DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Logan Schuchart bounces back with the Outlaws, Briggs Danner one to watch | DIRTRACKR Daily 5/19/21
It is Wednesday, May 19th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Today on the show we look back at last night's racing action for the World of Outlaws and Short Track Super Series, I've got a young driver to keep an eye on, and there are also new podcast episodes and today's streaming schedule. Let's jump in.
In last night's Short Track Super Series north region feature at Outlaw Speedway, most of the names you would have expected to run up front certainly did so, and we had a wild battle to the finish. But in the end, it was a first time winner in the Hurricane Steve Paine, who sat on the pole and grabbed the $5000 victory, leading all 50 laps. Down the stretch he held off challenges from Anthony Perrego and Mike Mahaney, with Mahaney ending up second, Perrego third, Stewart Friesen fourth, and Matt Sheppard in fifth. In the closing laps you could just about throw a blanket over the top five, and out of turn two on the final lap, we had three wide battle for the lead, but Paine got clear down the backstretch and drove away to the win. Leaving last night, the points haven't been officially updated for the north region, but if my math is correct Perrego should still be out front with Mahaney now second. This string of Tuesday night modified races continues for the Short Track Super Series next week when the south region takes on New Egypt Speedway on May 25th. If you missed last night's racing, you can watch the full program and highlights over at FloRacing.
The World of Outlaws were back in action last night after a busy week in Pennsylvania. They took on the reconfigured Bridgeport Motorsports Park in New Jersey before they head to Ohio this coming weekend. Carson Macedo had a near perfect night, going quick time and setting a new track record at 13.215, winning his heat from the pole, drawing the pole of the dash, and winning it to start out front for the feature. But I say nearly, because Macedo was beat out the in the night's feature. He led the first 11 laps before fourth starting Logan Schuchart ran him down and took the lead on lap 12. Macedo made several attempts to regain the top spot, but Schuchart fought him off each time, and one of those was thanks to a timely caution. Schuchart led the final 19 laps en route to his second win of the season, with Macedo finishing second, Anthony Macri third, Donny Schatz fourth, and Sheldon Haudenschild was fifth. As we've talked about, it's been a rough month for Schuchart, as he entered last night with six finishes of 15th or worse in his last 12 races. His performance last night reminded us of what he's capable of and what we thought we'd see more of from him and that Shark team this season. But the bad luck and tough finishes pile up quick with the Outlaws when things aren't going your way, and he's all the way back to seventh in the standings even with last night's win. It was Schuchart's first victory since February 7th at Volusia, and hopefully this win can provide that team some momentum going forward to try and claw their way back into the top five. I was a little surprised the Posse contingent wasn't more represented last night, especially since Bridgeport is only two hours from Harrisburg, PA. We did see Macri, Danny Dietrich, Freddie Rahmer, Ryan Smith, Brent Marks and a few others, but not nearly as many as I thought we would. Some notables that raced at Bridgeport in April who were missing last night included Tim Shaffer, Lucas Wolfe, Matt Campbell, Chase Dietz, and Billy Dietrich. The other big storyline from last night is the Outlaw points standings continued to tighten. Brad Sweet finished ahead of David Gravel, so the top two are now 68 apart, but Macedo, Haudenschild, Schatz, and Schuchart all made up ground. Sweet did win last Wednesday night at Lincoln, but in his last six races he has four finishes outside the top ten, and his trending five race and ten race average finishes are down compared to his total 2021 average finish. He hasn't quite had the same speed in the last ten days, including at Eldora, and that has allowed Gravel and Macedo to close. We kind of expected Sweet to not be super great in Pennsylvania, as that has been an issue for him in the past, but not at Eldora. Eldora has been very good to Sweet in his career. Macedo and the Jason Johnson Racing 41 have been very good lately, and outside of a 20th at Eldora and a 16th at Williams Grove, have 14 top eight finishes in their last 16 races. And even though he isn't in the points chase, Brent Marks was good again last night, finishing 6th and bringing his average finish over the last five races to a series best 4.6. He's going to continue racing with the series through the week. The Outlaws are off today and tomorrow, but have two shows in Ohio this weekend, Friday night at Attica and Saturday night at Sharon Speedway.
Hopefully you stuck around after the World of Outlaws race on DIRTVision last night to watch the modified race at Bridgeport, because it turned into a fantastic battle to the finish. We saw multiple lead changes amongst Troy Ale, Dominick Buffalino, Ryan Watt, and eighth starting Ryan Godown, with Godown flashing past both Watt and Buffalino in one lap late in the going to seize control. He held on the final laps to take the win with Watt second, Buffalino third, Ale fourth, and Jeff Strunk fifth. Briggs Danner finished seventh in the race, and that's notable because of what he's been doing this season. He swept the USAC East Coast Sprint Car races over the weekend at Bedford and Grandview and is currently that series points leader with three wins in four races. He also recently picked up two top tens in USAC national sprint car competition at Grandview and Big Diamond. And besides the modified and sprint car, Danner is also slated for some midget races and runs SpeedSTRs and micros. He's definitely one to keep an eye on in the coming years. I believe he's 19 and is clearly not afraid to get into any type of race car.
There are lots of new dirt racing podcast episodes this week, including Peter Murphy, Aaron Reutzel, and Kyle Reinhardt on Winged Nation. LoudPedal has new eps with Paul McMahan and CJ Leary. Stick Signals has Brent Larson, the Rigsby Report has Dustin Jarrett, SuaveTalk has Brandon Overton, Passing Points has Brady Bacon, the Midwest Autosports Podcast has Chance Ciskowski, and there are new episodes of the Dirt Reporters, the Dirt Nerds, the Dirt from Knoxville, Ohio Dirt, and Wednesdays with Wayne. For a list of shows and episodes, visit dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
Also, if you missed it, don't forget to check out the new conversations episode with sprint car crew chief Heath Moyle. It's on YouTube and in the podcast feed.
There are three items again on the streaming schedule for tonight. DIRTVision has DIRTcar eSports action that you can watch free, and FloRacing has Flo 24/7 and racing from Action Track USA in Pennsylvania. To see the full daily streaming schedule, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
That's it for the show today, hope everyone has a good Wednesday. 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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Thanks for tuning in, I'll see you tomorrow for more DIRTRACKR Daily!