DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Crown jewel win to fired hours later?! Plus a sad day in sprint car racing... | Daily 10-6-2025

Win one of the biggest sprint car races on the calendar, and then lose your job just hours later? That happened yesterday and we'll talk about it, plus Tyler Bruening's new dirt late model chassis, an update on an Outlaw rookie, and we say goodbye to Bobby Allen. Let's go.

It's Monday, October 6th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily presented by Kubota Genuine Parts.

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We are going to start this Monday show off with a wild situation that played out on Sunday after Sheldon Haudenschild's National Open win at Williams Grove. We know that following the 2025 season, Haudenschild will depart the Stenhouse Jr. Marshall team, with that announcement coming several weeks ago. In the meantime, the team was trying to finish strong, and winning a $75,000 crown jewel was a big get for them as they get ready to close out a several year run together. Haudenschild and crew chief Kyle Ripper are leaving together, and one of the worst kept secrets in sprint car racing has been that this pairing will slide over to KCP Racing and the 18 team for 2026. Cory Eliason currently finishing out the season in the 18 after they split with Emerson Axsom, who himself was brought in to replace Gio Scelzi, who left the team at Eldora. What happens next with the 17 is still not settled, but that car has been at the center of a lot of silly season rumors. Daison Pursley was a serious candidate there, but he's headed elsewhere for next year. And there have been rumors the team had already secured a new crew chief for the future. That crew chief is Kyle Pruitt, who was released last week, after spending most of this season leading Logan Schuchart's 1S team. I told you guys here back last Tuesday that Pruitt was a candidate for this spot. Apparently though, Pruitt isn't taking over the team for 2026, he's doing it now. There were all sorts of wild things flying around on Sunday after the big score, but what we know for sure is that Kyle Ripper was relieved of his crew chief duties on the 17, and Pruitt is in. Why this happened and now are unknown, and that's the rumor part of this that I don't know what to believe in all the messages I was sent. But, supposedly after Ripper was fired, crew members Luke Vaughn and Jayce Wallick quit. So headed for this week at New Egypt and Lincoln, Sheldon has a new crew chief, and they are in need of two new crew members. Things sure do seem to happen fast. One minute you're celebrating a $75,000 win, the next the whole crew is gone. There are still 10 races left in the Outlaw season, and all of this has created a very odd situation for the 17. I'm assuming that Sheldon will finish the year, as there is certainly monetary incentive for him to do so given he's currently fifth in the Outlaw standings, and doesn't look to be in danger of losing that spot to Donny Schatz. But now he'll work with someone completely new, and then be gone in four weeks. With Pruitt in now, the next question will be who the 17 gets as a driver. Spencer Bayston's name was going around as a possible candidate, but I don't know where that stands currently. This team may need to look elsewhere for their next driver. As I was gathering info on this stuff last night, I messaged someone and said that I didn't think I'd ever seen something like this before. And this person, who has a healthy history in sprint car racing, replied quote "No one has, because it has never happened." I've been saying this silly season stuff was going to be crazy, and it continues to surprise me. And we are no where near done yet.

Updating one more sprint car situation. I've been told in recent days that Cole Macedo will likely return to the seat of the 2C for 2026, and that another Outlaw run is being discussed. Macedo is currently in his first World of Outlaws sprint car season, sitting 10th in the standings with four top fives and 17 top tens. He also grabbed a High Limit win at Fremont back in July, and made the Knoxville Nationals main event. Macedo is part of a big rookie Outlaw class this season, that also includes Garet Williamson, Chris Windom, Hunter Schuerenberg, Zach Hampton, Skylar Gee, and Conner Morrell. Williamson and Windom are the two highest rookies in the standings, but Macedo isn't far behind. If I remember correctly, the Outlaw rookie of the year award is a vote, but it's hard to imagine someone further down the order getting the votes necessary to win. If I'm wrong about the vote thing, don't quote me on it. As is often the case, this year probably hasn't gone how Macedo would have wanted, but the national tours don't usually treat rookies very nicely. Macedo still seeking his first Outlaw win, although he's won just about everywhere else, including the All Stars, NARC and that High Limit win.

One late model bit that I didn't get a chance to touch on yesterday was Tyler Bruening debuting a new AK Racecars REV1 chassis against the World of Outlaws this past weekend. We knew a change was coming for this team, and Bruening was solid out of the gate. Fifth in qualifying on Friday before a heat race crash ended their night. They came back out on Saturday fast again in qualifying, then finished second in the heat, before ending up seventh in the main event. It's been an up and down season for Bruening, who won that Lucas show to start the year, but also struggled early with the Outlaws, and eventually left the tour. There have been some bright spots along the way, but maybe he can find some consistency with this new piece. If you want to know more about the car and AK Racecars, go find the Austin Kirkpatrick interview I posted a couple of months ago. Kirkpatrick owns AK, and has been building towards being able to start selling cars. He talked us through a lot of aspects of that, and documenting some of the process along the way with his YouTube channel.

Finally today, the sport of dirt racing lost a legend on Sunday, with the passing of sprint car hall of famer Bobby Allen. He was 81 years old. As you've seen all through the course of today as tributes have poured out, it's hard to spend time around the sport and not have a Bobby Allen story. From being a go karting world champion as a teenager, to his underdog Knoxville Nationals win in 1990, to leading Shark Racing and son and grandson Jacob Allen and Logan Schuchart out onto the road with the World of Outlaws. He was a hard worker who did whatever it took to go racing, and he grew Shark into a championship contending and million dollar race winning team. I'm not great at eulogizing, so I'll leave that to others. But we are certainly thinking of his family and friends today. If you want to hear from Bobby yourself about his career and his team and obviously Jacob and Logan, I posted episode 124 of Open Red to the DIRTRACKR YouTube channel this evening. This is my small tribute to Scruffy today. Back at the end of the 2018 season, right after the team announced their big new partnership with Drydene, me and Ross Wece interviewed Allen in the studio at the World Racing Group office. As were most episodes of Open Red back then, this one is filled with so much good stuff. If you've heard it before, it's worth a re-listen. If this is new content for you, enjoy. Getting to document so many of those stories is something I'll always be proud of with that show. I'll have a link below in the show description. So long to Bobby Allen.

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