DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Big money weekends start for the World of Outlaws, Shirley wins at LaSalle | DIRTRACKR Daily 6/24/21
It is Thursday, June 24th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Today we've got results from last night's Summer Nationals action, and we'll look ahead to tonight's racing for not only the Summer Nationals, but also big money weekends getting underway for the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars and late models, plus the ASCS at Skagit. Let's jump in.
Three time and defending Summer Nationals champion Brian Shirley didn't win during the first week of the Hell Tour and found himself fourth in the standings behind Bobby Pierce, Tanner English and Devin Moran to start week two. But things lined up for Shirley last night with the series headed to LaSalle Speedway, where Shirley had won the previous two trips. He went quick time in his qualifying group, won the third heat race, started on the pole, and led every lap of a non-stop feature to bag his 34th career series win. Garett Alberson, Ryan Unzicker, Billy Moyer Jr., and Chris Simpson completed the top five. Shirley will make a significant move in the standings following LaSalle, as Devin Moran was not in attendance, and Pierce and English both finished lower in the top ten. Ashton Winger took home a top ten finish after rolling in qualifying and using a backup car for the rest of the night. I was a little surprised to see World of Outlaws full timer Cade Dillard in the field. He finished 12th after starting eighth. The Outlaw competitors begin a three race weekend at Lernerville tonight, and that's an eight hour plus haul from LaSalle to Lernerville today. In the night's modified feature, stop me if you've heard this before, but it was yet again all Nick Hoffman. He led all 25 laps en route to his sixth straight win this season, which is a new consecutive win record with the series. He topped Mike McKinney, Allen Weisser, Ray Bollinger, and Tommy Sheppard Jr. Hoffman has led every single feature lap so far this season with the Modified Nationals. That's insane. I did see on Twitter last night that we are starting to talk about bounties being placed on Hoffman. Both the late models and modifieds are scheduled to head to Spoon River tonight to continue week two, but there is weather in the area, so stay tuned to websites and social media for updates on the race night's status. You can watch the action tonight live on DIRTVision.
In other dirt late model action tonight, the World of Outlaws Late Model Series heads to Lernerville to begin the Firecracker 100 weekend. Tonight and tomorrow pay $6000 to win, while Saturday's 100 lapper pays $30,000 to the winner. Over the course of the two prelim nights, drivers will earn points which will then setup heat race lineups for Saturday. Cade Dillard enters the weekend as the defending Firecracker 100 winner, and this couldn't be coming at a better time for the Louisiana native. He's finished outside the top ten in five straight Outlaw races, and will be looking to bounce back this weekend at a track where he didn't finish outside the top five in 2020. Max Blair and Brandon Sheppard won the two prelim nights last year, and both will be ones to watch this weekend as well. On top of the race for the big money on Saturday, the points battle remains tight between BShepp and Chris Madden. Only 52 points separate the two, and Madden is riding in on eight straight top ten finishes, including three wins in that stretch. Sheppard only has the one win this season, but he's also streaking, with three straight top fives, including seconds at both Circle City and Stateline. Behind the leaders, Tyler Bruening sits third in his rookie season, while Ricky Weiss and Dillard complete the top five. Looking at a win prediction for tonight, the dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula surprised me a little bit. It actually favors Mike Norris tonight. He bagged a win at Lernerville with the Outlaws in 2019, and had finishes of 10th, 2nd, and 5th in 2020. He's a regular runner at Lernerville, so he'll be tuned up for sure. I've said this in recent weeks, but keep on eye on Ryan Gustin as well. He's got six straight top ten finishes, and both his top five and top ten moving averages are trending better. I think he's a very good candidate to break through for a win this season. If you can't be at Lernerville, DIRTVision will have the live stream.
After having Wednesday off to regroup and travel, the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series is back tonight to start the three day Jackson Nationals. Thursday and Friday are both $10 grand to win, with Saturday's finale paying $50,000 to win. And remember if Aaron Reutzel wins on Saturday, he'll earn a $100,000 bonus for winning at both Huset's and Jackson. This weekend is shaping up to be an interesting battle. Logan Schuchart won two of the three nights at Jackson in 2020, while Sweet won two of three in 2019. So both of those guys will be ones to watch. But if you look over the previous three seasons, nobody has had more half mile success than Donny Schatz. He leads the series with 20 half mile wins and an average finish of 5.4. But if you drill down to just half mile stats in 2021, two more drivers emerge. Reutzel leads the series this season with an average finish of 5.6, and Carson Macedo has the most half mile wins with four. So you're talking Sweet, Schuchart, Schatz, Reutzel, and Macedo. And the dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula agrees. Brad Sweet is the favorite tonight, with Schatz and Schuchart also in the top four in win chances. The formula does have Gravel third, which makes sense as he's been good lately and has the two half mile wins at Bristol earlier this year. Naming six of the top seven in points as having win chances is sort of BS, and I get that. But it shows how competitive things are when so many drivers have previous success at the track and at tracks similar. DIRTVision has tonight's live stream.
Elsewhere tonight, the Dirt Cup starts at Skagit Speedway for the ASCS National Tour. Three nights of racing are on tap, with Thursday and Friday setting up Saturday's $15,000 to win program. JJ Hickle is the current ASCS points leader, and he's coming off a win last weekend at Grays Harbor. Matt Covington trails him by 28 points, with Blake Hahn third, only 34 points back. Hickle leads all drivers with three wins. This event was not held in 2020 because of the pandemic, so we have to go back to 2019 to find most recent winners. That year, Blake Hahn and Roger Crockett picked up prelim wins, with Robbie Price taking the finale over Hahn and Seth Bergman. The evetn drew pretty close to 50 cars in 2019, and I wouldn't expect much different this year. 360 sprint car racing is big on the west coast, and I know there are some California guys towing up to take on the Washington regional guys and national tour regulars. If you want to watch live this weekend, you have plenty of options, as MAVTV Plus, Speed Sport, and RacinBoys all have live streams running.
They are off now for a few weeks, but just a quick USMTS modified update today. This last weekend at Cedar Lake for the Masters, AJ Diemel won Friday night, which was his first ever career USMTS win. He topped Dereck Ramirez and Rodney Sanders for the $5000 score. Saturday night it was Jake O'Neil taking down $10,000 and his 13th career win. Tanner Mullens, Sanders, Ramirez, and Jake Timm completed the top five. We've got a great points battle brewing at the top, with the three front runners only separated by 40 points. Ramirez currently leads Sanders and O'Neil. The USMTS racers are back in action July 14th at Casino Speedway in South Dakota.
There are 11 shows on the streaming schedule for today. That includes both World of Outlaws series and the Summer Nationals on DIRTVision, the Dirt Cup at Skagit is actually available on three different services, and weekly racing from several tracks. To see the fulll daily streaming schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
That's it for the show today, hope everyone has a good Thursday. 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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