DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Wild news day with changes for Bloomquist, Marks, Lanigan, Hooiser Hundred | DIRTRACKR Daily 4/21/21
It is Wednesday, April 21st, two thousand and twenty one and you are tuned into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Tuesday turned into a wild news day with drivers in and out of rides, people off tours, races changing, and more, so let's get you up to speed.
First up yesterday we found out there will be no Hoosier Hundred at the Indiana State Fair this season. Originally scheduled for May 27th, the USAC Silver Crown race is now being moved to Terre Haute Action Track and will be renamed the Sumar Classic. The final Hoosier Hundred was supposed to have been the 2019 edition, but COVID delayed construction at the facility in 2020, allowing the event to run, and we were treated to an epic race. Kyle Larson drove from 22nd on the grid, battled both Kevin Thomas Jr. and CJ Leary, eventually leading 37 laps and taking the win. Series officials had hoped to hold the event again in 2021, but the construction at the Indiana State Fairgrounds is back on track, and the project includes turning the dirt track into a crushed limestone surface to provide for year round harness racing and more parking for other fairgrounds events. Moving the race to Terre Haute now creates a two night show, with Wednesday, May 26th featuring the USAC National Sprint Cars and the Tony Hulman Classic, followed by the Sumar Classic for Silver Crown on Thursday. It certainly sucks to lose such an iconic event, but kudos to USAC for making the audible and creating the event at Terre Haute. For more information on the announcement, visit usacracing.com.
The USAC Silver Crown track change dropped around 230PM ET, and it was just the first of several more news bits that happened over the next few hours.
Next up was the announcement that Scott Bloomquist is dropping off the World of Outlaws Late Model Series full time. No specific reason was given, and the team will spend the rest of the season hitting up major events and picking and choosing their schedule. A revised slate of races is available at scottbloomquistracing.com, with the team's next event being the World of Outlaws race at Boone Speedway on April 30th and May 1st. Bloomquist was a full time Outlaw last season for the first time since 2004, originally partnering with Chris Madden to take on the series with backing from Drydene. That partnership fizzled pretty quickly, but Bloomquist stayed on the tour, eventually finishing eighth in the standings. In 11 starts this season, Bloomquist had just one top five and one top ten, plus a fourth in the split field race at Cherokee in March. He currently sits tenth in the Outlaw points standings. As we talked about a few weeks ago, it is not uncommon to see drivers fall off the national series if things aren't going their way, and Bloomquist is just another example of that. In his past 61 appearances with the Outlaws, he had just the lone win at Thunder Mountain in 2020, with 15 top fives and 26 top tens. Going forward, Bloomquist will run a mixture of races, including with the Outlaws and Lucas, plus big events like the World 100, Dirt Late Model Dream, Texas Dirt Nationals, and more.
About 35 minutes following the announcement from Bloomquist, Jeremy Elliott and Sprintcarunlimited.com posted breaking news that Brent Marks had decided to leave CJB Racing and their full time campaign for the All Star championship. For a lot of us, the move was quite stunning, as Marks was viewed as a possible favorite for the All Star title. Marks told Elliott that a conflict had flared up between the team and Marks' sponsors surrounding the debut of the team's second car over the weekend with Paul McMahan at the wheel. CJB's Barry Jackson said both cars were brand new with fresh engines, but someone was unhappy about the configuration of one versus the other. So instead of letting the conflict simmer, Marks made the decision to leave so the team has time to regroup with the All Stars not racing this weekend. Jackson said he isn't sure where the five team will go from here, but CJB will be at Bristol this weekend with the 23 car and Paul McMahan. As for Marks, he ran full time a few years ago with the Outlaws in his own equipment, and his plan is to put that team back together. He's going to try and race this weekend at Port Royal and Selinsgrove, and then run a pick and choose schedule the remainder of the season that will include the Outlaws, All Stars, and Pennsylvania shows. It's a shame things went sideways, as Marks currently sits 5th in the All Star standings, just 46 points behind leader Justin Peck. He had 2 top fives and five top tens in 10 series starts this season, to go along with several good finishes with the Outlaws. Going forward, expect McMahan to be fast in the CJB 23 car. He finished 5th at Virginia Motor Speedway, 10th at Williams Grove, and 3rd at Bedford with the All Stars last weekend. To see more on the story, visit sprintcarunlimited.com.
And then around 430 PM ET, Dirt on Dirt tweeted out their story that Darrell Lanigan and Viper Motorsports were parting ways and that the team was hiring Max Blair to replace Lanigan. Lanigan joined Viper in 2020 with support from Barry Wright Race Cars, eventually ending the season 6th in World of Outlaws points with a win, 12 top fives, and 24 top tens in 38 appearances. For this season, the team decided to split from Barry Wright and move to Rocket Chassis, but the change didn't produce immediate results. Through the first 11 Outlaw races, Lanigan is 8th in the standings, with just one top five and four top ten finishes. With Blair now jumping in the seat, the Viper team will focus on the ULMS Late Model Series which runs mostly in Pennsylvania. Blair has been the series champion each of the last three years. We don't yet know what is next for Lanigan, who is a three time World of Outlaws Champion.
Losing Lanigan and Bloomquist drops the Outlaws to 13 drivers that have made all the races so far. Those drivers are Brandon Sheppard, Kyle Strickler, Chris Madden, Kyle Bronson, Tyler Bruening, Ricky Weiss, Dennis Erb Jr., Cade Dillard, Ryan Gustin, Boom Briggs, Shane Clanton, Brent larson, and Blake Spencer. I know there is still some question about Bruening and Clanton, with Clanton recently telling Dirt On Dirt he isn't sure what their plans are as a team just yet. I'm also not sure about Bronson, as he was a full time runner with Lucas last season, and is currently 5th in the standings over there. So losing Bronson makes that 12 drivers, with the potential to go to 10 if Clanton and Bruening bail to Lucas as well. The Outlaws and Lucas are scheduled against each other this weekend for the first time in 2021, so we'll know for sure on Friday.
So there you go, a wild Tuesday summed up with everything that went down.
There are a bunch of new dirt racing podcast episodes to listen to this week, including Kendra Jacobs on Winged Nation, James McFadden on Open Red, Tyler Bachman on Stick Signals, there is a new episode of Dirt on Dirt's Dirt Reporters, Forward Bite has Gregg Satterlee, the Dirt from Knoxville has Jamie Ball and Tyler Groenendyk, Ohio Dirt has Henry Malcuit, Quicktime has Tony Bokhoven, Passing Points has Alex Sewell, and there are new episodes of the Dirt Nerds, Wednesdays with Wayne, and the Midwest Autosport Podcasts. To see the full list of shows and episodes with links to listen, checkout dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
And speaking of dirt racing podcasts, I've got a new conversations episode that I'll drop a little later today, this one featuring Jacob Hord of OhioDirt.com and the Ohio Dirt Track podcast. We talked about the Brent Marks move, the All Star season to date, who to watch at the various Ohio tracks, the California-Ohio sprint car pipeline, and more. Find that episode a little later today in the podcast feed and youtube.com/dirtrackr.
There are two items on the streaming schedule today. DIRTVision has DIRTcar eSports action featuring big block modifieds at Lernerville Speedway on iRacing, and Flo has 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 Wednesday. 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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