DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Another sprint car candidate emerges, a championship leader busted, surprises with the Outlaws | Daily 10-5-2025

The Lucas championship fight is on like Donkey Kong, surprising winners and contenders at the National Open, Bobby Pierce got busted, and a well known sprint car driver to watch during silly season proceedings. Let's go!

It's Sunday, October 5th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

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Coming into the Pittsburgher 100 weekend, I thought it was likely that Ricky Thornton Jr. would grab a couple of podiums, and we'd head to the Dirt Track World Championshp at Eldora in a few weeks with this Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series championship all but decided. But things went the complete other direction, thanks to a flat tire on Friday night for RTJ. He managed to salvage a ninth place finish, and was fourth last night, but a big weekend from Devin Moran has seen things change in a big way. Moran winning on Friday and finishing third last night turned Thornton's 80 point lead into a 15 point deficit with just the DTWC left. This now sets up an epic showdown between Moran and RTJ for the title at Eldora in two weeks. Thornton did win the World 100 this year, but I don't know that I give either driver a real edge in this one. Maybe a slight tip towards RTJ just because of the World score. But we've seen both run well at Eldora, and we've seen both not run so well at Eldora. This feels like it's about as close to a coin toss as we'll get. Last week, on a Q&A show, I got asked about what the tight championship battles were around the country, and if there was anything similar to High Limit. Lucas now easily tops that list, as we'll now effectively have what we've had the last two seasons previously with Lucas, and that's a winner-take-all showdown at Eldora. I know a lot out there don't love the chase and playoff formats, but the setup has certainly done it's job, creating insane drama for the finale. As for the other two chasers, Hudson O'Neal is out, a 25th place finish has him 365 points back. And Jonathan Davenport winning last night does keep him in contention, at least mathematically. He trails by 115 points with just the finale left. What that means though, is to win the title, he'd need both RTJ and Moran to finish 20th or worse to win the title. That would be made a bit easier by a quicktime for JD, because that's worth another 10 points. I don't want to completely rule him out, given his prowess at Eldora, but it's a tough hill to climb for him. So Lucas teams now get the next weekend off before the 2025 season ends, and I'll be curious to see who gets out and races, and who just stays home to polish on their stuff. The Outlaws are at Boothill for good money with Comp Cams. There is $10k at Dixie, plus the Fall Nationals at Wheatland. RTJ's Facebook page says he's taking the weekend off, we'll see who else follows suit.

At Williams Grove for the National Open, I would have lost a lot of money betting this weekend, because there's no way I would have called Chase Dietz getting his first Grove win of the season against the Outlaws. He'd had some solid runs there, but no wins. And he had to track down Carson Macedo late to do it, after starting fourth. And not only was it a Posse win, it was a Posse podium sweep, with Lance Dewease and Danny Dietrich finishing second and third. Dewease hadn't run that high against the Outlaws since he won the National Open back in 2022. And to continue that "didn't see this coming" theme, Sheldon Haudenschild beating Bill Balog late for the $75,000 last night, also not on the bingo card. Balog led 35 laps from the pole, before sliding back to third late, but he'd never before finished top five against the Outlaws at the Grove. His two previous top five finishes were against the All Stars and during weekly action way back in 2018. Over his previous seven Grove starts, six were runs of 22nd or worse, with just a single top ten, a ninth in the National Open last year. And Haudenschild hadn't won at the Grove since 2021, and hadn't won this season since a May 31st score at Red River Valley. Sheldon leading the final five laps and just holding off Balog and a charging Danny Dietrich at the flag. Dietrich hasn't won an Outlaw show since 2019, but he's got to feel pretty good with two podium runs on the weekend. There was a scary moment last night for Kerry Madsen at the start of the B main. Something appeared to maybe break in the TSR 15 with Madsen in turn four, and that car turned violently right and hit the outside guardrail hard. Madsen was quickly out the of the car to survey the damage, but that was definitely one of the harder impacts we've seen this season. The Outlaws stay in the northeast for another week, with New Egypt and Lincoln up next this coming weekend.

Flipping back to late models, the World of Outlaws Late Model Series made a trip west, with weekend stops at 81 and Humboldt in Kansas. On Friday, Dennis Erb Jr. was there to take advantage when early leader Chase Junghans appeared to just spin all by himself while leading. Erb took over on the restart, and won his first Outlaw show since 2023. The 2022 series champ hasn't had an easy go in recent years, but he's been better since June. He'd only led laps in a single Outlaw race in 2024, but he's led in three of his last 14 races currently. He topped Dustin Sorensen and Brian Shirley. Last night at 81 Speedway, Tim McCreadie pushed by early leader Brian Shirley on lap six and never looked back, picking up $20,000 and his fifth Outlaw win this year. Shirley and Nick Hoffman joined him on the podium. Shirley ended up being the beneficiary when pole sitter and championship leader Bobby Pierce was sent to the tail before the feature even started. Shirley promoted from his original third starting spot to the pole. We found out right as the field was set to get lined up that series director Steve Francis was sending the 32 to the back, with the reason given the team made unapproved adjustments in the staging lanes. Dirt on Dirt reported that Pierce's team made a tire pressure change to the car, but at that point in the night, any changes are not allowed per the rulebook. Under Racing Event Procedures in the Outlaw rules, section O, subsection q, it reads quote "Once the staging horn has been blown, no work can be completed within the staging lane, past the cones or in the designated staging area as defined by World Racing Group officials" unquote. If the horn had been blown, and the car was in that area, it seems a pretty cut and dry situation to me. Pierce ended up driving back to 11th, after finishing fourth the night before at Humboldt. Pierce's charge keeps the points lead at 108 over Hoffman, with five race nights left.

Other weekend late model winners included Ryan Unzicker and Ashton Winger with MARS at Fairbury. Tyler Erb swept MSCCS action at Greenville this weekend, bagging $5000 and $10,000 wins. Max Blair and Carson Ferguson split RUSH wins at the Pittsburgher, Blair also with a pair of podiums in Lucas action. Michael Chilton took down $10,000 with Ironman at Mudlick, and Cory Hedgecock topped the Southern Thunder series at Senoia.

Other weekend sprint car winners included Brady Bacon and Aaron Reutzel in POWRi action at Lee County. That was Bacon's first winged win of the season, on the heels of a podium with High Limit at Path Valley. After parting with the KCP ride earlier in the week, Emerson Axsom was back in the Klaasmeyer Petry car, he finished fourth and second. KCP struggled at the Grove with new driver Cory Eliason, who was 24th on Friday, and missed the feature last night. Justin Grant won with the USAC sprint cars at Terre Haute on Friday. He beat CJ Leary and a charging Ricky Lewis. USAC heads to Lawrenceburg later this week with Kyle Cummins still well in control of the title. Ryan Bernal was a CRA winner at Mohave Valley, Joe Trenca won with the Empire Super Sprints at Fulton, Tim Kaeding won the Sprint Car Challenge Tour, Cole Duncan topped FAST at Atomic, and Trevor Cline grabbed the Xtreme Outlaw midget win at Jacksonville.

In NARC action at Tulare, Tanner Holmes picked up a dominant win, leading all 30 laps from the pole, topping Sean Becker and Justin Sanders. This was Holmes' first weekend back in the Tarlton 21, after spending the summer driving his family's 18T. That was NARC win number three of his career, and we've seen the NARC championship tighten up with Becker now just seven points behind DJ Netto with three races left. Holmes also ran the night's SCCT program in a second Tarlton 21, but was DQ'd after qualifying for being 15 pounds light at the scales. He charged from 18th to 10th in that main event. Holmes could be an interesting one to watch in sprint car silly season stuff over the next few weeks and months. His name has bubbled up as a possible driver for a big ride or two, and it would make sense given his continued improvement, and big following. Top fives and top tens with the Outlaws and High Limit this season, the two NARC wins, plus two 360 scores. An interesting stat for Holmes, this has been his best sprint car season to date, and he's currently earned more prize money this season according to sprintcarratings.com, then drivers like Emerson Axsom, Kerry Madsen, PPM, Cap Henry, Chris Windom, Hunter Schuerenberg, Chase Randall, and Troy Wagaman, who just won the Grove track title. And a bunch of those guys have more starts than does Holmes. Looking at that top 30 on the money list, which Holmes is in, he's one of maybe two or three drivers who could be available for 2026.

That's it for today. Hope you guys have a great Sunday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!