DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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More NASCAR drivers get dirt rides, Hoosier Hundred trophy stolen | DIRTRACKR Daily 3/3/21
It is Wednesday, March 3rd, two thousand and twenty one and you are tuned into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Today we've got details on more NASCAR drivers looking to get seat time on the Bristol dirt, the USMTS has more schedule changes, I've got an interesting story about a stolen trophy, and more, so let's jump in.
The entry list for the Bristol Dirt Nationals, which is the week before the NASCAR dirt weekend at Bristol, continues to gain some notable names. In the last few days, both Joey Logano and Kyle Larson were added to the field. Logano will again race a modified as he did at DIRTcar Nationals, and Larson will be back behind the wheel of the K&L Rumley number six super late model. Larson has already bagged two Lucas wins in that car with Kevin Rumley. Two other NASCAR drivers, Corey Lajoie and Austin Dillon, will team up with Cory Hedgecock to run crate late models at Bristol as well. Dillon spent a bunch of time dirt racing when he was younger, including in late models, and a ton of dominating performances at Volusia in a UMP modified. I'd imagine he'll be up to speed quickly. All of these drivers are looking to get some experience and a feel for the Bristol dirt surface. I had some commenters on a TikTok post trying to tell me that Kyle Larson doesn't need any more dirt experience, and while I agree to a point, even he has never raced on the dirt at Bristol. None of these cars will give these guys the same feel they'll get when they roll into Bristol with their Cup cars, but track time is track time. There are still things to learn and experience to gain by running these races. If these guys didn't think it was valuable, they wouldn't be entered. I talked before about this dirt race probably leveling the playing field a bit, so these guys will be looking for any little advantage they can find. The Bristol Dirt Nationals take place March 15th through the 20th.
The USMTS modified series, after having to push back their season opener, has made another small schedule change for this weekend. They had planned on racing Friday night at RPM Speedway and Superbowl Speedway on Saturday, but the Superbowl race has been scratched because of saturated grounds, so now both shows this weekend will be at RPM. Both nights will pay $10,000 to win, and USRA divisions are the undercard races all weekend. In the series' last trip to RPM at the end of 2020, Jack Sartain grabbed his first ever win, while late model ace Brandon Sheppard won the other two nights. Series and track officials are hoping for an open practice session on Thursday, depending on track conditions. If you cannot attend this weekend, you can watch live both nights at racindirt.tv.
There was a comment on the DIRTRACKR YouTube channel yesterday alerting folks to a trophy that has been stolen in Oklahoma and I wanted to mention it today on the show to help spread the word. Oklahoma racer Jack Howerton had a trailer stolen from him recently, and inside the trailer was his trophy from winning the 1974 Hoosier Hundred. The trailer and most of the contents have since been found, but not the trophy. Back on September 4th, 1974, Howerton showed up to race against the best, including AJ Foyt, Mario Andretti, and Al Unser. Unser was looking for a fifth straight win, Andretti had previously won the race twice, and Foyt had won it six times. But that day belonged to the rookie Jack Howerton. He qualified on the pole and led every lap en route to the win. Al Unser finished second and Mario Andretti was third. Howerton was given the Wolcott trophy which was made by Tiffany & Company and now he doesn't care about consequences for the thieves, he just wants the trophy returned. There is a $1000 reward for anyone with information leading to it's return. If you know know anything, please call the Rogers County Oklahoma Sherrif's Department tip line at 918-341-3620.
If you have some time to spare today, or are looking for a distraction, make sure you head over to FloRacing and watch the Jason McDougal All Access piece from the Chili Bowl. Flo finally dropped it last night and it's about 32 minutes of Chili Bowl alphabet soup goodness. JMac is miced up and they followed him through the entire day on Saturday. Have you ever noticed in these behind the scenes pieces that at some point the person featured tells someone else they are miced up and being stalked all day by a camera guy? It's like they are giving that warning to not say anything too incriminating because it's all being recorded. Super funny. They've mixed in race footage, plus all the little conversations, and the Karsyn Elledge reaction shots are worth the price of admission. They also got comments from Ryan Bernal following the incident that ended the run. Ol' buddy looked like he was ready to vomit during that interview. You can find the piece on the FloRacing.com front page, or in the films section. You do have to be a Flo subscriber to watch.
If you're looking for other dirt racing podcasts this week, there is plenty to check out. I've also made a few additions to the DIRTRACKR.com podcast page, including the new World of Outlaws Late Model Series and DIRTcar show Stick Signals, hosting by James McMahen and Ruben Mireles. They just posted episode three this week, which features Ross Bailes and Chris Madden. The guests for their other episodes included Steve Arpin and Mike McKinney, and Bobby Pierce. I also added Dylan Friebel's Track Talk Pod where he talks a lot of northeast dirt racing, and his guest in his latest episode is Brett Deyo of the Short Track Super Series. Other episodes this week include Tim Wagaman, Paulie Colagiovanni, and Dave Sharpley on Winged Nation. Open Red has Mike Hess and Doug Auld. The Loudpedal guys talked to Shane Stewart and Chris Windom, Forward Bite has Jonathan Davenport, Passing Points has Terry Mattox, and there are new episodes of the Dirt Nerds, Ohio Dirt, Wednesdays with Wayne, and the Midwest Autosports Podcast. To see the full list of shows and episodes, along with links to everything, visit dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
There is again 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 Wednesday.
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Thanks for tuning in, I'll see you tomorrow on DIRTRACKR Daily!