DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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New Summer Nationals points format, do dirt racing championships matter? | DIRTRACKR Daily 4/27/21
It is Tuesday, April 27th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Today on the show we've got a few news items to cover off on, including a new points format for the Summer Nationals and more money on the line for the All Stars, and then I have a question I've been thinking about lately that I want to pose to you the listener and watcher of this show. Let's jump in.
The All Star Circuit of Champions announced yesterday that the series' upcoming four race swing through Indiana will have some additional money on the line for competitors. Besides paying out $48,000 to the race winners of the four nights, an additional $26,000 points fund has been put up by Kevin Rudeen and the Rayce Rudeen Foundation, with the four night champion taking home an additional $10,000. The four race stretch includes May 20th and 21st at the all new Circle City Raceway in Indianapolis, May 22nd at Gas City I-69 Speedway, and May 23rd at Kokomo Speedway for the third annual Rayce Rudeen Foundation Race. In between now and then, the All Stars have five races, starting with this weekend when they take on Lernerville Speedway, Sharon Speedway, and Tri City Raceway Park. They then head to I-96 on May 14th, and the Dirt Oval at Route 66 on May 15th. Justin Peck is the current series points leader after five points paying races. For more information, visit allstarsprint.com.
It was announced back on Friday that the Summer Nationals points fund and championship format has changed for 2021. The series schedule was altered in 2020 due to the pandemic, and for this season, I think most thought it would return to a schedule that looked more like 2019, but that wasn't the case. 2021 ended up being very similar to 2020. The Hell Tour schedule we had come to know was usually something like 26 or 27 races over the course of 30 or 31 days. It was brutal and grueling, hence the Hell Tour. Now there are 36 races for the late models, spread from June 15th to August 21st, with off days and a full week break, and some of those Summer Nationals dates conflict with high paying late model shows elsewhere. The I-80 and Silver Dollar Nationals, and the Topless 100 at Batesville are some examples. It appears as though in response to some of this overlap and the lengthened schedule, World Racing Group has altered the format. For this season, a driver's 31 best finishes will be counted towards the final points tally, and more money is on the line. For each race completed above 25, an additional $1000 will be added to the champion's check, with a potential of $36,000 going to the driver that wins the title. Money will also be added to each position down through the top ten in points. This means a potential bump of $9000 over the traditional Summer Nationals' championship payout of $25k. There will also be $2000 checks to the champion of each of the individual eight weeks of the schedule, along with the regular purse money for each event. The Modified Nationals championship format remains unchanged, with points from a driver's 10 best finishes counting towards the standings and $5000 going to the champion. I'm sure WRG is hoping these changes draw in some more drivers to compete full time for the title, while still allowing for some flexibility if they need to miss a few nights for whatever reason. And the added money won't hurt the pocket book. Brian Shirley has been the Summer Nationals champion each of the last three years, and has won it four times in total. Bobby Pierce won it three straight years before Shirley, from 2015 to 2017. Billy Moyer Sr. leads all drivers with 100 career Summer Nationals wins. He's trailed closely by Shannon Babb with 98. Both the Summer Nationals and Modified Nationals kick off June 15th at Brownstown Speedway in Indiana.
As they transition more away from full time racing, 2013 World of Outlaws Champion Daryn Pittman and wife Mandy announced a new busines venture yesterday, with the acquisition of Ultra Shield Race Products in Texas. Robert and Donna Bass started Ultra Shield in 1987 and grew the company into making tearoffs, racing seats, window nets, belts, and more, and they will officially hand off the company to the Pittmans over the next few days. The company services all sorts of motorsports customers, including dirt and pavement, oval and road course, and drag racing. This announcement comes just a few weeks after Pittman and Swindell SpeedLab announced they were partnering up for a limited sprint car schedule that will start at Eldora on May 7th. Pittman has been one of the strongest sprint car competitors in the country over the past 20 years, and it's great to hear he will continue to be involved in motorsports long after his time in the seat is over. For more information about Ultra Shield, visit ultrashieldrace.com.
According to Dirt on Dirt, the Talladega Short Track in Alabama is set to have new owners after 45 years. Crate Racin' USA's Adam Stewart and David Miller of Hoosier Tire South have partnered to buy the track from Lynn Phillips and Mike Donahoo. The track sits right across the road from the Talladega Super Speedway, and is home to a strong weekly program featuring several divisions of late models. The track also hosts the annual Ice Bowl, and has been the site of past Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series races and World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series events. This past weekend, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. won a pair of USCS Sprint Car shows at the track. For more information on the 1/3 mile speedway, visit talladegashorttrack.net.
Now to the question I alluded to at the top of the show. It seems that in most forms of sports, championships matter, big time. From the lowest levels of junior sports, all the way to the Super Bowl, competitors and teams fight and battle to try and win a title. Wins are great, but they are the path to the bigger goal. In my dirt racing corner of the world, I spend a lot of time on this show talking about the various championship fights across the biggest series and car types. It's one of the things I've always thought we don't do a good enough job covering and talking about between the series and media outlets. How do these championships actually progress through a full season. But the deeper I get, the more I start to wonder, do championships really matter in dirt racing? And maybe even more specifically, do championships matter in dirt late model racing? It seems for guys like Brad Sweet, winning the World of Outlaws championship in recent years has been a big deal. And the USAC midget fight last season between Tyler Courtney and Chris Windom was wild down the stretch. But what got me wondering about this is some of the moves we've seen lately with the late models. Brandon Overton is an example. After Florida, he was leading the Lucas points and was the most consistent driver with the series, but it was no big deal for him to step aside and continue to race regionally. If there was ever a year for him to dominate a series, it feels like this could be the year. Instead, it's more important to him and his team to race close to their shop and hit up well paying shows. There are also still a ton of questions about Jonathan Davenport's season. He struggled early, looked like he was stepping away from Lucas, which is understandable, but now with his resurgence might try and fight it out and possibly still miss races. So my question going forward is, to those of you that watch or listen to this show, whether fan, competitor, or someone who's in the dirt racing industry, do championships matter to you? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below or on social media. This is something that will be a theme for a while on this show and when I interview drivers and the people around the sport. I'm going to try and get to the bottom of this, because I hope the answer is yes, but maybe it isn't. Maybe winning big shows and earning enough money to keep going is more important. Let's find out...
There are three items on the streaming schedule for today. DIRTVision has DIRTcar eSports action featuring midgets at Lanier National. You can watch that for free. FloRacing has the Short Track Super Series live from Delaware International Speedway and Flo 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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