DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Gravel closes on Sweet, Chris Windom leads early Indiana Midget Week points | DIRTRACKR Daily 6/7/21
It is Monday, June 7th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Apologies for the late show today, it was a late night or actually early morning, getting back from Sonoma. There is a lot of open wheel racing to talk about from the weekend, and a little bit of late model action to talk about in advance of this week's Dirt Late Model Dream at Eldora. Let's dive in, shall we?
The World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series lost the Friday night show at River Cities due to a rogue rain storm that popped up after qualifying. The event will not be made up, with tickets and pit passes good for the Outlaws return to the track in August. Saturday the series moved to Granite City Speedway in Minnesota for a $10,000 to win show to cap the weekend. We did see our lowest car count of the season at 19, which included JJR crew member and past Outlaw regular Clyde Knipp jumping into the 41's backup car for the night. The last time the series was at Granite City, the car count was better, but racing on Saturday against Knoxville and a NOSA show at Devils Lake Speedway in North Dakota split the available cars. In the night's feature, Aaron Reutzel and Sheldon Haudenschild led laps, but it was David Gravel who took the win. He grabbed the lead from Reutzel on lap 15, fended off the charge from Haudenschild, and led the final 19 laps en route to his fifth win of 2021. Donny Schatz and Haudenschild completed the podium. The win for Gravel and a fifth for Sweet saw Gravel gain 10 points on the KKR 49 team, with the gap currently sitting at 56. Carson Macedo lost 14 points after being involved in an incident and finishing 12th. When Macedo went to the work area following the crash, which also included James McFadden and Dominic Scelzi, it was cool to see Knipp right in the mix working on the car. He'd retired the second JJR entry before that moment, and was elbows deep still in his firesuit. Looking at Gravel's season to date, he's on pace for more wins this season than he had in 2020. Last year he won once every 7.2 races, while through 28 shows this season is winning every 5.6 nights. His average finish is basically flat, but he is off pace in top fives and top tens. Those extra wins have made up for the drop in consistency when he doesn't win. Sweet's recent trending averages are down, but he does have five straight top seven runs, which is why Gravel hasn't caught him more. With so much of the season still to come, guys just need to keep stacking up top fives and top tens to stay in the fight. The Outlaws are back this weekend for two shows at Knoxville.
Indiana Midget Week continued through the weekend with three more races. Friday night at Bloomington turned into a slider fest between Buddy Kofoid and Chris Windom, with Kofoid eventually coming out on top for his first career midget week win. Windom and Kevin Thomas Jr. completed the podium. Cannon McIntosh bagged the sprint car feature on the night. The Friday and Saturday shows both turned into sweeps for the winners. Saturday at Lawrenceburg it was Logan Seavey who topped the night, winning both the midget and sprint car features. It was the first national midget win for Seavey since 2019 and his second ever midget week win. Kofoid and Windom rounded out the night's podium. Late in the feature, Chase Randall went for a big ride in turn three, flipping wildly and coming down hard. It was good to see him walk away. On Sunday, it wouldn't have been a trip to Haubstadt without seeing Kyle Cummins in victory lane. He ended the weekend with a midget/sprint car sweep of the night. He led all but one lap in the midget feature to get his first ever series win. Windom and Thomas Meseraull stood with him on the podium. With four nights now complete of midget week, Chris Windom has taken the points lead by 13 over Buddy Kofoid. The competitors get a rest tonight and tomorrow, before racing resumes on Wednesday at Circle City. 2020 champion Windom found his stride over the weekend, going 2nd, 3rd, 2nd. Kofoid and Justin Grant both have 11 straight top ten finishes. With four nights still to go, this midget week title is wide open.
In weekend late model action, the World of Outlaws Late Models took on Circle City and Plymouth Speedway. Friday at Circle City was the debut for late models on the track and we were treated to a great race between Dennis Erb Jr. and Ryan Gustin. Erb led up past half way, Gustin raced by him on lap 26, but Erb battled back to take the lead on lap 32 and he drove away to his first win of 2021. Brandon Sheppard finished second, while Gustin slipped to third. Chris Madden was 9th. Saturday at Plymouth was a flag-to-flag win for Rick Eckert, but Frank Heckenast Jr. kept him honest through the 40 lapper. For Scrub, it was his 38th career series victory. Heckenast and Tyler Bruening rounded out the top three. A 9th on Friday followed by a 7th on Saturday saw Madden slip from 26 behind Sheppard to now 46. The parity we've seen across the dirt late model landscape ion 2021 was very much on display with the Outlaws over the two nights. We now have had almost as many winners this season as we did in all of 2020 with the series. Including non-points and split field races, we've had 15 different winners in 22 races. One driver that was noticeably absent this weekend was Kyle Strickler. He led the points early, recently split with PCC Motorsports, teamed up with Bloomquist, and is now off the tour it appears. I'm guessing with him still in regroup mode, they took the weekend off to prepare for this week's Dream at Eldora. With Strickler out, we are down to nine teams that have participated in every race. The Outlaws are now off until June 17th.
The All Stars stayed busy through the weekend, with three more shows completed. Friday night at Wilmot in Wisconsin it was Tyler Courtney again winning in dominating fashion. He led all 30 laps to get his fifth win in 2021 and second in as many nights. Ian Madsen finished second and Cory Eliason was third, tying his best finish of the season. Bill Balog had an impressive night, starting 24th, getting caught up in a lap one incident, and then driving through the field to finish 6th after spending time in the work area. Balog then backed that up with his first two career All Stars wins on Saturday and Sunday. At Plymouth he got by early leader Ian Madsen on lap five and led the rest of the way. And Sunday at Angell Park he battled with Rico Abreu early, before taking over at lap 11. Balog's resume already included a boat load of IRA wins and championships and an Outlaw win, and with the way he's run this season, it only felt like a matter of time before he bagged his first win. Coincidentally, we had the same podium on Saturday and Sunday, with Balog winning, Madsen second, and Abreu third. In the battle for the All Star championship, Tyler Courtney actually lost just a little bit of ground to Ian Madsen. The lead was 106 after Friday's win, but Madsen's strong weekend sees the lead at 92 as the All Stars get ready for Ohio Speedweek. In his last four starts, Madsen has finished 4th, 2nd, 2nd, and 2nd. Another driver that has been quietly very good lately is Rico Abreu. In his last eight series starts, he has three second place finishes, three thirds, and fifth, and a seventh. Ohio Sprint Speedweek kicks off Friday night at Attica.
The four race All Star weekend was a combined stretich with the IRA sprint cars. Jake Blackhurst maintains the points lead there over Scotty Neitzel.
We talked last week a bunch about Kyle Larson and his recent run of races, and after his win at Sonoma yesterday I had a bunch of folks tweeting at me and some comments on my TikTok and YouTube videos. In his last seven races, he has two Cup wins, two sprint car wins, and hasn't finished worse than third. He just keeps winning, and the Dirt Late Model Dream is next on his schedule this week.
At West Virginia Motor Speedway over the weekend, it was a sweep for Jonathan Davenport for the Historic 100. He took the $10K win on Friday night over Gregg Satterlee, Tyler Erb, GR Smith, and Scott Bloomquist, leading flag to flag. Saturday night, even though he was battling sickness, Davenport capitalized on a flat tire for early leader Devin Moran and cruised to the $25,000 win. Satterlee finished second again, and Devin Moran battled back to third. It was the third win in three starts for Davenport at the redone West Virginia Motor Speedway. This will be some nice momentum for Superman with the Dream on tap this weekend.
Western Pennsylvania Speedweek lost a few nights to rain, but they did complete three shows, and crowned a champion. Ryan Smith won at Lernerville and Sharon, and finished third in the finale at Tri City to take the title. Bradley Howard won the finale at Tri City. Smith, Howard, Brandon Matus, Lee Jacobs, and AJ Flick were the top five in weeklong points.
Other weekend open wheel winners included Byron Reed in a 410 at Attica, Ayrton Gennetten in MOWA action at Lee County, Steven Drevicki won the USAC east coast race at Williams Grove, Justin Whittall was a first time winner in 410 action at the Grove, Brandon Wimmer won at Atomic, Cole Macedo took the AFCS win at Fremont, Gio Scelzi bagged the 410 win at Knoxville, Aaron Bollinger was a 410 winner at Lincoln, Jared Esh took Port Royal, David Gravel was the 410 winner Sunday at Huset's, and Paul Nienhiser won the MOWA show at Jacksonville. For more from the open wheel weekend, check out tjslideways.com.
Other weekend late model winners included Tony Jackson Jr. and Chris Simpson with the MLRA, Devin Gilpin at Ponderosa and Lake Cumberland, Tyler Erb at Brushcreek, Cory Hedgecock at I-75, and Chad Becker at Dakota State Fair Speedway. For more from the late model weekend, check out dirtondirt.com.
There are two items on the streaming schedule for today. FloRacing has Flo 24/7 and Speed Sport has weekly racing from Clay County Fair 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 Monday. 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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