DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Six races in and everyone is already mad at each other | Daily 1-19-2026

The Wild West Shootout lives up to it's moniker on the final night as Hudson O'Neal and Bobby Pierce tangle again, and things get spicy between Jonathan Davenport and Tyler Erb. Is this what we're in for all season, or are these guys just a bit jumpy coming out of the off-period. We'll talk about it, plus Brian Shirley chooses a tour and more. Let's go!

It's Monday, January 19th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

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The Wild West Shootout wrapped up last night at Central Arizona and there was more drama this week than I actually expected. You'd never know these guys just came off of a winter break and this was their first trip out. These guys were racing and mad at each other like they were at the end of a long summer and had had enough of seeing each other's mugs every other day. The feature was punctuated by yet another Bobby Pierce v Hudson O'Neal battle, and in two out of three of these situations that there was contact O'Neal getting the short end of the stick. I don't know why these two seem to find each other so often over the last couple of days, but we were right back at it again last night. They battled again for the lead and things went sideways with 22 laps to go. Pierce threw a slider into turn one, and then let it drift all the way up to the top. O'Neal still in the hole. The two hit and O'Neal ended up spinning. Pierce got really sideways, was able to keep it going though, didn't spin himself, saved it, kept going. O'Neal was able to right the ship after spinning out and keep going. O'Neal then showed his displeasure under the caution, a bit of a swerve. I'm sure there was some sign language in there, probably some yelling that Pierce probably couldn't hear. O'Neal though, able to keep his spot for the restart. He pulled up to the officials, got that nose damage fixed a little bit, but, was able to keep his spot and continue and then O'Neal able to hang on to third down the stretch. He ran second for a while, Jonathan Davenport got by him late, able to still finish on the podium, which I thought was really impressive given how crunched the front of that car was. And O'Neal was then crowned the week long championship winner for Wild West Shootout. Bobby Pierce ended up going on to the win. He apologized afterwards, gets his first win in 2026 with the Outlaw opener at Volusia up next, his first win of the year. Obviously had a couple of chances this week.

That wasn't the only drama last night though, as Tyler Erb, Jonathan Davenport got it started early in heat race action. Contact right at the start of that heat, right at the green flag, right at the start finish line with Davenport on the inside. Looked like he doored Erb there a little bit. But Erb clearly took exception and went ahead and just sent it into turn three. Ben Shelton on the FloRacing call, he definitely knew what was coming, he started talking about Erb throwing the slider at him there. I think Davenport definitely could have lifted but he stayed in it. Erb ended up over the hood and the right front, and Davenport maybe tried to send a message there, maybe spin Erb out, and it just didn't work out. JD definitely got the worst of it. Davenport didn't run the rest of the heat race, he took it to the pit area, but that was where things got fun. He parked his car right in front of Erb's trailer, so after the heat race was over, Erb couldn't put his car back into that spot behind the trailer. And then there were words, obviously we saw officials in there. We saw Erb and Davenport going at it. Team owner Lance Landers, looks like he had some words in there for Erb. There was several minutes before JD finally got back in his car drove off and everything cooled back off again. Davenport though then very motivated the rest of the night. He went nine to four in the B. After that, his team fixed the damage to make the feature. Then went 23rd to second in that main event. Erb started outside front row, he ended up fourth. JD though definitely, a little bit of a, something back at Erb there, took no quarter on a slider of his own to take third from Terbo in that feature. So these two were clearly not done with each other. JD said Terbo afterward, never learns from mistakes. And Davenport said he's just gonna start driving everybody else like they drive me. That's not the first time we've heard those types of comments from Davenport. I remember a daily show that we did back in 2023 where JD was complaining about how others were racing him, and he said just about exactly the same thing. So we'll see if that actually happens. But there's been a lot of these situations here lately, involving these drivers. And remember Pierce upset at Davenport during speed weeks last year after an incident, Pierce saying that he'd lost respect for JD. This was Erb's second run in of the Wild West Shootout over the last couple of days. Remember, he had that deal earlier on with Cade Dillard, where he threw a slider at Dillard, where Dillard ended up crashed. Terbo also having issues with Max Blair at Eldora last year and then none of us will forget Erb going backwards at Cedar Lake several years ago to get to Bobby Pierce. It seems a bit too early in the year for this stuff to be ugly already. Maybe a few days on the road though will cool everybody off. But if this is how things are gonna be we could be in for a wild next several weeks. Garrett Albertson was the Saturday winner at the Wild West Shootout, and there was no Ricky Thornton, Jr. last night. He ended up going back to North Carolina after the Chili Bowl. They had a sponsor engagement for the team. They were gonna work on the car a little bit, and then they're headed to Volusia early to test a couple of days before the Outlaw opener. Remember the World of Outlaws' season starts Thursday down there. A lot more racing to come.

On the flip side, we've b0en talking about all of these different drivers going different directions, choosing series, all of that. Lucas picked up another one today. Brian Shirley is flipping from the Outlaws to Lucas to begin 2026. Shirley actually has never run the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt series before full time. So this will be his first season out. He was seventh in the Outlaw points in 2025. This ends a three year run for Shirley and the Bob Cullen team on tour with the Outlaws. Shirley has 13 career Outlaw wins, but none on the Lucas side. I believe the Shirley addition takes Lucas to now 16 or 17 teams. We talked last over the weekend on Saturday about, why it seems like everybody's going Outlaws. That's obviously not true. Both sides are gonna have very strong fields to start the season. Lucas remember, they don't start until after the Daytona 500. So we're gonna get the Outlaws going first. There are a couple of weekends at Volusia. There's some other kind of Speed week stuff mixed in. Hunt the Front's got some shows, and then the Lucas season starts February 19th at All-Tech. Remember, that's where we're gonna have the field split very early on because the Outlaws scheduled up against the Lucas opener at All-Tech. So we'll know right away who's going, which direction. If there are any questions remaining at that point.

That's gonna do it for today. Me and Matt Weaver we talked about all things Chili Bowl yesterday, that video was posted late last night to the YouTube channel. So if you didn't get a chance to check that out, if you wanna know the full recap, full rundown on all Chili Bowl stuff, Matt Weaver was in the building. He talked to Emerson Axsom and he talked to Kevin Swindell, he talked to Kyle Larson. We get into all of those things, so check that out. If you want to know that last little bits of Chili Bowl stuff before we forget about it again until 2027.

That's it for today.

Hope you guys have a great Monday out there, we'll see you in the next one!