DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Wide open dirt late model season continues, new Swindell SpeedLab video | DIRTRACKR Daily 5/11/21
It is Tuesday, May 11th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Today we update you on the continued parity we've seen in the dirt late model world, the Short Track Super Series is racing tonight, Swindell SpeedLab has a great new behind the scenes video and more, so let's jump in.
I talked back on the March 10th daily show about the early season parity in the late model world, especially between the Outlaws and Lucas. On that episode I talked about the front runners from 2020 not winning nearly as much, or at all, and the other names we've seen spring up. Two months and a lot more races have happened since then, but I don't know that much has changed. Jimmy Owens, Brandon Overton, and Brandon Sheppard have all won features to this point, either with the big series or regional series, but we haven't seen anyone really dominate. Jonathan Davenport has taken big steps forward since his opening season Lucas struggles, including recent back to back wins with the series and a weekend sweep with the Comp Cams Super Dirt Series. He's the closest thing we have right now to what we saw in 2020 from the big three, but his status is still unknown and he doesn't lead the Lucas points standings. 2021 feels very different in dirt late model racing than 2020 did, and it doesn't look like it's going to change any time soon. I have a couple of stats today to illustrate my point about this growing parity. First is the number of winners we've seen between the two national series. Through 14 Lucas races we've had 11 different winners, and through 18 World of Outlaws races we've had 13 different winners. Just a reminder, some of the Outlaw races I'm referring to were split field or non-points races. In 2020, Lucas had 20 different winners in 47 races, and the Outlaws had 16 in 40 races. So with far less than half the season complete, we are on pace for way more winners. The Outlaws have nearly matched their 2020 winner total in 22 less races. And of those different winners between the two series, nobody has won more than two races. Hudson O'Neal, Davenport, and Tyler Erb all have two wins with Lucas, while Chris Madden, Bobby Pierce, Kyle Strickler, and Devin Moran all have two wins with the Outlaws. For reference, in 2020, Brandon Sheppard led the Outlaws with 14 wins, while Jimmy Owens topped Lucas with 11 wins. Among all these different winners, we've also had a bunch of first timers as well, including Kyle Strickler, Stormy Scott, Josh Rice, and Bobby Pierce. If we look at lap leaders, we see a similar trend. Lucas had 29 different lap leaders in 2020, while we already have 20 this season. And the numbers are nearly identical for the Outlaws. 29 lap leaders in 2020, with 21 already this season. It's been great as a race fan, because when you dial up a broadcast or head to the track, you have no idea who's going to win on a nightly basis. Stay tuned this week, as even though the Outlaws are quiet, there is a lot of great late model racing to come. The FloRacing Night in America Series is back on Wednesday, Lucas is in Tennessee and Alabama, MARS has two big shows at Farmer City and Fairbury, and there is a lot of other local and regional action on tap. We'll have more on the late model racing ahead later in the week.
Over the weekend at Eldora, Daryn Pittman made his season debut with the Swindell SpeedLab 39 sprint car. The new pairing didn't have the opening weekend they were looking for, finishing 22nd in the Friday feature, and ending up 15th in a B Main for the Saturday feature. Checking out some tweets from Kevin Swindell, the team spent the weekend chasing a vibration and some mechanical issues in the car, and it's obviously difficult to have a good weekend when the car doesn't want to cooperate. The great thing about SpeedLab though, is you knew we'd get an all access video from the weekend, and they dropped it on their YouTube channel yesterday. I've called out these videos before on this show because not only do you get the cool onboard footage, but you get really neat insight into how a sprint car team works. They include a bunch of the little conversations that happen through the course of the night of Kevin and Daryn talking about the car and the track, and you get to see stuff like Daryn and the team meeting up in a hotel parking lot ahead of the two nights of racing to fit Daryn's seat into the car. There is also an insane shot from the onboard of the daytime feature of Daryn running the bottom and actually touching the inside wall. Super wild stuff. If you haven't see the video yet, head over to youtube.com/swindellspeedlab, or you can find it on the videos page at dirtrackr.com. It's a really neat 40 minute journey through their weekend.
As someone who posts a lot of content to YouTube, it's been really interesting to click around and see all the dirt racing content that continues to show up there. I wasn't a big YouTube watcher until probably the past year, and I realize now I was missing out big time. Besides all the series channels that have the highlight videos, the behind the scenes stuff you get from SpeedLab, David Gravel, Hunt the Front, Tanner Holmes, Ryan Missler, Catalyst Autosport, and others, is really unmatched. If you want to jump into dirt racing YouTube the videos page on dirtrackr.com is a good place to start your journey.
If you need a live dirt racing fix on this Tuesday, there is action tonight to check out. The Short Track Super Series modifieds open their north region schedule tonight at Accord Speedway in New York for the Battle of the Bullring. Stewart Friesen is the defending north region champion, while Andy Bachetti was the winner of the last Short Track Super Series visit to Accord, back in 2019. There have been four series races so far this season, all in the south region, and they have produced four different winners with Matt Sheppard winning the opener at Georgetown, Andy Bachetti winning at Selinsgrove, Mat Williamson taking Port Royal, and Stewart Friesen winning a few weeks ago at Delaware. Also on the card tonight is 602 sportsman and four cylinders. If you can't be at Accord Speedway, watch all the racing live on FloRacing.
There are two items on the streaming schedule for today, both on FloRacing. Besides Flo 24/7, they also have the Short Track Super Series live from Accord Speedway. 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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