DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Another controversial weekend?! | Daily 1-25-2026
More people are mad at Bobby Pierce, Kyle Strickler and Ethan Dotson got DQ'd, one crate racer had two wheels fall off in the same race, things got spicy down under, and a lot more today. Let's go!
It's Sunday, January 25th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
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So I thought maybe after the week we had at the Wild West Shootout, things in dirt late model racing would calm down a bit at the World of Outlaws opener at Volusia. But instead, the tension, the bad sliders, and the angry post-race moments just continued. This time with a different field of cars we had some new drivers and teams mad at each other, but also some stuff that carried over from the Wild West Shootout. We'll get to all of that here in a minute. We had our first three World of Outlaws winners of the season. Chris Madden won on Thursday, Hudson O'Neal took Friday, and Tim McCreadie won on Saturday. I thought Brandon Sheppard kind of had the most complete weekend out of anybody, two podiums and three top-five finishes. He's actually shown right now as the Outlaw points leader over Hoffman and McCreadie. Sheppard looked better this week in the Rocket house car than he did at the Wild West Shootout in the family car. I haven't asked, but at least so far there are no full-timer bonus points listed for the Outlaw teams in the standings, which is why Brandon Sheppard is listed as the points leader even though he’s going to run Lucas this year. We've seen in previous years where those full-time teams get bonus points, so that still might be coming, but at least so far it's not listed. Chris Madden was fast out of the gate with Wells in the Infinity House car back on Thursday. I cannot believe he missed Tristan Chamberlain in that feature. If you didn't watch it, Chamberlain kind of checked up in front of the leaders down the backstretch, right in the middle of the racetrack, and I have no idea how Madden didn't crash into the back of him. It was a super sketchy moment, but good driving from everybody involved. That was Madden's first Outlaw win since World Finals in 2024. I didn’t realize it had been that long. Friday night was pretty much all Hudson O'Neal out front. He was again driving for Kevin Rumley this weekend. Madden was fast again but out early with battery issues, that was posted on the Wells Facebook page. O'Neal was able to hold off a last-lap challenge from Tyler Erb. This was a bit of a bounce-back for O'Neal, who scratched after Thursday heat races because of a tire issue. They ended up finishing last in that heat race and it just didn’t work out for the rest of the night.
The first big drama of the weekend came Friday night in the Last Chance Showdown. Cory Hedgecock and Bobby Pierce got into a bit of a kerfuffle. They started pushing and shoving for second place, then Hedgecock threw a slider. Pierce had to check up really hard down the backstretch to avoid running into the back of him. Hedgecock then completely slammed the door shut right at the crossover gate. There was definitely more contact. Pierce was probably not happy about it. Then there were more sliders between the two over the next few laps, and more contact from Hedgecock after yet another close slider. Pierce then appeared to have had enough. He turned Hedgecock into turn three on lap seven, and it looked fairly blatant. I don't know that you could say that was just two guys going for the same real estate — it looked pretty intentional. I'm guessing Pierce had just had enough of the 79 at that point. If you were paying attention on DIRTVision, it sounded like somebody near Ruben in the announcing booth was laughing when Hedgecock got spun, interesting background noise there. Pierce then missed the transfer in that LCS and needed a provisional. The last time I can find Pierce needing a provisional to start a World of Outlaws race was Volusia in 2023, so we’re talking almost three years. The Billy Hicks Facebook page posted, quote "Bobby Pierce took us out, plain and simple," and then literally four minutes later posted, quote, "Had a good piece in B-Main, made good changes, but got wiped out by a Pierce of crap." See what they did there. This all came on the heels of Bobby Pierce versus Hudson O'Neal multiple times last week.
Things stayed feisty during the Saturday night program with Kyle Strickler and Ethan Dotson going at it in heat three. There was contact between them on lap two, and then more contact after the checkers that we didn't see on DIRTVision. Strickler ended up spun down the backstretch under the cool-down lap. There was some dirt-racing diplomacy going on while they were stopped, some shouting, probably some sign language, but Steve Francis and the Outlaws parked both of them for the rest of the night. They were not allowed to compete after the shenanigans post-checker. That's usually a no-no at these events. You start going after people after the checker, and that's going to lead to DQs, suspensions, things like that. This is the point in the show where people race to the comments to type that David Gravel should have gotten a DQ or suspension after he spun Kyle Larson at Eldora last year, so just wait for that down below. Then later in the feature, incredibly, we had Pierce versus O'Neal round three of 2026. O'Neal threw an early short slider on the 32 and was able to get away. They continued to race, but both ended up crashed on lap 13 when Pierce tried a slider that never cleared the 6. The 6 had a decent amount of damage but still somehow managed to finish in the top ten. O'Neal posted on social media that they raced their way up to third by lap 12, when contact from the number 32 resulted in heavy damage and took them out of contention. I wonder if O'Neal's moves there were fueled by what happened at the Wild West Shootout, but it's pretty crazy that this continued. O'Neal, for the third time getting the short end of the stick in a run-in with the 32. I don't know that this is over. I thought it might have been after the Wild West Shootout, but clearly it’s continuing. It may be a good thing that these two teams are going different directions with their series choices this year.
Out front, Tim McCreadie carved his way through the field, going from tenth to the lead. A very good run for him. He did have some late challenges to hold off, but a strong win. Nick Hoffman and McCreadie sit second and third in the Outlaw standings after the weekend, with a few weeks off now until they come back for the DIRTcar Nationals. The "come on, man" moment of the weekend at Volusia was definitely Kade Hunkapiller's team during the Saturday 602 LCS. They lost a left-front tire during pace laps, the race hadn't even started yet. They went to the infield to fix it, and then just moments later the right-rear fell off. That’s a tough couple of moments for that crew. You can find that video clip on DIRTVision if you’re curious. We also had Pearson Lee Williams upside down in the 604 feature last night, so a lot of madness. But this event, the Sunshine Nationals, continues to grow. They had a lot of cars this weekend, over 200 entries across the three divisions. Like I said, the Outlaws go quiet now until the DIRTcar Nationals. Once we get there, we start with sprint cars and modifieds before the late models come in for week two.
If you want even more dirt late model chat, go check out the 40-plus-minute interview I posted back on Friday with FloRacing and Dirt on Dirt’s Kyle McFadden. We previewed both the World of Outlaws and Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series seasons. We talked schedules for Jonathan Davenport and Brandon Overton, and wrapped up the Wild West Shootout. There’s a lot of good stuff in there. That full episode is on the DIRTRACKR YouTube channel, Facebook page, Patreon, and podcast platforms like Spotify.
Moving on. We also had plenty of drama last night in the finale for the Grand Annual Sprint Car Classic at Warrnambool. A mid-race incident collected multiple front-runners and leaders, including Cole Macedo, James McFadden, and Jock Goodyear. Kerry Madsen was clearly upset afterward. He looked like he could barely speak into the interview microphone. We also had a scuffle between Tim Kaeding and Ian Madsen, who I believe started that incident. There was some pushing and shoving, with officials stepping in between them — wild stuff there at Warrnambool. Aaron Reutzel started 12th and took the lead from Brock Hallett with 18 laps to go. He was then completely gone by the end. It was a big win for team owner Luch Monte and Reutzel's second career win at the Classic. Lachlan McHugh finished second, and Hallett came home third. The highlights are over on the Clay-Per-View YouTube channel. If you didn’t get a chance to watch that race, it's a fairly sizable highlight package, about 17 or 18 minutes, so you can see most of the race and everything that went down, including the crash involving all the leaders.
We are going to shut it down there for this episode. There is a lot of news that's happened in recent days, including a bunch of World of Outlaws sprint car stuff to dive into. I'll either do a second daily show later today, but if not, there will be a fresh one on Monday to get into all of that. So stick around.
Hope you guys have a great Sunday out there, if you're on the east coast with all this weather, stay safe, and we'll see you back here in the next one!