DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Justin Peck's emergence, Logan Seavey racing at Eldora, Big blocks tonight | DIRTRACKR Daily 5/4/21
It is Tuesday, May 4th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Today on the show we've got news from Logan Seavey, we preview tonight's Super DIRTcar Series race at Bridgeport, and we take a look at Justin Peck's rise. Let's jump in.
When the USAC National Sprint Cars head to Eldora Speedway this weekend for Let's Race Two with the World of Outlaws, Logan Seavey will be in the field. He's jumping into the seat of the Baldwin number five to fill the void left by Dave Darland, who is recovering from a recent stroke. Seavey hasn't raced a sprint car at Eldora before, but does have experience at the track in USAC midget competition and with the NASCAR trucks. In four starts in the car this season, Darland had a best finish of 12th back at Bloomington on April 16th. While he hasn't raced at Eldora, Seavey is no stranger to USAC sprint car competition, including 23 starts last season. He bagged a win at Gas City on July 24th to go along with three top fives and 12 top tens. Seavey is running full time with the USAC midgets this season driving the Malloy number 25 and was the 2018 national midget champion. His best finish with that series so far is 5th at Port City on April 11th. Both nights of the national sprint cars at Eldora pay $10,000 to win, so I'd expect a really strong field to be in attendance. We'll have more on the Eldora races later in the week.
If you're looking for a little racing to watch tonight, the Super DIRTcar Series is in action at Bridgeport Motorsports Park for $10,000 to win. The event is live on DIRTVision and is a Super Dirt Week qualifier race, with a guaranteed spot on the line for the 200 lapper at Oswego on October 10th. So far, Stewart Friesen and Demetrios Drellos have punched their tickets to Super Dirt Week. With three points races complete, Friesen leads the standings by 43 points over Mike Mahaney. Billy Decker, Tim Sears Jr., and Matt Sheppard complete the top five. It's been a very strong start to 2021 for Friesen and his Halmar team, winning all three of Super DIRTcar Series races to this point, including Can Am on April 10th, and sweeping the weekend at Bristol. Friesen is also the most recent winner with the Short Track Super Series, back last week at Delaware International. His reign atop the standings will end eventually this summer, as his other racing endeavors will get in the way, including a full time NASCAR truck ride, but for now he's the man to beat. What makes Friesen even more of a favorite tonight, is he also won the series' last trip to Bridgeport, back on July 29th last season. It ended up being the lone series race that was completed in the middle of pandemic related shutdowns. Behind Friesen, Mike Mahaney is the only other driver to finish in the top ten in all three events and he's coming off a win Friday night at Albany Saratoga in weekly competition. If you can't be at Bridgeport tonight, coverage starts on DIRTVision with hot laps at 6PM ET.
One of the revelations of the 2021 sprint car season to date has been the emergence of Justin Peck with the All Star Circuit of Champions. Even with his crash on Sunday that took him out of contention for the win at Tri City and dropped him to second in the standings, Peck suddenly feels like a win threat wherever he goes. Through the first 11 All Star races this season, Peck has two wins, four top fives, and seven top tens, and with a little luck those numbers could be better. He lost the lead late at Virginia and ended up third because of a flat tire, and he crashed inside ten to go on Sunday running second. And besides the two All Star wins, Peck went to Pennsylvania in March and picked up victories at Port Royal and Williams Grove in a six day span. Peck went from being a solid regional racer to a name that's now in the mix in the national sprint car conversation. And I'm not sure how many of us really saw that coming. Entering this season, Peck did have one All Star win on his resume, back at Macon Speedway in 2017, but wasn't somebody you really looked to for race wins with the national series when he showed up. He's a previous winner with MOWA and the FAST series in Ohio, and has been solid in a midget, including past POWRi wins and some very good appearances at the Chili Bowl. But if you look at his World of Outlaws starts before 2021, there isn't much to see. Between 2018 and 2020 he made 25 starts and only made ten features, with a single top ten result, a ninth at World Finals in 2020. In between there are lots of C Main and B Main finishes. His results with the All Stars in the past two seasons have been better than his Outlaw runs, but I don't know if you see six top fives and 18 top tens in 51 starts and think this guy could be a championship contender. And I even said that earlier this season. When I previewed the All Star field back in January, Peck was not towards the top of my list of contenders. But suddenly here he is, and I think we are seeing his emergence due to a few factors. First, there is no substitute for seat time. Besides the 11 All Star appearances, Peck and his Buch team have been racing a lot through the first part of 2021. He's made six Outlaw starts, which included a third at Kokomo, and a bunch of starts in Pennsylvania. That opportunity to grow and gel with the team has been big. I also think he joined a very solid team. With Paul McMahan behind the wheel, the Buch 13 was a perennial top five runner with the All Stars, so the foundation was already there. So you take a young, hungry driver, pair him with a good team, and send him to the track a lot, and good things have happened. Going forward, if Peck can maintain the speed and find ways to avoid what happened on Sunday at Tri City, there is no doubt he'll be at or near the top of the All Star standings all season long. The All Stars are off until May 14th, but you can see Justin Peck this weekend when the World of Outlaws head to Eldora Speedway.
There are again two items on the streaming schedule for today. DIRTVision has the aforementioned Super DIRTcar Series live from Bridgeport Motorsports Park in New Jersey, and FloRacing has 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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