DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Average finish & winning a World of Outlaws title, more Bristol dirt laps | DIRTRACKR Daily 3/9/21
It is Tuesday, March 9th, two thousand and twenty one and you are tuned into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Today on the show we take a look at what average finish it might take over the course of a season to win the championship with the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series. We've also got details on another Bristol dirt test, news from the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series, and more, so let's jump in.
We certainly can't predict the racing future in any way, shape, or form, and why would we want to honestly? If we knew the outcome, the races wouldn't be fun to watch. But what is fun, I think, is to use the numbers to see trends and make inferences on the future based on past results and see in the end if we can get close. One of the big driving factors behind the analytics section of dirtrackr.com is to try and understand what's happening on track better, by studying those stats and trends. In trying to better understand what it takes to win a championship, one of the stat categories I've zeroed in on is average finish. At least with the World of Outlaws, winning races is great, and a driver certainly needs to do some of that to be successful during the season, it's not completely vital to winning the title. One area that does correlate to the champion, at least in each of the last three seasons, is that the driver with the best average finish wins the championship. That might seem like a no brainer, but in practice it is not. For example, Tanner Thorson was a full time USAC midget competitor in 2020, and of those drivers who ran full time, he actually had a better average finish then eventual champion Chris Windom. And he was better by over a full position. But a combination of event formats and some bad nights for Thorson dropped him out of contention and Windom won the title. What's even crazier, is that Thorson didn't even finish second. Tyler Courtney, whose average finish was actually two positions worse than Thorson, finished second. So depending on the series, this isn't necessarily an indicator of season long success, but with the Outlaws it seems to be the case.
Donny Schatz in 2018, and Brad Sweet in each of the last two seasons both led the series' full time drivers in average finish for the year. In 2018 and 2019, Sweet and Schatz actually led all drivers in average finish, including those that didn't compete full time. In 2020, Kyle Larson led the Outlaws in average finish, a full spot better than Sweet, but Larson did only run about half the schedule. In 2018, Schatz averaged about a fourth place finish for the year, Sweet was just a tick under fifth in 2019, and last year Sweet won the championship with an average finish of about five and a half. What's interesting is that the championship average finish has gotten worse each of the last three years, and Sweet's finishes in 2020 would not have won him the title in 2019 or 2018. If you take that range of fourth to maybe a little worse than fifth and apply it to this season, we have three drivers currently in that range. Carson Macedo, Logan Schuchart, and Brad Sweet are all in that range or lower, with Macedo leading the way at 3.75. We are now obviously very early in the going, with only four races complete, but it does start to give you an idea of what's necessary. Who can stay in that range for the full season, and which drivers that are currently on the outside of that range can figure out how to climb back in. As the season progresses, keep an eye on that group of drivers and their average finish. It will be a solid indicator of who's in line for the title.
In preparation for the upcoming World of Outlaws events on the Bristol dirt, the late model series competitors got their first look at the track last night. A number of cars were in attendance for the test session including Brandon Sheppard, Ricky Weiss, Darrell Lanigan, Chase Junghans, Boom Briggs, Dennis Erb Jr., and Blake Spencer. They ran about a two hour practice session with Ricky Weiss going fast time at 15.266. If I remember correctly, I think Kyle Strickler was fastest at the last session a few days ago, with Weiss going about a tenth and a half faster then the High Side Tickler did that night. If you missed any of the coverage, there are a few scattered videos on the World of Outlaws Late Model Series Twitter account. To see the longer live stream video, head over to the Bristol Motor Speedway Facebook page. There you watch coverage from most of the night. Competitors got a little time on the track in the late daylight, and then under the lights when the sun went down. It was another fun preview, giving us an idea of what we can expect when racing starts for real coming up next week and lasting into April. We know that racing will be really fast, but the biggest question I think is still whether the track will widen out enough to see side by side racing. These single car sessions don't really give us a clue about what's actually possible for the racing. If we can get a top and bottom groove worked in, things could be really wild, but we'll just have to wait and see. The good thing for the World of Outlaws series, is they will have several race nights to study once it's finally their turn to race and can hopefully make some good adjustments to the surface. The Bristol Dirt Nationals jump off next Monday, while the World of Outlaws events are still a month away.
Along with their season long coverage on MAVTV Plus and select races on MAVTV, the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series announced yesterday a five race package for CBS. The Show Me 100 from Lucas Oil Speedway will air June 27th, the Diamond Nationals on August 28th, the Rumble by the River from Port Royal Speedway on October 2nd, the Knoxville Late Model Nationals on November 6th, and the Dirt Track World Championship from Portsmouth Raceway Park will air on December 25th. It's the first time in history those final four events will be aired on CBS, with the Show Me 100 entering its 11th year on the network. For more information on the Lucas TV schedule, visit lucasdirt.com.
And late last week the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series along with I-80 Speedway announced that the I-80 Nationals and Silver Dollar Nationals will take place July 20th through the 24th, with over half a million dollars in purse money up for grabs. Thursday's 53 lap race will pay $30,000 to win and $2000 to start and the Silver Dollar Nationals finale on Saturday night will pay $53,000 to win and $5300 to start. Tim McCreadie was the I-80 Nationals winner in 2020, while Brandon Sheppard is the defending Silver Dollar Nationals champion. All five nights will be live streamed on MAVTV Plus if you cannot attend. Again, for more information, check out lucasdirt.com.
Thunderbowl Raceway has been forced to cancel Friday's Kings of Thunder 360 sprint car event due to not getting the go ahead from the local health department to hold the race. In response, promoter Peter Murphy has added a night of Kings of Thunder action to Keller Auto Speedway in Hanford this weekend. The move makes it a Friday, Saturday double header at Hanford for the 360 sprint car competitors, with the top four finishers from Friday locking directly into Saturday's dash. Friday's support division will be announced later. For more information, visit racekingsspeedway.com.
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 Tuesday.
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