DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Logan Schuchart's path to the 2021 Outlaw championship, Crews joins Boat | DIRTRACKR Daily 3/2/21
It is Tuesday, March 2nd, two thousand and twenty one and you are tuned into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Today on the show we've got news from FloRacing and Chad Boat Industries, and we dive into what Logan Schuchart's path to the 2021 World of Outlaws championship looks like. Let's jump in.
2020 was a banner year for Logan Schuchart and his Shark Racing team with the World of Outlaws. Seven wins, along with 35 top fives and 46 top tens were good enough to see him finish second in the standings to Brad Sweet, who won his second straight series championship. In the end, Schuchart finished just 46 points behind Sweet in the standings, which if you break it down, is a very small difference throughout a season. If you figure 2 points per position, Sweet bettered Schuchart by just 23 spots. Over the course of a 54 race schedule last year, that was less than a half a position per night. When you start looking over the numbers, including the new efficiency and value stats I added recently, the difference between Sweet and Schuchart starts to become much more clear. Sweet did have one more win than Schuchart, and Sweet's average finish was about 4 tenths of a spot better. But how did that happen? The answer lies in starting position. In 54 races, Sweet had 28 top five starts and 42 top ten starts. Schuchart on the other hand had 20 top five starts, eight less than Sweet, and 34 top ten starts, also eight less than Sweet. Schuchart was actually better than Sweet in top five efficiency, and both top five and top ten value finishes. They were nearly even in top ten efficiency, with Sweet having just a slight edge in the percentage. The problem for Schuchart was all those races he started deeper in the field than Sweet. He did convert five of his 20 outside top ten starts into top five finishes, and 14 of them into top ten finishes, but that left six times he finished outside the top ten, on top of the two times he finished outside the top ten when starting top ten. Schuchart led the series in feature plus minus, which is great, but starting deeper in fields and needing to pass a lot of cars is not how you win a championship against uber consistent guys like Brad Sweet and Donny Schatz. Especially with the Outlaws, the further back you start in a feature, the more difficult it is to get wins and top fives. 61% of wins in 2020 came from the front row, and no winners started deeper than 10th. Schuchart made one hell of an effort last year to overcome his worse average start than Sweet, which was two full positions worse, but in the end it's too much to overcome on a nightly basis. At the end of the year, Schuchart had two less top fives and was even with Sweet in top tens. So even with all the worse starts, Schuchart still managed incredible results. And that's why improved starting positions will go a long way for Schuchart.
For 2021, in order for Schuchart to have a shot at the title, he must find ways to start higher in features. One place he needs to improve is qualifying, and through the first two races at Volusia, he was strong, going 6th and 2nd quick. Now the hard part is keeping that up for another 60 or 70 races. Higher qualifying results will lead to better heat race starts, where Schuchart trailed Sweet in 2020 by a little less than half a position on average. That led to Schuchart also trailing Sweet in average heat race finish by about 4 tenths of a position. Over the course of a season, 4 tenths of a position could mean the difference between making the dash or not, and in 2020, Sweet appeared in dashes seven more times than Schuchart. Those dash appearances mean a chance at the pole, and at worst a top ten start. The only driver who had more dash appearances than Sweet in 2020, was David Gravel, who would have had a real shot at the title had he not missed those two races. As the season gets rolling again this weekend, watch for Schuchart's ability to qualify towards the front. If he can find ways to start just a bit better in features, he'll be a real threat to Sweet and Schatz and Gravel for the title. And when I say a bit better, I mean like maybe half a position better on average. He doesn't need to make up all the ground on Sweet with starting position, just enough to improve that finishing by say, 23 positions over 54 races. We'll have much more on the World of Outlaws returning to action later in the week.
FloRacing announced yesterday the addition of several dozen late model events from some regional series to their streaming schedule for 2021. Adding to their already packed slate of racing, Flo will now carry action from the Comp Camps Super Dirt Series, MARS Late Model Series, and Southern All Stars. The service will stream about a dozen events each from Comp Cams and the Southern All Stars, and they will show about half the MARS schedule. The first events to be shown from this new package of races are March 12th and 13th. To see more details on the announcement, visit dirtondirt.com.
Chad Boat Industries announced a new addition to their midget lineup for the 2021 season yesterday. Young Brent Crews will join the team and run the full POWRi midget schedule driving the 86, sponsored by Pristine Auction. From North Carolina, Crews has won races in five different divisions at Millbridge Speedway including Outlaw karts and micros, has multiple karting championships, and has ventured into 360 sprint car competition this year with five USCS appearances on his resume. His best finish was 6th at Hendry County Motorsports Park back on February 5th. He's clearly got talent behind the wheel, and he'll be getting a leg up jumping into midgets with CB Industries, who is the defending USAC midget champion team with Chris Windom. Crews will be joining Ryan Timms and Jade Avedisian, who will also run POWRi schedules with Chad Boat. The POWRi season gets under way on March 19th at Monarch Motor Speedway in Texas.
I released a new DIRTRACKR Conversations episode last night. In this one, I talked to late model racer Devin Moran and had him teach me a bunch of stuff about racing a dirt late model. We talked simple stuff like how do fire a late model, which gauges he has, and how to change gears. We also talked more advanced stuff like choosing racing lines, tires, and how to race certain guys. It's a solid 40 minute episode, and I hope you learn as much as I did. You can find that episode in this podcast feed, or at youtube.com/dirtrackr. Drop me a comment or message on social media and let me know what you thought of the show.
There is nothing on the streaming schedule today except FloRacing 24/7. To see the full daily streaming schedule, with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
That's it for the show today, hope everyone has a good Tuesday.
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