DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Strickler wins wild Outlaw show at Volusia, USAC Sprint Cars open tonight | DIRTRACKR Daily 2/11/21
It is Thursday, February 11th, two thousand and twenty one and you are tuned into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Today we are talking about last night's World of Outlaws Late Model show at Volusia, recapping the Super DIRTcar Series win for Stewart Friesen, plus we look forward to the USAC sprint car weekend at Bubba Raceway Park, and more. Let's jump in.
Last night was the first of four race nights for the World of Outlaws Late Model Series at Volusia Speedway Park for DIRTcar Nationals. Tim McCreadie and Bobby Pierce already have late model wins this week at Volusia, both being DIRTcar wins. And subsequently, those two made up the front row of last night's feature, with Pierce on the pole. 51 cars signed in to compete last night, with 33 eventually taking part in the feature, thanks to provisionals. Kyle Strickler entered the night as the series points leader, and several guys were looking for their first wins of the year, including Brandon Sheppard and his Rocket team. Pole sitter Bobby Pierce was looking for his first ever World of Outlaws feature win. When the race went green, we were in for a wild affair. Pierce was quickly out to the early lead, but it was only a few laps deep that we went under caution for second running Tim McCreadie. He had an issue underneath the left rear that caused him to come to a stop. It looked like the suspension collapsed after he hit a bump. Once green again in the 40 lapper, Pierce settled back in out front with Ricky Thornton Jr. hot on his heels. As the field caught lap traffic, RTJ was able to reel in the Smooth Operator and take over the lead on lap 12. Pierce was then under fire for second from Devin Moran as the race approached half way. It wasn't long though until we had a multi car battle for the lead. RTJ had to fend off slider attempts from Pierce with Moran lurking in third. Inside ten to go, the battle out front had settled out with RTJ leading, Pierce second, and Moran third. Brandon Overton had worked his way to fourth, and Kyle Strickler was fifth. A caution with seven to go for Kyle Bronson setup a wild run to the finish. Devin Moran threw a two for one slider into turn one on the restart to take the lead, but Thornton was able to drive back by him down the backstretch. Just a half lap later though, there was disaster for Moran. Something broke under his number nine out onto the front stretch, which left guys behind him scrambling to avoid the stricken machine. One driver who couldn't miss Moran was Brandon Overton, who piled into the nine right at the flag stand. Both drivers were done for the night. On the ensuing restart, Pierce was able to wrestle the lead back from Thornton, who then dropped back through the top five with Hudson O'Neal and Kyle Strickler on the move. With laps ticking down and Pierce's first Outlaw win in sight, we had more drama out front. Pierce jumped the cushion into turn one, caught the wall, and cut down the right rear tire. His devastating retirement promoted Strickler to the lead on the restart, but we weren't done with cautions. Coming to two to go, Brandon Sheppard and Mike Norris had a disagreement through three and four and onto the front stretch, which resulted in Norris spun into turn one. Sheppard ended up 20th, with Norris 23rd. Once green for the final two laps, Kyle Strickler held off Hudson O'Neal and drove away to his second win in three races this season. O'Neal was second, Ricky Thornton Jr. third, Jimmy Owens fourth, and Brian Shirley was fifth. It was a wild race, with plenty of drama and hurt feelings when it was all said and done.
Following the night, Kyle Strickler's points lead has grown to 34 over Ricky Weiss. Kyle Bronson is third, Scott Bloomquist fourth, and Tyler Bruening rounds out the top five. I don't think anyone would have believed you if you told them this was going to be the series top five after three events. An interesting development through all of this, is it appears as though Strickler is switching from Lucas to the Outlaws now. Following the first nine Lucas nights, Strickler is 26th in the series standings, but now has two wins in three races with the Outlaws and the points lead. Switching back to his familiar Longhorn Chassis and now becoming an Outlaw seem like a no-brainer for Strickler, crew chief Vinny Guliani, and their team. Strickler is the only driver to finish in the top five in all three races this season, and he and Weiss are the only drivers with three top tens. What a wild start to 2021 for the High Side Tickler. His average feature finish with Lucas is 22.5, and he didn't transfer out of three B-mains. With the Outlaws, he now has two wins and a third. And he's done it against basically the same cars. Crazy stuff.
Looking towards tonight and the weekend, we still get three more of these races. Sheppard's trouble and Thornton's strong run last night, now see the dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula favor him for tonight. Strickler is a close second from the predictor. You can watch the Outlaws live from DIRTcar Nationals again tonight on DIRTVision.
In last night's Super DIRTcar Series big block modified race, the early part of the feature was a serious battle between Max McLaughlin and Erick Rudolph, with the two swapping the lead several times. As the race approached half way, Rudolph was able to establish himself out front working through lap traffic. A restart with 12 to go though gave Stewart Friesen the opportunity he needed. He was quickly by McLaughlin for second, and then after Rudolph for the lead, grabbing the top spot coming to ten to go. He drove away over the final laps to take his second gator trophy in as many nights at DIRTcar Nationals. Rudolph finished second, Mike Maresca third, McLaughlin fourth, and Billy Decker was fifth. The big block modifieds continue tonight and through the weekend at Volusia with the World of Outlaws. You can watch them live on DIRTVision as well.
The USAC National Sprint Cars open their 2021 season starting tonight at Bubba Raceway Park in Ocala, Florida. They have three complete programs on the schedule through Saturday night. The track was open for practice last night, with 44 cars participating. Chris Windom led the way, being the only car to break the 14 second mark. Brady Bacon, Justin Grant, Kevin Thomas Jr., and Buddy Kofoid rounded out the fastest five. Bacon enters the weekend as the defending champion, and he kicked it off last season at Bubba winning both nights. He had the most 3/8 mile wins in 2020 with three, and led the series in 3/8 mile average finish at 3.2. He also had the most series wins last season with six. Justin Grant trailed with five, and Tyler Courtney, Chris Windom, and Kyle Cummins all had three. Richie Murray told us on his episode of Conversations that Florida is often a good predictor of who wins the championship, so this could be an interesting weekend to pay attention to. Besides the five I already mentioned, the field is really stout and includes Tyler Courtney, Kyle Cummins, Tanner Thorson, Dave Darland, Stevie Sussex, Robert Ballou, CJ Leary and a lot more. Following Florida, the series goes quiet until early April, so guys will want to have strong weekends to set the tone for their seasons. The rookie fight will be an interesting sub plot all season, with Carson Garrett, Paul Nienhiser, and Noah Gass all jumping into the series full time. Gass and Garrett both have midget experience, but not a lot of sprint car seat time, while Nienhiser has plenty of sprint car experience, but it's usually been with a wing over his head. Also keep an eye on a guy like Jake Swanson, who has had success out west, but will be running the full tour for the first time. The title fight in 2020 was a tight battle all the way to the end, with Bacon eventually prevailing over Chris Windom and Chase Stockon. I wouldn't expect anything different this season. Besides those guys, Justin Grant and CJ Leary will want to get into this thing, and Kevin Thomas Jr. will be looking to rebound after a difficult 2020. Robert Ballou is also back to contend the full schedule after taking some time to get healthy. He's a past series champion who could definitely factor into this thing, and he closed out 2020 with an average finish of just a tick over 5th over the final five races. As is the case with most series, consistency will be key this year. En route to the championship in 2020, Bacon finished in the top five 63% of the time, and in the top ten 89% of races. That's a very small margin for error. If you can't be at Bubba Raceway Park this weekend, FloRacing has you covered with the live stream. Grandstands open at five with cars on track at 6PM ET.
If you're looking for winged sprint car action this weekend, the Winternationals at East Bay are featuring 360 sprint cars starting tonight. It looks like it could be a stout field of cars, including names like Terry McCarl and Tim Shaffer. The track was open for practice last night but I couldn't find results anywhere, or a full list of who was on the property. But I've seen lots of tweets in the last week or so from drivers and teams loading up to bring cars to Florida, so I'm guessing it will be a healthy entry list. If you can't be at East Bay, FloRacing will have live streaming coverage all weekend.
And speaking of that streaming schedule...
There are four items on the streaming schedule today. DIRTcar Nationals continues at Volusia Speedway Park live on DIRTVision, featuring the World of Outlaws late models and Super DIRTcar Series. FloRacing has a trio of shows, including Winternationals continuing at East Bay with 360 sprint cars, the USAC National Sprint Cars at Bubba Raceway Park, and Flo 24/7. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
A quick website note, I write nearly a complete script for these episodes each day, so I'm going to start posting them to dirtrackr.com. If you or someone you know is hearing impaired, or if you just want to read this instead of hearing me talk, you can find these at dirtrackr.com/daily. Click episode transcript in the show description. I've posted a few already, and will do so every day we have a new show going forward.
Today is the last episode for the week because of my NASCAR commitments, but we'll be back hopefully on Monday with a fresh episode. If you're headed out to the track this weekend, please be safe, and if not there will be plenty to watch on the streaming services.
That's it for the show today, hope everyone has a good Thursday and a good weekend.
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