DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Meseraull wins Indiana Midget Week opener, Madden v. Sheppard continues | DIRTRACKR Daily 6/4/21
It is Friday, June 4th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Today we look at last night's racing for the All Stars and USAC, look ahead to the weekend, and have a couple of interesting side notes. Let's jump in.
The All Stars kicked off a four race weekend with the IRA last night with a really fun show at Fairbury Speedway. Tyler Courtney held off a slider attempt from Bill Balog following a late restart to grab his fourth win of the season. Rico Abreu finished second, with Balog slipping to third, Ian Madsen fourth, and Gio Scelzi was fifth. The win made it eight podium finishes in his last nine starts for Courtney, and suddenly the face of the points standings has changed dramatically. Courtney entered the night 74 points ahead, and leaves 102 up. The win, combined with issues for Justin Peck is why the lead has grown. Buch Motorsports announced earlier in the day yesterday that Peck was hit with debris on Monday at Port Royal, and will sit out the weekend. Spencer Bayston is filling in, he finished ninth last night. So with Peck tumbling in the standings due to his absence, Ian Madsen is up to second with Schuerenberg now third, Zeb Wise fourth, and Cory Eliason fifth. With as good as Courtney has been lately, the rest of the All Star full timers need to find some speed and fast, or Courtney is poised to run away with this thing, and it's only June. Besides Courtney's hot streak, Rico Abreu has been very good with the All Stars recently, picking up finishes of 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, 7th, and 2nd in his past five starts. Tonight the series is headed to Wilmot in Wisconsin, where Cory Eliason was the winner last season. Hopefully tonight could be a boost for the Rudeen team who is looking for some good runs and their first win of 2021. You can watch the action live tonight on FloRacing.
In the night's super late model feature, Frank Heckenast Jr. threw a big slider at leader Shannon Babb with three laps to go, with the two making contact, and the move vaulted Frank to the $5000 win. Babb finished second, Eric Smith third, Ryan Unzicker fourth, and Kevin Weaver was fifth.
Indiana Midget Week kicked off last night at Paragon Speedway and it was a treacherous night for competitors. The track took a bunch of rain earlier in the week and conditions were very heavy for the night. By the time the program ended, there was a massive curb in three and four, which was dang near a wall. Several drivers took to Twitter during the night to complain. I always wonder in these situations what the expectations are from fans and competitors. If you race, it turns into ruts and cowboy up and people aren't happy. But if the track cancels because of the wet conditions, then people also complain. These are very clearly no-win situations for the tracks and series. Nobody wants to see equipment torn up, but these tracks are businesses and need to put racing programs on to continue to operate. Always weird to me. Anyway, over to the action last night. In the sprint car feature, Logan Seavey led quite a bit of the feature in the Baldwin five, but coming to the white he made a mistake on the curb in turn four, and that allowed AJ Hopkins to sneak by. Hopkins went on to win with Seavey second, Charles Davis third, Jadon Rogers fourth, and Jason McDougal fifth. In the midget week opener, Cannon McIntosh snuck past early leader Justin Grant on lap three and looked like he was on his way to a dominating win. Late in the going though, 12th starting Thomas Meseraull entered the fray. He ran down the leaders and put heavy pressure on Cannon Mac inside ten to go. Into turn three on the final lap, McIntosh got tight on the bottom, and TMez pounced, driving by on the bottom and capturing the win. Cannon ended up second, Justin Grant third, Buddy Kofoid was fourth, and Logan Seavey completed the top five. With his 12th to the win run, TMez was also the night's hard charger. Post race, as usual, TMez did TMez things. He fell off the car doing his cage stand, called out Cannon McIntosh for not being able to handle the pressure, and bragged about driving through the field. It was an interesting turn around for him, as he was one of the drivers earlier in the night who was on Twitter complaining about the track conditions. Like him or not, he rarely fails to put on a show. Some drivers that struggled on the night included Tanner Thorson, who finished 13th after needing a provisional, Kevin Thomas Jr. was 17th, and Brady Bacon and Kaylee Bryson failed to make the feature. Fortunately for them though, today is a new day, and midget week rolls on. Action tonight at Bloomington gets underway at 6PM. If you can't be there, watch live on FloRacing.
The World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series is in action this weekend for two shows, tonight at River Cities in North Dakota, and tomorrow at Granite City in Minnesota. David Gravel and Carson Macedo continue to chase Brad Sweet in the championship standings, and the series is coming off Kyle Larson's win on Monday night at Lawrenceburg. Coincidentally, Larson is also the most recent winner at River Cities back in August of 2020, with Donny Schatz and Logan Schuchart also recent winners at the track. The Outlaws last raced Granite City in 2019, with Brad Sweet coming out on top of a late race battle with David Gravel. Tonight kicks off a busy month of June for the Outlaws with 12 races scheduled including stops at Knoxville and big money on the line between Huset's and Jackson Motorplex. Gravel and Macedo will definitely try and keep the pressure on Sweet, while Schatz, Sheldon Haudenschild, and Schuchart are all trying tp claw their way back into the fight. River Cities has been a very good track for Schatz in the past and he's favored tonight by the dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula by quite a wide margin over Brad Sweet. And for Saturday at Granite City, Sweet is favored over Gravel and Schuchart for the win. Keep an eye on Brent Marks this weekend as well. He's made the trip west to run with the Outlaws and has been good since climbing back into his own car. His three most recent Outlaw races resulted in finishes of 6th, 3rd, and 6th, and he could definitely be a win threat. You can watch the Outlaws all weekend long on DIRTVision.
Down south, the World of Outlaws Late Model Series is racing this weekend with two stops in Indiana. They take on the new Circle City Raceway tonight and Plymouth Speedway on Saturday. Chris Madden has won three straight races and has closed to within 26 points of leader Brandon Sheppard. Through the first 19 races, Kyle Strickler and Cade Dillard are the only other two series regulars with wins, and behind the top two, nobody else is currently within striking range. This is shaping up to be a very good battle between Madden and Sheppard into the summer. Sheppard leads all drivers in wins and average finish in recent seasons on both 1/4 mile and 3/8 mile tracks, but Madden has been very good this season. He currently leads all drivers with four wins and 10 top fives in 2021. Another driver to keep an eye on this weekend is rookie Ryan Gustin. His last three finishes are 2nd, 8th, and 5th and he's capable of winning with the Outlaws. His average finish over the past five and past ten races is trending better than his season long averages. DIRTVision has live streaming coverage of both races.
Elsewhere in the late model world this weekend, make sure you check out the happenings at West Virginia Motor Speedway tonight and tomorrow. They are holding the Historic 100 weekend with tonight's super late model show paying $10,000 to win, and tomorrow night paying a cool $25,000 to win. The big half mile has been brought back from the dead this season with a ton of improvements and a nice schedule of events planned. They tweeted this week photos of the track bathed under brand new LED lights, and are offering free entry and two free pit passes to late model teams for this weekend. I've seen Devin Moran will be there as will Jonathan Davenport, Tyler Erb, and others. It will be interesting to see who else races where this weekend, with the Outlaws at Circle City and the Dream on tap. Ben Shelton tweeted about car count concerns earlier this morning, and I know some guys are choosing not to race, including Jimmy Owens. I think it will be a fun weekend at WVMS though. If you can't be there, watch it live on FloRacing.
In recent weeks there has started to be more talk about parts and tire shortages for motorsports due to the global supply chain issues currently happening, and we've seen a few races recently affected because of it. Yesterday Eldora Speedway announced they will limit teams at the Dream next week on how many tires they will be allowed to use throughout the week. The speedway worked with DIRTcar officials and Hoosier Tire to make the decision, and their hopes are that everyone will have access to the tires they need to compete. Full details and the bulletin are available at eldoraspeedway.com. These shortages and the way people handle them always turn into a double edged sword. The fears of the shortage cause people to panic buy so they are stocked up, which then in turn causes an even bigger shortage. We saw this recently with fuel on the east coast and the pipeline hack. If you are a competitor who is concerned about the availability of parts and supplies going forward, reach out to your vendors and ask questions so you better understand the consequences and how to handle the situation.
I tweeted a link to it yesterday, but I wanted to mention it on the show today as well. Former Australian sprint car racer Toby Bellbowen has a YouTube channel he started in 2020 called Sprint Car Hub. He's done some interviews and some explanation videos, but he posted a really interesting video a couple of days ago explaining how traction control works in sprint cars. There are basically three different systems being used, and he goes through how they work and why it's a very slippery slope. Super interesting stuff. If you'd like to watch that video, find the link on the dirtrackr Twitter account, search for Sprint Car Hub on YouTube, and I'll link to the video in the YouTube description below. I'm also working on having Toby on a future episode of Conversations, so stay tuned for that.
There are more than 30 shows on the streaming schedule for today. That includes the Outlaws, All Stars, Indiana Midget Week, and a bunch of local and regional racing. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
If you missed it yesterday, I did a bonus conversations episode for the week yesterday with Brian Walker, aka Walkapedia, taking a look at Indiana Midget Week. You can find it on the YouTube channel or in the podcast feed.
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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Thanks for tuning in, I'll see you tomorrow for more DIRTRACKR Daily!