DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Are drivers like Brady Bacon and Chris Windom getting enough recognition? | DIRTRACKR Daily 4/6/21
It is Tuesday, April 6th, 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 Brady Bacon and Chris Windom's recent results and wonder about their status in the dirt world, plus there is some racing to watch tonight, a new conversations episode, and more. Let's jump in.
Since starting the analytics section of dirtrackr.com, one of my routines is to go peruse the stat sections after I enter in the most recent race results and try and share a few nuggets on Twitter. For example, this past Sunday morning, following a busy Saturday of racing, I entered all the results from the night before, and dropped some stats for Brad Sweet, Brady Bacon, Brandon Sheppard, and Chris Windom. The stats for Bacon and Windom I also used on the show yesterday when we were recapping the USAC sprint car race at Lawrenceburg. Specifically that Bacon has won seven of the last 30 series races, and Windom has the longest top ten streak in the country, currently sitting on 18 straight races. The stat on Bacon got me wondering about how strong he's been in the past year with the series, so I jumped back in this morning to dive a little deeper into his numbers. Bacon is the hottest driver with the series, with an average finish of second over his previous five starts, and an average finish of 2.7 over his previous 10. He was the 2020 USAC National Sprint Car champion, and it isn't difficult to see why. Six wins in 27 races last year, along with 17 top fives and 24 top tens. He also led all drivers last season in top ten efficiency, grabbing 21 top tens in 22 top ten starts, an efficiency number of 95.45%. Leaving Lawrenceburg with the win, Bacon now leads the series points standings over Justin Grant with three races complete in 2021. What might be even more impressive about Bacon is how he's getting his finishes this season. At Bubba in February, he went 12th to 4th on night one, and tenth to second on night two. Both were good for hard charger. And on Saturday night, he started sixth, and was to the lead by lap 6. Starting deeper in these fields doesn't seem to be a problem.
On the analytics pages, I have all these stat categories, and obviously one of the sections I took a look at was average finish. What's wild through these past 30 races, is that as good as Bacon has been, he doesn't even lead the full time guys in average finish. That stat belongs to Chris Windom. His average finish is about three tenths of a position better than Bacon's. As I mentioned before, Windom has 18 straight top ten finishes with the USAC sprint cars, which is the longest such streak of any of the major dirt racing series in the country. Some other guys are close, including Bacon, and Logan Schuchart with the Outlaws, but Windom's streak started at Kokomo in July of 2020, and continued Saturday night at the Burg. Over the previous 30 races, Windom has one less top five than Bacon does, but the same amount of top tens, with 27. But if you compare those three races where Bacon and Windom didn't finish in the top ten, you find something kind of crazy. Bacon's three outside top ten finishes are 23rd at Terre Haute, 24th at Lincoln Park, and 18th also at Terre Haute. Pretty standard for a guy to have a few stumbles through the course of a long season. But apparently not if you are Chris Windom. His three finishes outside the top ten are 11th. All of them. He was 11th at Plymouth, 11th at Lincoln Park, and 11th at Gas City. In the past 30 USAC sprint car events, the worst finish Windom has had is 11th. So besides taking down the USAC midget title last season, Windom has been fantastic in the sprint car and just missed out on that championship in 2020. Seeing these numbers for both drivers then makes me wonder if they don't get enough credit and attention for what they've done recently. And I'm just as guilty as anyone else. I get on this show and talk about Logan Schuchart, and Brad Sweet, and Jimmy Owens, or Brandon Overton, or Aaron Reutzel, Brandon Sheppard, and others. But I certainly didn't notice this. And I'm not sure anyone else has either. Having the analytics section has certainly helped me start to find these things over the past year or so, but I wonder if this not getting noticed is a bigger indictment on the lack of stats and numbers, or one of USAC and it's competition just not getting as much attention. I'd love to know your thoughts on this. I know that those who are deep into USAC and the non-wing world maybe recognize how good these guys are, but does the dirt racing community as a whole understand? I'm not so sure. And if the dirt community doesn't see it, then the larger American motorsports world definitely doesn't see it. Drop me a comment on YouTube or Facebook, or Twitter and let me know what you think. Do you recognize guys like Bacon and Windom, and others like Justin Grant as being top drivers in dirt racing? Or are the USAC divisions too niche for racing fans to notice these guys? I'm curious to hear your thoughts.
If you're looking for some racing to watch tonight, Bridgeport Motorsports Park in New Jersey is in action for their Invasion of the Posse event featuring 410 sprint cars and modifieds. It looks like a nice little field of cars is set to race, including names like Danny Dietrich, Brent Marks, and the most recent All Star winner, Justin Peck. Besides bagging the All Star win at Attica on Saturday, Peck is one of only two drivers to get multiple Central PA wins so far this season. Lance Dewease is the other. Tonight's 410 action pays $5000 to win and $400 to start. Grandstands open at 5 PM ET, with hot laps scheduled for 6:15. If you can't be at Bridgeport, FloRacing has you covered with the live stream.
I dropped a new Conversations episode yesterday if you haven't checked it out yet. This one features Jacqueline Rumley, who should be familiar to those that follow dirt late models on Twitter. She's very active on race nights, often being one of the lone voices tweeting out updates from races. You can also find her at a lot of races with husband Kevin and their K&L Rumley number six super late model. She joined me to talk about her background in racing, moving to North Carolina, hustling to get jobs in motorsports, and a lot more. You can find that episode in this podcast feed or the DIRTRACKR YouTube channel.
There are two items on the streaming schedule today. Besides Flo 24/7, FloRacing has 410 sprint cars and modifieds live tonight from Bridgeport Motorsports Park in New Jersey. 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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