DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Outlaws at Bridgeport, updates on Brent Marks and James McFadden | DIRTRACKR Daily 5/18/21
It is Tuesday, May 18th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Today on the show we'll get you ready for tonight's World of Outlaws and Short Track Super Series action, there is news from the Flo Night in America Series, and I've got a new conversations episode coming. Let's jump in.
After a quick two days off following Williams Grove on Saturday night, the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars are back in action tonight at Bridgeport Motorsports Park in New Jersey. The track has been reconfigured on multiple occasions recently, and is now a 4/10 mile oval with some banking. The last time the series visited the track in 2019, they raced on a 3/8 configuration, so tonight will be something new for a lot of the teams. There are plenty of drivers with experience on the new look Bridgeport though. The track ran an unsanctioned 410 race back in April that was won by Kerry Madsen. A bunch of the Pennsylvania drivers were in attendance that night including Tim Shaffer, Anthony Macri, Brent Marks, Freddie Rahmer, Danny Dietrich, and others. Those drivers might have a slight edge over the Outlaw full timers having raced on the track already. Brent Marks could be an interesting one of those to watch tonight. He has three podium finishes in his last five Outlaw races, including that win at Eldora, and that race last month at Bridgeport could help him tonight. Also, they tweeted out yesterday that Marks will run tonight, and then head to Ohio this weekend with the Outlaws for Attica and Sharon. I would have expected him to stay around Central PA more now that he's back in his own car, but it will be interesting to watch where he goes next. Clearly he's ready to continue travelling. Danny Dietrich is the most recent series winner at Bridgeport, holding off Donny Schatz in a late duel in 2019. David Gravel, Carson Macedo, and Daryn Pittman were all also top five runners that night. As we talked about yesterday, the points battle has tightened at the top with Gravel now only 60 points behind Brad Sweet. Behind them, only 48 points separate third through sixth, and with only 23 races complete, a lot will still happen.
Looking through the series stats, Sweet leads in a lot of the categories including most wins with nine, most top fives with 15, best average finish at 4.96, and laps led at 203. Gravel and Aaron Reutzel have the most top tens with 20 each, Logan Schuchart leads in feature plus/minus at +57, and Reutzel and Macedo each have three hard chargers apiece. With all the winning and success he's had this season, it's crazy to see that Sweet only has two heat race wins. He actually has more dash wins with three, than heat victories. Gravel leads all drivers with 10 heat race wins on the year. We've had winners come from every start position in the top ten except 5th and 7th. Nearly 87% of dashes have been won from the front row and 91% of heats have been taken by front row starters.
A quick note about the rookie chase as well. Aaron Reutzel should easily win rookie of the year, as he's currently fourth in the standings, and 364 points clear of his nearest competitor Brock Zearfoss. We've lost Parker Price Miller from the fight, and that leaves us with James McFadden. Even though he missed six races, McFadden has cracked the top ten in points. He won't run down Reutzel, but more points positions are possible as the season progresses. What's interesting though, is looking at average finish. The rundown of average finish for the season matches the current points standings, and of the full time drivers, McFadden is actually seventh in average finish. So if he had been here for those six races, it's highly probable that McFadden would be at least seventh in the standings in front of Schuchart and behind Schatz. That would also put him squarely in the fight with Reutzel, probably 60 or 70 points back. That's great, because it shows just how competitive JMac is and hopefully will be in years to come, but it sucks because we could have had one hell of a battle for the Kevin Gobrecht rookie of the year. Oh well. Looking at a win prediction for tonight, the dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula favors Donny Schatz over David Gravel. Schatz is on a run of six straight top ten finishes and has past wins on 4/10 mile tracks. Gravel actually leads the series in 4/10 mile wins in recent seasons. If you can't be at Bridgeport tonight, watch the action live on DIRTVision with your fast pass.
For the second straight Tuesday, the Short Track Super Series modifieds are racing tonight. The North Region takes on the 4/10 mile Outlaw Speedway in New York for their second round of 2021. Anthony Perrego is coming off the win in the North Region opener last week at Accord Speedway, but he will be up against it going for two in a row tonight. Stewart Friesen has won the past two series visits to Outlaw, in 2018 and 2019, and he'll be looking to rebound from a heat race crash last week that caused him to miss the night's feature. There was no series race at the track in 2020 due to COVID, but some other drivers to watch tonight include Matt Sheppard, who's a previous winner at the track, and Mat Williamson and Erick Rudolph. Both of those drivers have finished on the podium multiple times in recent years at Outlaw. Also on the card tonight are sportsman, street stocks, 4 cylinders, and hobby stocks. Hot laps are scheduled to start at 6PM ET. If you can't be at Outlaw, you can watch live on FloRacing.
The FloRacing Night in America Late Model Series was supposed to be in action on Wednesday night at Marshalltown Speedway in Iowa for round number four, but officials have postponed that race due to a poor forecast. The series will be back in action next Tuesday night, May 25th, at Tri City Speedway in Illinois. Jonathan Davenport is still atop the points standings over Devin Moran and Tyler Erb with three races complete.
Later today I've got a new conversations episode to share, this one featuring sprint car crew chief Heath Moyle. Heath was a fixture for many years with the World of Outlaws, working for teams like Kasey Kahne Racing and Kyle Larson, and is currently the crew chief for Tim Shaffer and the Heffner Racing car in Pennsylvania. An accident a few years ago while on the road put Heath in the ICU, and it took more than a year for Heath to get through physical therapy and find his way back to the track. He tells that story and a lot more. Find that episode where you get podcasts or the DIRTRACKR YouTube channel.
There are three items on the streaming schedule tonight. DIRTVision has the World of Outlaws live from Bridgeport Motorsports Park, and FloRacing has the Short Track Super Series from Outlaw Speedway along with 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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