DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Stability could pay off for Tanner Thorson | DIRTRACKR Daily 4/13/21
It is Tuesday, April 13th, two thousand and twenty one and you are tuned into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Today on the show we dive into Tanner Thorson's Port City weekend and talk about his title chances up against guys like Buddy Kofoid and Chris Windom. Let's jump in.
When I was talking about the USAC Midget weekend on the show yesterday I got caught up in the Ryan Timms/TMez stuff, and I wanted to double back today and talk about Tanner Thorson and what we've seen so far from the midgets this season. This past weekend at Port City was the first for Thorson in his new Reinbold-Underwood Motorsports ride after starting the season with Dave Mac Motorsports. Following the Chili Bowl run for Dave Mac, it wasn't clear what the season held for Thorson and how many races he'd run in the midget, but it seemed pretty clear he wasn't going to contend for the USAC midget title. He ran the two Florida races for the team, getting two good finishes of second and eighth, but then apparently afterward things broke down. On April 1st, just one week after announcing his full time USAC sprint car campaign with Reinbold Underwood, Thorson announced plans to also run for the team to contest the full USAC midget schedule. If he was going to switch teams, it makes sense to run for both championships out of one organization. And just ten days later, the move paid off, with Thorson standing in victory lane at Port City for his first midget win of 2021 and Reinbold Underwood's first ever midget win. According to Richie Murray, it was Thorson's 21st career victory, which moved him past AJ Foyt for 29th all time. That's a hell of a name to pass on a list like that. In his post race comments, Thorson talked about wanting to have some skin in the game, so he approached Andy Reinbold with an offer: Thorson would own the car and the engine and he would partner with the team for support. Reinbold accepted. So now Thorson will chase both the USAC sprint car and midget championships for the team, and he's off to a good start, sitting 6th in the sprint car points and third in the midget points. What's scary about the midget, is Thorson doesn't think the car is quite where he wants it. As good as he was on Sunday, leading 18 laps and taking the win, he thinks there is room to improve.
Looking at the midget standings through the first four races, Buddy Kofoid currently leads Thomas Meseraull, with Thorson third, Justin Grant fourth, and 2020 champion Chris Windom in fifth. I said this before, but I still think Kofoid is the favorite for the midget title. He just keeps getting better and better, and he's won four of his past eight USAC midget starts. On Saturday at Port City he drove up from 16th to win, which was incredibly impressive, and his average finish over the last five races is 2.8, good for best in the series. It took him 19 races in 2020 before he got his first USAC midget win, but since then has won five times in 14 races. It feels like Kofoid is just getting started. But when you look down the order of who could really challenge him, Thorson has to be at the top of the list. Thorson finished third in the standings last season, and towards the end it almost felt like he was an afterthought with Windom and Courtney battling so close. But if you look at the stats, Thorson was at the top of nearly every major category in 2020. It's wild to look at his numbers and think he didn't win the championship. He had the most wins with seven, most top fives at 20, most top tens at 24, and best average finish of the series regulars at 4.56. He was also second in laps led, 159 to Courtney's 178, had the highest feature/plus minus at plus 83, and led all series regulars in average qualifying position to go along with five quick times. But in the end, he missed out on the title by 28 points. And what might be even crazier, is he did all that last year driving for two different teams. He ran for much of the season with Hayward Motorsports before switching over to run for Tom Malloy in September. Four of his wins were with Hayward, and three with Malloy. You've got to think that having a season like he did last year and still missing out on the championship is in the back of his mind.
With Thorson more in control of his own destiny this season, owning the car and working on it himself, he could be in line for a good season. Especially if he's able to get the car where he wants it in the coming weeks. For a driver that has bounced around as much as Thorson between teams and car types, I hope he sticks where he's at for the year. A little stability could go a long way for him in his pursuit of these championships. It's going to be very entertaining to watch though, with him up against Kofoid, Grant, and Windom looking to repeat with the midgets. The USAC midgets are back racing April 30th and May 1st at Kokomo Speedway.
These first few days this week are a bit quiet on the racing front, but action picks up serious on Thursday. The All Stars kick off a four race weekend at Virginia Motor Speedway before heading to Pennsylvania, and hopefully we'll finally get to see the debut of the FloRacing Night in America late model series as they take on Tyler County Speedway in West Virginia. From there, it's a busy weekend with Lucas back for two shows, the Outlaws in Texas and Oklahoma, the USAC sprint cars have three Indiana races, and a bunch more. I'm thinking maybe Thursday night we go live again on YouTube for another watch party and check out the All Stars and FloRacing late models. Let me know if you might be down to join in. I'll keep you posted on if I decide to do it and what time we'll make it 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 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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