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Sweet sweeps Outlaw weekend, Larson second at Tazewell, Pierce wins Illini | DIRTRACKR Daily 4/5/21
It is Monday, April 5th, two thousand and twenty one and you are tuned into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
There is a lot to talk about from the weekend, including some first time winners, trouble for some big names, and more, so let's jump in.
If you didn't already believe it after his back-to-back World of Outlaws Sprint Car championships the past two seasons, Brad Sweet has cemented himself as the best sprint car racer on the planet right now, following a weekend sweep at Pevely. The two wins, Friday night and Saturday night, made it four straight for the Big Cat, and now five total on the season. He did it on Friday in impressive fashion. A third place finish in his heat wasn't good enough for a dash appearance, but that didn't matter. Sweet drove up from ninth to grab the lead from Kraig Kinser on lap 19, and he led the final 22 laps en route to the win. Even with the Friday night win, Sweet and his KKR 49 team made some setup changes heading into Saturday that paid big dividends. After a second place finish in his heat, Sweet drew the pole of the dash and drove away to the win. Then in the feature, he led from green to checkered, holding off Sheldon Haudenschild and Gio Scelzi to become the first World of Outlaws winner from the pole this season. With the two wins pushing his streak to four, Sweet becomes the first driver to win four in a row with the series since 2017. That year, Donny Schatz actually went five in a row, winning two at Volusia, one at Lone Star, and two at Las Vegas. He went on to win 20 races that season, easily beating Sweet for the championship by over 200 points. It feels absolutely possible that we could be on the verge of another 20+ win season for a driver, only this time it will be Sweet and not Schatz. A driver hasn't won that much in a season, since Schatz did it in 2018. Even with an 11th at Volusia in February, Sweet's average finish for the season is now 2.8, and his average over the last five races is 1.4. He has five wins and 10 top fives in 11 races.
As for his competition, it's not like they are running badly. Since finishing 11th at East Bay, Sheldon Haudenschild has seven straight top fives, including two wins. He finished 4th on Friday and a close second to Sweet on Saturday. His average finish over the past five races is 2.8, which under normal circumstances could easily be the best in the series. And Logan Schuchart continues to be the most consistent driver with the Outlaws, racking up his 13th and 14th straight top ten finishes this weekend. He went 16th to third on Friday night, good enough for hard charger, and 7th to 4th on Saturday. I said before the season started that he would need to find a bit more consistency if he really wanted to contend for the championship, and so far he's done just that. The problem for him, is that Sweet has just been so damn good. Leaving the weekend, Sweet has extended the points lead to 46 over Schuchart. Sheldon is another 26 points back in third. David Gravel and Carson Macedo round out the top five. As for Donny Schatz, the difficulties continue. On Friday night, he led the first 17 laps after starting on the front row, but ignition issues sent him to the infield, resulting in a DNF and a 20th place result. Saturday night he timed in 20th quick, and was left fighting back the remainder of the night. He grabbed the final transfer in his heat race, and then battled up from a 17th starting position to finish 11th. The two finishes outside the top ten have dropped him outside the top five in points, where he now sits tied with Aaron Reutzel for sixth. We are still waiting on win 300. And I want to give a big shoutout to Kraig Kinser who went 2nd on Friday and 7th on Saturday. It was Kraig's first top five and podium since Cedar Lake last July, and his best finish since finishing second at Skagit in 2019. He also led his first lap since 2019. As his crew chief Mikey Kuemper told us a few weeks ago, those guys are down on resources, and finishes like this weekend are a big shot in the arm. The Outlaw teams now get a few days off following Pevely. They are back this weekend at Kokomo on Friday and Haubstadt on Saturday.
Over to the World of Outlaws Late Model Series, the Illini 100 weekend at Farmer City provided us two first time series winners, but it also continued to show just how turbulent this opening stretch has been for full timers. On Friday night it was Illinois racer Mike Spatola who led the final 21 laps of a barn burner en route to his first ever series win and $6000. He had to work earlier in the day, and had to scramble to even make it to the track on time, becoming the final driver to draw in for the night. It's a good thing he did though. He held off Ryan Unzicker and Bobby Pierce for the score. The highest finishing full time Outlaw was Brandon Sheppard, who finished fifth after needing to transfer in from a B Main. He was the night's hard charger going 18th to 5th. Only two Outlaws finished in the top ten, with points leader Kyle Strickler taking a provisional and only racing up to 16th. And speaking of Strickler, he was without crew chief Vinny Guliani, who according to a post at dirtondirt.com has taken a leave of absence from the team. Strickler made a late call to Cody Mallory, who just recently departed the Bobby Pierce team, to give him a hand at Farmer City. Unfortunately though, it was a rough weekend for Strickler. He followed up the 16th place run on Friday with a 13th on Saturday, again needing a provisional to start the feature. Strickler hasn't finished in the top ten with the series since February 12th at Volusia. Saturday night's 75 lapper was only slowed by one caution, and that yellow nearly cost Bobby Pierce his first ever series win. The Smooth Operator led the first 70 laps, but the yellow for a stopped Ricky Thornton Jr. closed Cade Dillard up to his bumper for the restart, and Dillard promptly grabbed the lead. A big slider into turn three coming to two laps to go go the lead back for Pierce, and he drove way to his first ever Outlaw win and $20,000. Dillard and Brandon Sheppard rounded out the podium. BShepp's problems continue to stem from him putting himself in holes earlier in the night, and Farmer City was no different. Only this weekend he was able to drive through the field and make something of the nights. He was hard charger both nights going 18th to 5th and 18th to 3rd. Strickler's problems combined with the two top fives have closed Sheppard to within 24 points of the lead now heading to Bristol. A sixth and a second for Cade Dillard were a step in the right direction for him, but two finishes outside the top 15 for Ricky Weiss have dropped the Canadian to 5th in the standings. The Outlaws are back Thursday night for practice at Bristol before the big weekend.
We talked back on Friday about how wide open the All Star season is, and how it was difficult to even pick a win favorite among the field of contenders. The series got their 2021 points season rolling on Saturday at Attica and maybe we should have foreseen the race winner. Justin Peck has gone to Pennsylvania in recent weeks and picked up wins at Williams Grove and Port Royal, and he continued that momentum Saturday night. He ran down Zeb Wise in lap traffic, took the lead with 13 to go, and drove away to his first All Star win of the year and second of his career. Zeb Wise, Hunter Schuerenberg, Brent Marks, and Cory Eliason rounded out the top five. With his performances in recent weeks, Peck has certainly entered himself in the conversation for the All Star title, and starting the season off with a win shows his competitors he and his Buch team are serious. Wise was also strong in his debut with his new Wise Priddy team, leading the most laps before settling for second. As for Cory Eliason, who I still believe is the title favorite, he led laps early from the pole before fading to fifth at the end. I do think that's a step in the right direction for that team. Attica hasn't been a great track for Eliason, so to lead laps there and grab a top five feels like a win. The All Stars are off now until April 15th when they begin a busy four race week at Virginia Motor Speedway.
After a nearly two month break, the USAC National Sprint Cars were back on Saturday night at Lawrenceburg, and it was Brady Bacon picking up where he left off. He won the series' last appearance at the Burg in October of 2020, and was coming off two top fives at Bubba in Florida to start 2021. He started sixth, but took the lead from CJ Leary on lap six and drove away to a dominating victory. Leary finished second, Chris Windom was third, Justin Grant fourth, and Thomas Meseraull was fifth. The win was Bacon's seventh in his last 30 series starts, and he now has six straight top four finishes and 14 straight top tens. Leaving Lawrenceburg, Bacon has taken the points lead from Justin Grant, with Leary third, Windom fourth, and Kevin Thomas Jr. fifth. The third place run for Chris Windom extended his sprint car top ten streak to 18 straight races, which is the longest such current streak for any national dirt series. The most impressive drive of the night might have been from Paul Nienhiser. He raced inside the top five for much of the race, but faded to 7th late. But he did so with what appeared to be a broken front end on his KO Motorsports machine. The left front tire was flopping around all over the place, and he still bagged a top ten result. The USAC Sprint Cars are back in action on April 16th at Bloomington.
While the sprint cars were at Lawrenceburg, the USAC midgets were running two non-points, special event shows at Riverside in Arkansas. Friday night it was Daison Pursley winning over Cannon McIntosh and Brenham Crouch. And Saturday night, Cannon Mac was one spot better, winning over Bryant Wiedeman and Crouch. The races were not full field, with the midgets returning to normal action this weekend for two shows at Port City in Oklahoma. Two full timers who were missing from the midget field at Riverside were Kaylee Bryson and Buddy Kofoid. They were making their pavement late model debuts at South Sound Speedway in Washington. Kaylee ended up with the win in her debut, and Kofoid finished second. During my livestream on Friday night, I talked about how it kinda sucks to see drivers like them make the transition to pavement. The dirt fan in me wishes they'd stay, but I understand they are in the pipeline and could be future stars in NASCAR.
In other late model action this weekend, Jonathan Davenport took down the $21,000 Spring Nationals win at Tazewell in Tennessee. He led all 75 laps en route to the win over Kyle Larson, Tyler Erb, Dale McDowell and Donald McIntosh. The field also included Jimmy Owens, Brandon Overton, and Mike Marlar. Larson continues to show just how talented he is, showing up to Tazewell in a late model, winning a heat race, and finishing second to Davenport who has been on a roll lately. Other weekend late model winners include Billy Moyer in Comp Cams action at Poplar Bluff, Zack Dohm at Richmond Raceway in Kentucky, Pearson Lee Williams with the Southern All Stars in Georgia, and Mason Zeigler in weekly action at Port Royal. For more from the late model weekend, checkout dirtondirt.com.
Other weekend open wheel winners include Justin Sanders in a wild 360 show on Friday night at Ocean, Cole Duncan in FAST series action at Atomic, Mario Clouser in WAR action at Lake Ozark, and Sanders again on Saturday night at Placerville. To see more, visit tjslideways.com.
Before we close out today, a little good news for Arizona Speedway. We thought Saturday night's show was the final race ever at the track near Phoenix, but it's not over quite yet. Track operator Jonah Trussel announced the state land department has granted an extension of the track's lease, and they will be able to operate until November 30th, which allows the speedway to complete a final full season. Even though things will still come to an end at the track, at least it gives the fans and competitors one final full season to enjoy. Nice work by all involved out there to make that happen.
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 Monday. 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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