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Donny Schatz has 300 World of Outlaws wins, Davenport sweeps Lucas weekend | DIRTRACKR Daily 6/21/21
It is Monday, June 21st, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Today we are talking Donny Schatz's 300th win, the end of Ohio Sprint Speedweek, Lucas at Magnolia, and a lot more. Let's jump in.
You've heard me talk about it a bunch this season and it's something we've been waiting for, but finally after 38 World of Outlaws races since his last win, Donny Schatz finally picked up series win 300 on Friday night at Dubuque. He started third and took advantage of early tire issues for leaders David Gravel and Aaron Reutzel. Under a caution for Gravel slowing for a flat, Reutzel was also forced to the work area for new rubber, and that handed the lead to Schatz. Over the rest of the feature, Schatz held off James McFadden and survived a late restart to earn his 300th career World of Outlaws win. JMac finished second, Kerry Madsen third, Sheldon Haudenschild fourth, and Logan Schuchart hard charged from 15th to finish fifth. Donny Schatz is now just the third driver in Outlaws history with 300 wins. He joins Steve Kinser and Sammy Swindell in that elite club. In victory lane talking to Dave Rieff, Donny was visibly emotional, which was really neat to see. He got to celebrate with his parents, which I'm sure was a big reason for his emotion. I've been following the series really closely since I went to work for the Outlaws in 2013, and I've seen Donny win a lot of races since then. Eventually they start to run together, and some nights you hoped somebody else would win, just to see something different. He's just been so dominant. But in the last few years, things have changed. You've had the rise of guys like Brad Sweet and David Gravel, and the TSR 14 team has undergone a lot of changes, with Steve Swenson taking over as crew chief from Ricky Warner and the well documented switch to Ford engines. With as competitive as it's become, and especially since he won number 299 last year at Williams Grove, I've found myself rooting for Donny a lot. It's one hell of an accomplishment to reach this many wins in a career with a series. Congrats to him and the team, and as I saw a lot of folks commenting about, it's possible this opens the floodgate for Schatz. Elsewhere in that Friday night race, Reutzel, Gravel and Brad Sweet all recovered to finish top ten after their issues. Sweet ended up tipped over on the front stretch and fought his way back to a decent finish.
On Saturday night at Beaver Dam, Gio Scelzi led early from the pole, but just before half way Sheldon Haudenschild ran him down in lap traffic and took over the top spot. Sheldon drove away over the second half to take the win in a non-stop feature, with Gio finishing second, David Gravel third, Brad Sweet fourth, and Carson Macedo fifth. With a busy stretch of racing continuing tonight, Sweet leads now by 50 over Gravel, with Macedo third 78 points back. Sheldon and Schatz complete the top five. The Outlaws race tonight and tomorrow at Huset's, before heading to Jackson on Thursday to kick off the Jackson Nationals. A lot of money is up for grabs in the coming days. Looking at tonight, the dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula likes Brad Sweet over David Gravel for the win. Kyle Larson and Sheldon Haudenschild were winners at Huset's in 2020. Tonight's show pays $10k to win, and you can watch live on DIRTVision.
The World of Outlaws Late Models had their weekend races at Thunder Mountain and Selinsgrove both cancelled due to rain. Brandon Sheppard leads the series points standings by 52 over Chris Madden. They are back this week for three races at Lernerville as part of the Firecracker 100 weekend. We'll have more on that later in the week.
Ohio Sprint Speedweek came to an end on Saturday night with the finale at Portsmouth Raceway Park, and we were treated to a wild finale. Through the 30 lapper we had five lead changes among six leaders, with Kyle Reinhardt, Zeb Wise, Paul McMahan, Danny Dietrich, Tyler Courtney, and Rico Abreu all leading laps. And we had a wild crash where Zeb Wise and Kyle Reinhardt got together and Wise went for a wild ride in turn three. It was nice to see him climb out of the car under his own power. Under that caution, Tyler Courtney had to go to the work area from the lead for a flat tire, and incredibly drove from 17th or 18th up to fourth in the final 18 laps. That charge proved to be worth $5000, as Courtney bagged the speedweek championship on the strength of that top five run, beating Danny Dietrich. The race for the win got wild in the final five laps. Rico looked like he was poised for the win, but suffered a flat right rear, which handed the lead to Dietrich for a restart with four to go. The final few laps turned into a three car battle for the win, and it was Paul McMahan capitalizing on the final lap to grab the win over Hunter Scheurenberg, with Dietrich ending up third, Courtney fourth, and Tim Shaffer hard charging from 18th to finish fifth. It was McMahan's first All Star win since 2018. On top of the speedweek title, Courtney's season long points lead has grown to 256 points now over Cory Eliason. The All Star points are similar to the Outlaw points, in that the winner gets four more points than second, and then it's two points per position after that. So if you figure two points per spot, Eliason has to beat Courtney by 128 positions through the rest of the season. With 26 races left on the schedule, that means Eliason needs to beat Courtney on average 5 positions per race. That's a very tall task. The series competitors get a break now, with racing getting back going again on July 9th at Stateline Speedway in New York.
The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series was at Magnolia Motor Speedway for the three race Clash at the Mag, but unfortunately with weather coming on Saturday, the series and track made an audible for Friday. Instead of Friday being a second prelim night, they turned it into a $12k to win show and the weekend's finale. In the Friday feature, Jonathan Davenport picked up where he left off on Thursday night. After grabbing the Thursday win and leading all but one lap, Davenport started on the pole Friday and led every lap en route to his fourth Lucas win of 2021. He now leads all drivers with the most series wins this season. Michael Arnold, Jimmy Owens, Kyle Bronson, and Mike Marlar completed the top five. Tim McCreadie continued his streak with his 16th consecutive top ten finish. McCreadie also maintains the points lead over Hudson O'Neal by 30, with Davenport still third, 150 back. Behind the top three, nobody else is within striking distance. There will be a lot of movement possible though in the top ten, as fourth through 10th is only separated by 90 points. I really like this championship battle right now. You've got veteran McCreadie out front as the favorite, young Hudson O'Neal on the rise and trying to take it to the veterans, and Davenport trying to dig himself out of that early season hole. Lucas is back this weekend for two shows at Deer Creek.
USAC's Eastern Storm came to a close over the weekend with two more races. We got to see Silver Crown cars on Friday at Williams Grove and the sprint cars Sunday at the new Bloomsburg Fairgrounds track. We did lose Saturday's sprint car show at Port Royal to rain. On Friday at the Grove Shane Cockrum started seventh, methodically worked his way towards the front, slipped by leader Justin Grant with 28 laps left, and held on for his fourth career win and first in several years. There were a few popped right rear tires at the end, and Cockrum did a nice job managing his stuff down the stretch. Shane Cottle, Chris Windom, Brady Bacon, and Kyle Robbins completed the top five. We did see four lead changes among four drivers, with Cockrum, Jason McDougal, Grant, and Logan Seavey all taking turns out front. With two races complete, Shane Cottle is the points leader over Justin Grant and Kyle Robbins.
On Sunday night at Bloomsburg, it was all Kevin Thomas Jr. out front. He started on the pole and led all 30 laps en route to his third USAC national sprint car win of 2021. Tanner Thorson, Brady Bacon, Jake Swanson, and Alex Bright rounded out the top five. A sixth for Robert Ballou was good enough to see him tie up the Eastern Storm points title by one point over Brady Bacon. Ballou continues to just keep racking up top ten finishes in USAC sprint car competition. He's now gone 15 straight races finishing inside the top ten, and that run includes two wins, one at Eldora and one at Bridgeport. He's climbed to fourth in the championship standings, but still trails Brady Bacon by 116 points. And why does he trail Bacon? Because Bacon has been insanely good as well. He has two wins on the season, but even more impressive is his run of 26 top ten finishes in his last 27 races. His only non-top ten finish of 2021 was a 12th at Path Valley in April. Bacon has also incredibly been perfect in value finishes. This season he's started outside the top ten three times and converted all three into top five runs. A tough 21st place result for Grant sees him slide to 71 markers behind Bacon. The USAC sprint cars get a few days off now, and will be back in action on July 1st at Plymouth.Sunday's Summer Nationals race at Plymouth Speedway was lost to rain, but the series did race on Friday night at Tri-City and Saturday night at Fairbury. I said back on Friday's show that with the way Nick Hoffman has been racing, he could probably win every modified race through the summer, and he stayed perfect through the weekend. He led every lap at both Tri-City and Fairbury to score wins number four and five on the season. There have been 130 laps completed in Modified Nationals features so far this year, and Hoffman has led every single one. He is obviously the points leader right now, with Tyler Nicely in second, Kyle Hammer third, Steven Brooks fourth, and Tommy Sheppard Jr. in fifth. With the late models though, competition ramped up over the weekend, and we saw two more winners with Tanner English winning Friday night, and Shannon Babb taking Saturday night. English led every lap at Tri-City and had to hold off a last lap pass attempt from Bobby Pierce. At Fairbury, Babb started sixth and rolled the bottom to perfection late, topping English, Devin Moran, Frank Heckenast Jr., and Bobby Pierce. With five nights in the books, Bobby Pierce leads the standings on the strength of those two early wins plus three other top five finishes. He's trailed by English, Moran, Brian Shirley, and Jason Feger. The series off today and tomorrow before heading to LaSalle on Wednesday to begin week number two.
In POWRi Illinois Speedweek competition over the weekend, Daison Pursley picked up the win Friday at Jacksonville, while Buddy Kofoid won Saturday at Macon and Sunday at Fayette County. Cannon McIntosh bagged the speedweek championship. Also, good to hear that Pursley is doing okay after a scary crash on Saturday night at Macon. He tweeted that all his scans came back clear and that his safety gear did it's job. The POWRi National Midgets race again on July 16th at Valley Speedway.
Other weekend open wheel winners include Jamie Ball and Carson McCarl in 360 action at Knoxville, Justin Sanders won again at Ocean, Lance Dewease won at the Grove, Kerry Madsen took the 410 feature on Saturday at Knoxville, Robbie Kendall won at Lincoln, Damion Gardner at Perris, Cam Smith and JJ Hickle won ASCS shows at Grays Harbor, Brent Marks won at Path Valley, and Austin McCarl was the Sunday winner at Huset's. For more, checkout TJSlideways.com.
In other late model action, Tony Jackson Jr. was an MLRA winner at Salina, Jimmy Mars bagged a $10k win at Cedar Lake, Rusty Schlenk won an ALMS show at Oakshade, Hudson O'Neal bagged an Iron Man win at Smoky Mountain, and Max Blair was the Sunday ULMS winner at Bloomsburg. For more from the late model weekend, check out dirtondirt.com.
There are two items on the streaming schedule for today. DIRTVision has the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars at Huset's and FloRacing has 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 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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