DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Donny Schatz eyes World of Outlaws win 300 at Eldora Speedway | DIRTRACKR Daily 5/7/21
It is Friday, May 7th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Today we'll preview the weekend's action at Eldora and Mississippi Thunder for the Outlaws and USAC, and look around the country at other racing to watch this weekend. Let's jump in.
Tonight is the first of two nights at Eldora Speedway for the Let's Race Two weekend featuring the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series and the USAC National Sprint Cars. All four features over the next days for the two series pay $10,000 to win. With all of the COVID issues in 2020, neither of these series appeared at Eldora last season, so this weekend will be a welcome return.
For the World of Outlaws, everyone is chasing Brad Sweet and his NAPA number 49 right now. He has eight wins through the first 18 races and currently holds a 90 point lead in the standings over David Gravel. Carson Macedo, Sheldon Haudenschild and Aaron Reutzel round out the top five. Through this opening stretch, only Gravel has matched Sweet in top ten finishes at 16. But nobody is close in wins and top five runs. Back in 2019, there were six World of Outlaws features at Eldora, with Donny Schatz winning three, Brad Sweet two, and Logan Schuchart one. Back to 2018, Schatz has won seven of the Outlaws last 13 races at Eldora. And hearing that stat, you probably know what I'm going to say next. This weekend will be a very good opportunity for Schatz and his Tony Stewart Racing team to break their string of 25 straight Outlaw races without a win. Schatz has been sitting on career win 299 since the National Open at Williams Grove in 2020. He's finished top five in four of his past five races, including a 5th on Saturday at I-70 last weekend. And according to the dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula, Schatz is the favorite for the next two nights over Brad Sweet and David Gravel. We've seen plenty of history before at Eldora, and with the circumstances, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see Donny rise up and get a win this weeked. Another driver to watch out for the next two nights with the Outlaws is Logan Schuchart. He started the season hot, winning a race at Volusia and racking up a nice string of top ten finishes. But since a 22nd place result at Kokomo on April 9th, it's been a battle for the 1S team, including a run of four straight nights outside the top 15. Schuchart is the most recent winner at Eldora and has six straight top four finishes there, so this might be coming at the perfect time for him and Shark Racing.
As for the sprint cars of the non wing type, Brady Bacon leads USAC into Eldora as the points leader with two wins through the first nine races. He's trailed by Justin Grant, Kevin Thomas Jr., Tanner Thorson, and CJ Leary. KTJ and Thorson both also have two wins apiece, while Grant, Leary, and Kyle Cummins all have one each. Tyler Courtney swept the Let's Race Two weekend at Eldora in 2019, but quite a few drivers in the field have won at the Ohio race track, including on this weekend. Robert Ballou has five Eldora wins, Grant has three, and Bacon and Windom have two each. With $10k up for grabs each night, I'd expect a nice field of cars this weekend, and I'd imagine the battles up front will be good. KTJ is the hottest driver right now, with an average finish of 5.2 over his previous five races. I wouldn't sleep on Ballou this weekend either. He can obviously get around Eldora well, and he's been passing a lot of cars this season.
Now, keep in mind the streaming deal for Eldora will be wonky the next two nights. DIRTVision has the Outlaws and Flo has USAC, so if you want to watch everything, you will have to switch back and forth. Super annoying for fans I know, and I'm honestly surprised that a few years into this we haven't found a better solution. You'd hope that the two sides could get together and solve this, but that hasn't happened yet. If you are headed to Eldora this weekend, make sure to bring warm clothes. It doesn't look like it's going to be warm there.
There is another wing/non-wing double header happening this weekend as well. The ASCS National Tour is headed to I-96 in Michigan along with the BOSS sprints, and Great Lakes Super Sprints and Traditional Sprints. JJ Hickle continues to lead the ASCS points on the strength of two wins and three top fives in four starts, but Blake Hahn has closed the gap out back to just 10 points headed I-96. Matt Convington is also close, just 12 points back in third. Friday pays the ASCS $3000 to win, and Saturday is $4000 to win. Both nights can be watch on FloRacing and RacinBoys.
The World of Outlaws Late Model Series continues their 2021 season tonight and tomorrow at Mississippi Thunder Speedway in Wisconsin. We talked earlier in the week about the points battle right now between Brandon Sheppard and Chris Madden with only 56 points separating the two entering the weekend. There will be a lot of storylines to follow with the Outlaws, including whether or not Kyle Strickler can stop his slide, will we finally see a BShepp win in 2021, can Tyler Bruening maintain the performances that see him third in the standings, and can Ricky Weiss and Cade Dillard start a charge towards the top. I'm curious to see what the car count looks like with the Outlaws, as Lucas is off until next week. But there is Spring Nationals action at Smoky Mountain on Saturday, Iron-Man at Atomic, Comp Cams at Batesville, and MARS at LaSalle. There is plenty of big money to be had across the country, so we could see very fragmented fields. This will be the Outlaws first trip to Mississippi Thunder, so we don't have any past race data to go on for the win prediction. Brandon Sheppard has led all drivers recently in average finish and wins on 3/8 mile race tracks, so it's no surprise he's the favorite from the prediction formula. He's trailed just slightly by Madden and Weiss. You can watch both nights live on DIRTVision with your fast pass.
If you're looking for other racing to watch or attend this weekend, there is certainly plenty to check out. I already mentioned some of the late model shows, if you want to find more, hit up the schedule at dirtondirt.com. For the open wheel crowd, the POWRi Midgets are at Macon on Saturday, there are lots of weekly tracks racing including Knoxville and California tracks like Ocean, Silver Dollar, and Placerville. The USAC CRA Sprint cars are at Bakersfield, and there is a lot of midwest and northeast modified racing going on. Make sure to check with tracks before you head out, we've already seen quite a few cancellations this morning.
There are more than 30 shows on the streaming schedule for today across the various platforms. DIRTVision has both World of Outlaws series, FloRacing has the USAC sprint cars at Eldora, ASCS, MARS, and the continuation of California IMCA Speedweek among others. And there is a ton of weekly racing from Speed Sport, The Cushion, and Dirt Track Digest TV. To see the full daily streaming schedule through the weekend, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
That's it for the show today, hope everyone has a good Friday and a good weekend. 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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