DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Donny Schatz gets NASCAR truck ride, Sheppard takes Penn Can STSS win | DIRTRACKR Daily 6/2/21
It is Wednesday, June 2nd, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Today we've got news from Donny Schatz and Skylar Gee, results from the Short Track Super Series, a USMTS update and more, so let's jump in.
When the NASCAR Truck Series heads to Knoxville in July to run on the dirt, we'll have another sprint car racer in the field. Donny Schatz announced this morning that he will pilot the number 17 for David Gilliland Racing with backing from Little Giant farming products. The 10 time Outlaw champion and 10 time Knoxville Nationals winner joins Brian Brown in the truck series field for that event. It will be Schatz's debut in the truck series and in NASCAR. Through 27 World of Outlaws races so far in 2021, Schatz is currently fourth in the standings behind Brad Sweet, David Gravel, and Carson Macedo. He has 15 top five and 19 top ten finishes and is currently sitting on 299 career series wins. This is a great addition to the field for the very first truck race at Knoxville, and it will be cool to see some dirt guys get featured on a bigger stage. Not too many guys know their way around Knoxville better than Schatz, and it will be fun to see him try something new. He's made a hall of fame career for himself in sprint car racing, but he's one of those guys you wonder about if things had gone differently. He's so talented behind the wheel, you've got to think that he could have had success if he'd gone pavement racing at some point. Thanks to his connection to Kyle Busch through the Rowdy Energy deal, Brown is driving for KBM, and Schatz is getting this DGR shot with the help of Ford. TSR is obviously closely aligned with Ford through the engine program, as is Stewart Haas, and DGR has become the defacto Ford team in the truck series. The truck race at Knoxville takes place Friday, July 9th, and Schatz will compete there before heading to Wilmot on Saturday in Wisconsin for that weekend's Outlaw race. For tickets and info, visit knoxvilleraceway.com.
In Short Track Super Series action last night at Penn Can Speedway, Matt Sheppard kept his week rolling with his second modified win in as many nights. He used the top to get by early leader Stewart Friesen on lap nine and drove away to the $5000 victory. Friesen ended up second, Byron Worthing was third, Andy Bachetti fourth, and Mike Gular was fifth. Sheppard finished 7th on Sunday at Weedsport with the Super DIRTcar Series, went to Lebanon Valley on Monday and bagged a $13,000 win and a guaranteed spot into Super DIRT Week, and won again last night. Not a bad three day stretch. Following last night's race, which was part of the north region, if my math is correct Anthony Perrego should maintain the lead in the standings by a single point over Mike Mahaney. Next Tuesday night, we'll get a joint north region/south region race at Big Diamond Speedway. You can watch the STSS modifieds all season long live on FloRacing.
After recently splitting with Bryan Grove Racing, sprint car driver Skyler Gee has a new ride for the remainder of 2021. According to Jeremy Elliott, he's joining up with Mark Coldren and will run the rest of the All Star schdule this season, starting this Thursday night at Fairbury. Gee, who has run the full All Star schedule in recent years, had partnered with Grove and was running in Ohio, but performance was lacking. The pairing only managed two top ten finishes through 12 races. Coldren started the year with Lucas Wolfe behind the wheel of his 07, but after a tough opening stretch with the All Stars, they parted ways in mid May. Coldren had also helped out Zach Hampton in recent weeks. Gee is a past winner with the All Stars, but it will be an uphill battle for results going forward. As we've talked about plenty here, the All Stars are packed this season, and Wolfe didn't last in the 07 because of lackluster performances. His best finish in eight starts was an 11th place run at Virginia Motor Speedway. Gee has four appearances with the series so far in 2021, with a best finish of 18th at Sharon on May 1st. The All Stars start a four race weekend tomorrow night.
I mentioned it very briefly on the show yesterday, but just a reminder, there is no FloRacing Night in America late model show at Florence tonight. The event has been postponed due to a poor forecast, and series GM Ben Shelton says they are looking at possible reschedule dates. This would have been round number five for the midweek series. Jonathan Davenport, Devin Moran, Kyle Larson, and Bobby Pierce have won the first four nights, with Superman currently leading the points standings. With so much racing happening through the summer, the series now goes quiet until September 14th at Fairbury.
The USMTS modifieds had three races over the Memorial Day weekend and we've seen a shakeup at the top of the points standings. On Friday night at Rapid Speedway, Jake O'Neil picked up his first win of 2021 and 11th of his career in dominating fashion over Rodney Sanders and Lucas Schott. Saturday night at Deer Creek, reigning champion Rodney Sanders picked up a wire to wire win and $10,000. He bested Zack VanderBeek and Tyler Wolff for the victory. And Sunday night at Upper Iowa Speedway, Tyler Wolff made it three different winners in three nights bagging his second career USMTS win and $10,000, with Lucas Lee and Sanders completing the podium. The three straight podium finishes for Sanders were good enough to see him jump to the top of the championship standings. He holds a scant three point lead over Dereck Ramirez now, with O'Neil third, Terry Phillips fourth, and Wolff fifth. The busy, big money season for the modified competitors continues this upcoming Friday and Saturday nights when they head to Park Jefferson in South Dakota and Hamilton County in Iowa. For more on the series, visit usmts.com.
If you're near Western Pennsylvania or Eastern Ohio, the five race Western PA Speedweek for 410 sprint cars kicks off tonight at Mercer Raceway. Each of the five nights pays $3000 to win, with an extra $2500 going to the winner of the week long points. Racing continues Thursday at Thunder Mountain, Friday at Lernerville, Saturday at Sharon, and Sunday at Tri-City. Only the Friday race at Lernerville will be available through the streaming services, so if you want to watch, you gotta head to the track. Some drivers who will be competing over the next five nights include Ryan Smith, Bradley Howard, Jack Sodeman Jr., Josh Baughman, Sye Lynch, Brent and Brandon Matus, AJ Flick, Carl Bowser, and Brandon Spithaler. To keep up with everything going on, visit westernpaspeedweek.com and follow @WesternPASpdwk on Twitter.
The podcasts page at dirtrackr.com has a bunch of new dirt racing episodes for you this week. Winged Nation has Brad Sweet and Lance Dewease, Stick Signals has Boom Briggs and Jonathan Byrd, Track Talk has Kreig Heroth, and there are new episodes of the Dirt Reporters and Passing Points. To see the full list of shows and episodes, visit dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
There are four shows on the daily streaming schedule for today. FloRacing has Flo 24/7 and weekly racing from Action Track USA. Speed Sport has IMCA action from Buena Vista, and Speed 51 has Wednesday night micros from Millbridge. To see the full schedule with links to watch, 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!