell them DIRTRACKR sent you. If you want to ride a little further south, head to Sure Shot Tap House in Greenville, Ohio, a great place to eat, drink and play. They've got a full menu, plus all sorts of adult beverage options on tap, self pour, plus the Bullseye Game Lounge upstairs with duckpin bowling and 24 arcade games. When you're not at the track, keep yourself fed and entertained with these two establishments, the Whistle Stop and Sure Shot Tap House. Thanks to them for their support of Eldora and this show.

We'll kick this Sunday show off with the major shakeup we had over the weekend with the High Limit championship. We entered the Skagit Nationals weekend with Brad Sweet and Kasey Kahne Racing holding on to a slim margin over the RSR 87 and the CMR 7BC, but it was the guy who'd struggled lately who really seized control of things after Saturday. Rico Abreu's 24 team trailed by 75 points, but after sweeping all three nights and depositing over $150,000 in their bank account, it's suddenly Rico who's in control out front. He leads the 87 team by 10 points, and KKR by 35. Rico had an uncharacteristically bad trip through California, not finishing better than 12th any of the four nights, but he came roaring back at Skagit, winning the two prelim features each from seventh, and going third to the win last night. On a weekend where Gio Scelzi missed the top ten all three nights, Justin Sanders was up and down, and Brad Sweet suffered a miserable three days, Rico was there to take advantage. There is still a lot of racing left, with 15 race nights still to go, but this was a big swing of momentum, and the series heads next to Port Royal, which is a track we've seen Rico be fast at before. He's got a chance to really put a gap between himself and everyone behind. Skagit is usually a place where Sweet has run well in the past, but they couldn't overcome a string of bad luck. Thursday it was broken suspension in the heat, Friday it was a broken powerplant, and last night the 49 went a lap down after a spin. Finishes of 17th, 13th, and 19th have relegated this team to third in the owner standings and second in the drivers. Behind Rico's wins, Justin Peck will be left wondering what could have been. Laps led Thursday and Saturday, but left winless. Daison Pursley had a solid weekend, and Tyler Thompson the best running local. Up next for the Kubota High Limit sprint cars is a mad dash back across the country from Washington to Pennsylvania, as the Tuscarora 50 starts on Thursday. A big question will be if we'll see Aaron Reutzel this week, or if Justin Sanders will need to continue his fill-in role for another week. I have a feeling this title fight is going down to the wire.

At Lernerville for the Hillbilly 100, Garrett Alberson and Ricky Thornton Jr. the two race winners. Both drivers leading flag to flag on Friday and Saturday, and both starting on the outside front row of their respective features. Alberson topping Devin Moran and Hudson O'Neal Friday, and RTJ beat Jonathan Davenport and Max Blair. Alberson now with a career best three Lucas wins on the season, and that was RTJ's first career Hillbilly 100 score. No changes in the Lucas final four, with Thornton still leading Davenport, and Moran and O'Neal third and fourth. Brandon Sheppard's gap to O'Neal is still 220, which isn't impossible to overcome in a single weekend, but he'll need a lot of help when Lucas heads to Knoxville in a few weeks. If you are curious how Josh Richards' return to dirt late model racing went, he was certainly left wanting more. He was fast in qualifying, going third quick in his group, which set him up for a second place heat race start. He was inside the feature transfer, but ended up losing the engine in that heat, and was done for the weekend. They DNS'd from the B main, and decided not to race on Saturday. In comments to FloRacing's Kevin Kovac, Richards pointed towards the Pittsburgher 100 as possibly his next dirt late model appearance, which if you pay attention to this show, already knew. Reading comments over the last week or so, it definitely seemed like a lot of folks thought he'd perform poorly, but he looked plenty fast to me when he did get the chance to participate. Another interesting note, no Daulton Wilson at Lernerville. The team shared to social media back on Friday that they wouldn't be at Lernerville quote "due to circumstances beyond our control" unquote. They did say they will return to series action at Knoxville. Wilson eighth in series points, and they will likely get a hardship waiver from the series to maintain their status. Lucas quiet now until September 18th.

Jumping back to sprint cars, another driver who had a miserable Skagit weekend was James McFadden. It was going so poorly, they decided to leave after Friday night and drive all the way back to California to race at Calistoga. They were just not fast either Thursday or Friday, and couldn't dig out through heats and Bs. They ended up pulling off in the Friday B after McFadden slowed, and the decision to head south paid off. Except for a brief moment where Spencer Bayston led last night before a caution negated the move, McFadden led every lap of the NARC feature for the $5000 win. That caution that negated Bayston's move actually caused by him when he got over the right front of Mariah Ede's car trying to put her a lap down. Bayston later pulled off. Shane Golobic and DJ Netto also on the night's podium, and Netto will extend his championship lead with Tyler Thompson up north at Skagit. A bit of a strange night at Calistoga with heat races cancelled after officials were concerned about track conditions. The night was made show up points only. There was drama in the night's USAC CRA feature late when RJ Johnson and Ryan Bernal crashed out of the top two spots coming to the checkered. Johnson had led most of the way, but Bernal got by on the white flag lap. Into three Johnson tried to pass low, but Bernal had shut the door and the two ended up in the outside wall. Bernal clearly not pleased with Johnson's move. That left it to JJ Yeley, who was in the right place at the right time to score his first ever series victory. Austin Williams and Logan Seavey finishing second and third. Seavey driving that second Paul Silva, Works Limited entry that we told you about last week. Seavey coming west does mean he gave up his spot in the USAC midget championship, falling off from a seventh place position in the standings. Seavey was winless on the season. Both NARC and the CRA will do it all over again today at Calistoga.

Looking through some other weekend open wheel winners, Cap Henry swept the All Star shows at Attica. Kalib Henry maintains the points lead over Zane Devault. Logan Julien and Max Guilford split IRA wins, Jason Martin and Seth Bergman were ASCS winners, Gavin Miller won the USAC midget show at Bloomington, CJ Leary was a Silver Crown winner at DuQuoin, and Xavier Doney and Joe B Miller split POWRi wins. That's another champoinship battle to watch, as Joe B leads Ayrton Gennetten by just 10 points for that POWRi 410 title. Ryan Timms won the Huset's weekly finale and took the track championship. He's had a very nice run here lately. Anthony Macri won at Williams Grove, Dylan Cisney took Port, and Aaron Bollinger won at Lincoln. Things got wild there late at Lincoln. Ashton Torgerson threw a slider at Macri with five to go, and Macri ended up spun down the backstretch. The 39M getting up over the cushion and making some contact with the wall. On the restart, Torgerson was able to hold off Bollinger to the finish, but the drama wasn't over yet. The Shark Racing 1A machine came up 13 pounds light at the scales, relegating Torgerson to 24th and handing the win to Bollinger. Jeremy Elliott reported that the 1A was running a 28 gallon fuel tank, while the national sprint car series recommend a 33 gallon tank. That would have been Torgerson's second win in the 1A, but they will have to try again on a different night.

Other weekend late model winners included Mason Zeigler bagging the $12,000 with the new Fall Clash series at Bedford, Ryan Unzicker and Ashton Winger were MARS winners at Farmer City and Fairbury, Chris Simpson swept the Comp Cams races at Lucas Oil Speedway, Brandon Fouts and Derek Fisher split Ultimate wins, Gregg Satterlee won the weekly show at Port Royal and Ryan Montgomery and Luke Morey took the opening wins at Tyler County for the Country Roads 100 weekend.

Before we move on to point out some racing to watch today, I've been alerted to an interesting situation with the Comp Cams Super Dirt Series. Back a few weeks ago, Ashton Winger was a series winner during the Clash at the Mag weekend at Magnolia Motor Speedway. Winger won the Friday prelim, and Shane Clanton won the finale on Saturday. At some point since then however, Winger was DQ'd from the win. The race results on the Comp Cams website show Winger as DQ'd and Tyler Erb was awarded the victory. Comp Cams hasn't released anything publicly on the matter that I can find, and neither Winger nor Erb have commented online about the situation. I did reach out to the series for confirmation on what Winger was disqualified for post race, but have not gotten a response as I write this. Winger DNF'd in the heat that Saturday night, and did not start the B-Main. He has not competed with Comp Cams since then. Depending on the infraction, you'd assume Winger lost the $5000 for the win, but whether there was an additional fine and suspension is unclear. I'd assume a droop penalty would have been found pre-victory lane, as would a weight infraction. One type of penalty that wouldn't be known until later is a failed tire sample, but outside of rumors and speculation, there is nothing from the series to confirm that. If I get a response, I'll let you know.

Looking ahead to tonight, there is a ton of racing still to come, given it's the Labor Day weekend. That includes the World of Outlaws at Huset's, who had their Saturday show rained out. Tyler County has big money on the line, there is more sprint car action at Lincoln, there is USAC midgets at Angell Park, the Baltes Classic at Eldora, and whole lot more. Make sure to drop by dirtrackr.com/watchtonight to get a full look at all of the possible streaming shows you could tune into.

We'll shut it down right there. Hope you guys have a great rest of your Sunday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!