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Up & down weekend for Kyle Larson, Tim McCreadie takes Lucas points lead | DIRTRACKR Daily 4/19/21
It is Monday, April 19th, two thousand and twenty one and you are tuned into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
On this Monday we are getting you up to speed on a busy dirt racing weekend including a win for Kyle Larson, a Lucas points shakeup, USAC in Indiana, and more. Let's jump in.
Back to last Thursday night at Virginia Motor Speedway, we had four All Star races over the weekend, and four different winners, none of which were All Star regulars. Tony Stewart won Thursday after the tire issues for several drivers include late leader Justin Peck. Friday night at Williams Grove it was Kyle Larson getting his first sprint car win of 2021, leading 21 laps and topping Lance Dewease and Freddie Rahmer. On Saturday at Port Royal, Logan Wagner ran Tyler Courtney down inside ten laps to go in lap traffic, took the lead, and drove away to his second career All Star win. Anthony Macri hard charged to second from 21st and Ian Madsen was third. And Sunday at Bedford to close out the weekend, Macri was one spot better than the night before, grabbing the lead from Rico Abreu on lap 23 and driving away to his first All Star win of 2021. Abreu was second and Paul McMahan was third. Leaving the weekend, we've seen a little shuffling of drivers in the top ten in All Star points, but Justin Peck is still the man they are all chasing. He leads Ian Madsen by 12 points with Cory Eliason third, Tyler Courtney fourth, and Brent Marks in fifth. This weekend as a whole felt like the weekend of missed opportunities for some of the All Star guys. Both Cory Eliason and Justin Peck led laps late at Virginia and neither won. And Tyler Courtney dominated at Port Royal, but didn't end up with a good finish after he suffered a flat right rear very late in the going. He ended up 17th. The highest an All Star full timer finished was third all weekend, with Peck doing that Thursday and Ian Madsen doing it Saturday. We could very easily see a guy like Eliason or Courtney leading these points had things gone just a bit different. But Pennsylvania is obviously a very difficult place to come race, and especially so when guys like Kyle Larson show up. Things are still completely wide open though, with the top six only separated by 50 points, back to Zeb Wise. The All Stars are now off until April 30th when they are back at Lernerville Speedway to kick off a three race weekend.
Jumping back to Kyle Larson, we talked back on Friday about his busy weekend of racing which included the sprint car, late model, and Sunday's Cup race. The first two days were much more successful than the last two days. He was third on Thursday night in the late model at Tyler County and won Friday night at Williams Grove in the sprint car. But then Saturday at Hagerstown back in the late model with Kevin Rumley and the Lucas guys, the team was forced to pack up after qualifying. Larson went quick time on the night, but hurt the engine doing so, which ended their night. And Sunday at Richmond, Larson struggled all race long, eventually finishing two laps down in 18th. I know it's difficult to arrange situations like this, but it's so much fun watching a driver jump around between different tracks and car types through a weekend. Larson ran two different surfaces, four different tracks, and three different cars in four nights. This is some old school type stuff that we haven't seen much of in recent years or more. It harkens back to a different day and time when things weren't so corporate with big sponsors and contracts. Drivers were free to put weeks like this together, and if we are going to try and bring together fan bases, this is one way to help accomplish that.
Speaking of the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series, they were in action this weekend for two shows, Saturday at Hagerstown Speedway in Maryland and Sunday at Port Royal Speedway in Pennsylvania. And following those two races, we have a shakeup atop the championship standings. At Hagerstown, Ricky Thornton Jr. led 49 of the 50 laps from his second starting position, but as every race fan knows, the only lap that matters is the last one, and that one belonged to Tim McCreadie. He took advantage of lap traffic to take the lead from Thornton for good into turn three coming to the checkered. The $15,000 score was the first for McCreadie on the season. RTJ finished second, with Jonathan Davenport third. Sunday at Port Royal was all about Superman. Jonathan Davenport started on the pole, and led all 40 laps to get his first win of 2021, topping Shane Clanton and Brandon Sheppard. The win on Saturday, plus a ninth on Sunday for McCreadie was good enough to see him now take the points lead from Hudson O'Neal. O'Neal's weekend finishes of 10th and 15th have dropped him 40 points back of McCreadie. Brandon Sheppard, Devin Moran, and Kyle Bronson round out the top five. Davenport has clawed his way to seventh in the standings with his strong weekend, but we still aren't sure whether he'll run the full schedule. He's run all 12 races up to this point. I've felt like McCreadie might be the guy to beat this season with Lucas, even before he took the points lead, but that was just confirmed by what we saw Saturday and Sunday. Sheppard will fall out at some point with his Outlaw schedule, and beyond O'Neal, every other driver is at least 100 points behind McCreadie. And since finishing 15th at East Bay back on January 27th, McCreadie has eight straight top ten finishes, which includes six top fives and a win. If that consistency continues, he'll be tough to chase down. Lucas is back this weekend for two shows, Friday at Tri-City Speedway and Saturday at Macon Speedway.
The USAC National Sprint Cars got two of their three shows in Indiana completed over the weekend, losing Sunday's race at Paragon to weather. On Friday night at Bloomington Speedway, Kevin Thomas Jr. battled Brady Bacon latse in the going, but took the lead back on lap 28 and drove away to his second win of the season. Bacon was second, Kyle Cummins third, Shane Cottle fourth, and Chris Windom was fifth. In 27 starts last year, KTJ had an average finish of 10.6 with no wins. In five races so far this year, he has an average finish of 6.8 and already two wins. It's been quite the turnaround, and he is once again a contender for the title. On Saturday night at Haubstadt, we had a hard charging winner, which is always fun. Kyle Cummins went 11th to the win, taking the lead from Jadon Rogers on lap 27 and he drove away to the victory. Rogers, Chase Stockon, Justin Grant, and Brady Bacon were the rest of the top five. It was the second straight win at Haubstadt for Cummins. Leaving the weekend, Brady Bacon continues to lead the standings, now by 15 markers over Justin Grant. KTJ is third, Chris Windom fourth, and CJ Leary is fifth. Windom extended his top ten streak to now 20 straight races. The USAC Sprint Cars continue their 2021 season this week with four shows in Pennsylvania, starting Thursday night at Grandview Speedway.
With the World of Outlaws Sprint Car weekend washed out, several of those series regulars headed to Knoxville for their weekly opener. Fourth starting Gio Scelzi led much of the feature, but the racing got good at the end. 14th starting Sheldon Haudenschild got a big run on the top through turns 1 and 2 and with lap traffic in front of Gio, Sheldon grabbed the lead into turn three and beat Gio back to the checkered for his first ever win at Knoxville. Gio finished second, Austin McCarl third, Sam Hafertepe Jr. was fourth, and Davey Heskin was fifth. The field also included Aaron Reutzel, PPM, and Carson Macedo. Other weekend sprint car winners include Cole Macedo at Attica, Justin Sanders again at Ocean and Placerville, Ayrton Genetten with MOWA at Tri City, AJ Hopkins at Putnamville, Freddie Rahmer at Lincoln, Blake Hahn won the ASCS National Tour race at Park Jefferson over Matt Covington and JJ Hickle, Brody Roa in non-wing action at Tulare, Gary Taylor at Waynesfield, and Dean Jacobs at Wayne County. To see more from the open wheel weekend, check out TJSLideways.com.
With the MLRA at 34 Raceway, Jason Papich grabbed the $10,000 to win Slocum 50 over Tony Jackson Jr. and Garrett Alberson. Other weekend winners included Brandon Overton at I-75 Raceway and Modoc Raceway, Josh Rice at Florence, Zack Dohm at Ponderosa, and Jensen Ford at Smoky Mountain. For more from the late model weekend, visit dirtondirt.com.
The only thing on the streaming schedule today is FloRacing 24/7. To see the full daily streaming schedule, 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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