DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Outlaw Late Model Bristol entry list, Brad Sweet rolling with the Outlaws | DIRTRACKR Daily 3/23/21
It is Tuesday, March 23rd, two thousand and twenty one and you are tuned into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Today on the show we've got the World of Outlaws Late Model Series entry list for the Bristol weekend coming up in April, and then we dive into Brad Sweet's first eight Outlaw races, and talk about why his competition might already be in trouble. Let's jump in.
The Outlaws, DIRTcar, and the Super DIRTcar Series have been slowly announcing the accepted invites for the two Bristol weekends over the last few weeks, and I wanted to wait until we had full lists to talk about them on the show. As of last Friday, we have our first full list, this one being for the World of Outlaws Late Model field which will take to Bristol April 8th through the 10th. The 41 drivers on the late model entry list are: Brent Larson, Rick Eckert, Ryan Scott, Scott Bloomquist, Brandon Sheppard, Devin Gilpin, Blake Spencer, Parker Martin Jr., Ross Robinson, Ricky Weiss, Kyle Strickler, Devin Moran, Gordy Gundaker, Josh Richards, Tyler Bruening, Chase Junghans, Daulton Wilson, Ryan Gustin, Jimmy Owens, Ricky Thornton Jr., Chris Ferguson, Michael Brown, Mason Zeigler, Shane Clanton, Dennis Erb Jr., Darrell Lanigan, Bobby Pierce, Kyle Bronson, Cla Knight, Chris Madden, Stewart Friesen, Jonathan Davenport, David Breazeale, Tony Jackson, Jr., Zach Mitchell, Ross Bailes, Brandon Overton, Tanner English, Cade Dillard, Boom Briggs, and Mike Marlar. There are some fairly notable absences on this list including current Lucas points leader Hudson O'Neal, Tim McCreadie, and Brian Shirley. The invite list included all full time Outlaw drivers, and then the top guys from around the country, including those that have competed in the Summer Nationals and Xtreme DIRTcar Series. As we've talked about in the past, these events being invite-only became a topic of conversation after the announcement from World Racing Group, but I have no issue with it. Sprint car series race director Mike Hess said on Open Red they were looking at safety, but also at the limited pit parking when deciding on how many cars and teams to invite. Unlike the Bristol Dirt Nationals which just concluded, they don't want to be opening and closing the turn three gate all night to load cars in and out. This will help the show run much more efficiently. This full list of drivers will be in the show transcript posted to dirtrackr.com and you can find it on worldofoutlaws.com.
There is no argument that Brad Sweet has been atop the sprint car world for the past few seasons, racking up 36 World of Outlaws features wins back through 2018, winning two Outlaw championships, the Knoxville Nationals, and the Kings Royal. His win back on Saturday night at Cotton Bowl was his 60th career Outlaw win, and he currently sits alone in 14th on the all time World of Outlaws win list. With six more wins this season, he could tie himself for 12th with Bobby Davis Jr. and Craig Dollansky. He entered the Cotton Bowl weekend trailing Logan Schuchart by two points in the standings, but left leading by 24. The win and a third for Sweet at Cotton Bowl vaulted him past Schuchart who finished 10th and 6th, and the change atop the standings could be bad for the rest of the Outlaw regulars. Following a summer where he had four finishes of 19th or worse, Sweet still managed to win the Outlaw championship by 46 points over Schuchart. Since finishing 24th at Knoxville on August 13th, Sweet has been on a tear, racking up top fives and setting himself apart from his competition. Since that 24th at Knoxville, there have been 32 World of Outlaws races, and Sweet has finished top five in 24 of them. Over that span, his worst finish is 11th, which has happened four times. In his past 13 Outlaw starts, back to Lakeside last year, he's finished top five in 11 of them, and top three in nine of them, including two wins. His average finish over the last five races is 2.2, and it's 3.4 in his last 10 races. Nobody else is even close. Through the eight races so far in 2021, Sweet has seven top fives and seven top tens, with an average start of 5.75 and an average finish of 3.5. He's trending better in every stat category this year versus 2020. He's got a positive feature plus minus, has appeared in five of eight dashes, and his top five and top ten efficiency numbers are both 100%. If he continues on this pace, he'll be unstoppable to win his third Outlaw title in three years. But what's crazy, is he can afford to even drop off a bit, and have some bad nights. His average finishes over the past two championship seasons were 5.5 and about fifth, which is two positions and a position and half worse versus where he is currently. And the next two weeks of racing are shaping up very nicely for Sweet and his Kasey Kahne Racing team. He finished second to Sheldon Haudenschild at US 36 Raceway in 2020, and his worst finish at Lake Ozark in his previous six starts is eighth. He also has a win and four top fives there. Following Lake Ozark, the series then heads to Pevely for two nights, where Sweet has two wins in his previous nine starts and six top fives. These four nights of racing could easily see Sweet extend that points lead over Schuchart, especially when you realize that Schuchart's average finish on 1/3 mile and 3/8 mile race tracks is significantly worse than Sweet's. It is important to remember that we are only eight races deep into a season that will inevitably be 70 or 80 nights, so a lot can and will happen. Schuchart isn't going anywhere in this fight, David Gravel is obviously very good, and Schatz isn't far back even though he hasn't won lately. But in looking at the trends, Sweet is definitely the guy they are all chasing going forward. To see these stats and a lot more, checkout dirtrackr.com/analytics.
I talked to Ben Shelton last night for a new conversations episode which I'll put out later today or tomorrow. My original hope was to have the show out before the FloRacing Night in America series opened on Thursday night, but unfortunately due to bad weather, that race at 411 Motor Speedway has been postponed to September 23rd. The new midweek series from FloRacing will now open next Wednesday, March 31st at Tri City Speedway in Illinois. I'm still going to put out the Ben show soon, as we covered a lot of ground on the late model season to date, so stay tuned for that.
The only thing on the streaming schedule today is 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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