DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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NASCAR Bristol dirt reaction, USTMS/Super DIRTcar Series schedule changes | DIRTRACKR Daily 3/30/21
It is Tuesday, March 30th, two thousand and twenty one and you are tuned into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Today I've got a few news items to cover off on from the USMTS and Super DIRTcar Series and others, and then I share my thoughts on the NASCAR day on the Bristol dirt. Let's jump in...
Announced this morning, we've lost another FloRacing Night in America series race to poor weather. Tomorrow night's race at Tri-City Speedway in Illinois has now been postponed to May 25th because of cold temperatures and gusty winds in the forecast. That makes it two-for-two for the new midweek racing series put on by FloRacing, Michael Rigsby, Ben Shelton, and their crew. The series will now open April 15th at Tyler County Speedway in West Virginia with a $10,000 to win race. For more details on the schedule, visit floracing.com.
The Super DIRTcar Series for big block modifieds made an addition to their 2021 schedule yesterday, with the announcement that they will compete on the new 3/8 mile track at the Bloomsburg Fairgrounds Raceway in Pennsylvania. This will be the first time for the series at the track, which is going racing again after a 30 plus year hiatus from holding races. The new Super DIRTcar race is scheduled for Thursday, September 2nd and will be a 100 lap, $10,000 to win race. It sets up a nice weekend for the big block competitors, as two days after Bloomsburg, the series heads to Lebanon Valley for the $25,000 to win Mr. DIRT Track USA. The Super DIRTcar Series 2021 season hasn't kicked off just yet, with racing not scheduled to open until April 10th at Can Am Speedway. Remember that the opening SDS races in Florida at DIRTcar Nationals do not count towards the season long points. To see more on the SDS schedule, visit superdirtcarseries.com.
In the release, I saw it mentioned that Port Royal's Steve O'Neal is promoting the races at Bloomsburg Fairgrounds, which I didn't realize before. Bloomsburg is running a special events schedule in 2021 which includes events for the USAC East Coast sprint cars, USAC National Sprint cars and midgets, ULMS late models, Short Track Super Series, URC sprint cars and more. O'Neal has done a fantastic job at Port Royal in recent years, and the fairgrounds didn't want to compete with Port, so the easy thing to do was bring on their promoter. I think it's a great move, and you know the facility will be tuned up with O'Neal involved.
I mentioned on the show yesterday that the USMTS modifieds are headed to Hamilton County Speedway this upcoming weekend, but that's not where they were going originally. They were supposed to be at 34 Raceway for the very first USMTS vs UMP Spring Challenge, but issues with all the rain and getting the track prepared forced the event to be moved to the fall. I have not yet seen an actualy date for the reschedule, but I'll share it when we find out. So in response to the loss of the event, USMTS will now race this weekend at Hamilton County on Friday and Saturday. I don't think I talked about this before, but I was kind of pumped to see this clash of the two different modified communities happen. I know the rules vary a bit between IMCA, DIRTcar, and USRA, but it would be cool if we got to see a bit more crossover from time to time. We kind of have this constant conversation about Outlaws vs. All Stars, or Outlaws vs. Posse, or Outlaws vs. Lucas in the late model world, and it would be fun if we could do a bit more of that with the modified racing. Hopefully 34 Raceway is able to get the event rescheduled for a good date in the fall. For more information on the USMTS and this weekend's racing, visit usmts.com.
It took a few extra days because of some nasty weather, but the NASCAR on dirt weekend at Bristol is officially in the books. We saw both the truck series and Cup series run yesterday, with Martin Truex Jr. dominating the truck series race in a Kyle Busch Motorsports entry, and Joey Logano holding off Denny Hamlin late to win the Cup series race. There were some questions about the state of the track going into yesterday's racing with it taking so much rain, but I think the track crew did a fantastic job to get the surface ready for the day. I thought it was pretty racey, and while it did get a little dusty at one point in the Cup race, overall there were no major issues. Running 250 lap races on dirt is something that just doesn't happen across the landscape of dirt racing, and I think the track crew should be commended for keeping the track together for that amount of cars and that amount of laps.
I think it's important to remember that we were seeing a lot of firsts over the last few days. Yes, the trucks have run at Eldora in recent years, and yes we've had dirt on Bristol before, but not like this. The teams and series learned a lot over the last few days, and I think the future could be very bright for NASCAR's future on dirt tracks. The tracks will get better, the teams understand better where they need to be with cars and setups, Goodyear can make tire adjustments, and more. And the interesting thing is, we will get to see this again. The trucks will be at Knoxville later this summer, and NASCAR and Bristol announced yesterday that the spring race at Bristol in 2022 will again be on dirt. It's a massive undertaking to turn that place into a dirt half mile, but the track and series decided it was worth it.
In looking at the actual racing, I'm a bit stunned that the dirt guys were basically a non factor in both races. Larson effectively had to come from the rear in both races for different reasons, and ended up crashed in both. I do think that a better starting spot in the Cup race would have benefitted him in a big way, but with all the success he'd had on dirt in the last year plus, I wouldn't have believed you if you told me a few days ago that Larson would finish 35th and 29th in the two NASCAR dirt races. Even with starting in the rear in the Cup race, given the car he's in and his experience, I thought he'd be to the front pretty quickly, but that jsut didn't materialize. We also saw Christopher Bell make a rare mistake and remove himself from contention as well. And we didn't see much from guys like Chase Briscoe in either race, and Stewart Friesen in the truck race specifically. I do think the nature of driving big heavy stock cars on dirt is drastically different than anything these guys normally do, and I also think NASCAR has some very good drivers that can adapt quickly to track types and surfaces in their cars. In the end, the cream rose to the top, and you saw two super successful NASCAR drivers win the two races.
In terms of the overall reaction, it seemed like folks enjoyed the day and the response was positive. There were some haters and some dumb things said, which is to be expected, but I think days like yesterday are good for both NASCAR and the greater dirt racing community. It was nice to see both sides talking about the same things and the same racing. And don't forget, we aren't quite done with Bristol dirt yet in 2021. We still have the two World of Outlaws weekends coming up in the next few weeks.
The only thing on the streaming schedule today is FloRacing 24/7. To see the full daily schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
If you missed it yesterday, make sure to check out my new conversations episode with Chance Crum. He's a sprint car and midget driver from the state of Washington, and we talked about his Chili Bowl with Clauson Marshall, running 360s in California, and a lot more. Also, if you're a late model fan, check out the recent episode I did with Ben Shelton. We talked about a ton of late model stuff including the FloRacing Night in America series. Find those episodes in the podcast feed or the DIRTRACKR YouTube channel.
That's it for the show today, hope everyone has a good Tuesday. If you have thoughts about the topics on today's show, leave them in the comments below or tweet at me.
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