DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Lucas points breakdown, Kyle Larson wins at Grandview, Hell Tour tonight | DIRTRACKR Daily 6/30/21
Today is Wednesday, June 30th, two thousand and twenty one. This is DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Today we are talking Kyle Larson's speedweek win at Grandview, looking ahead to tonight at Port Royal, Summer Nationals week three, and I go down a Lucas points rabbit hole.
Before we dive in, if you like what I'm doing here, please subscribe to the show, leave a review, and hit those follow and notification buttons depending on where you consume this. Make sure to follow @dirtrackr on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. And don't forget dirtrackr.com has a bunch more cool dirt racing stuff. Now, let's get going.
Round number of five of Pennsylvania Speedweek from Grandview Speedway is in the books and it was Kyle Larson picking up the win last night. Brent Marks was strong out front for much of the 35 lapper, but a caution with nine to go for a slowing Paul McMahan gave Larson the shot he needed. A slidejob into turn one with eight to go got Larson the lead, and he drove away to his fourth win in five speedweek appearances at Grandview. I also believe it was Larson's sixth sprint car win in 2021, and 12th win overall. Marks, Danny Dietrich, Anthony Macri, and Kyle Moody completed the top five. Rico Abreu finished sixth and Christopher Bell was seventh after both drivers ran top five early. Lance Dewease was a DNQ after the Kreitz team bowed out earlier in the night with fuel pump problems. And crashes took out contenders Buddy Kofoid and Freddy Rahmer. Rahmer has now dropped to seventh in the weeklong points standings with issues on back to back nights. Up next tonight is a trip to Port Royal. Larson's week continues, while Bell is finished in the Speedlab 39. For not having been in a sprint car since 2020, I thought it was a strong couple of nights for Bell. It didn't look like there was any rust, and he was up to speed quickly. Daryn Pittman now takes over the driving duties of that race car for the next few nights. I'd say on past performances, Macri and Larson will be the guys to watch tonight at Port. They love to bang those boards, and both have momentum entering the show. It will probably come down to who makes the least mistakes and who can avoid those really hard hits to that outside wall. If they can get their gremlins worked out, Dewease should be a factor as well. Brent Marks continues to lead the way in the speedweek standings, with Dietrich his closest competition 78 points back. Rico, McMahan, and Justin Peck complete the top five. The action is again live tonight on FloRacing.
If you're a late model fan, the Summer Nationals is back racing tonight to start week three. Week two was a bit rough with the postponements and cancellations and only two shows were completed. Bobby Pierce continues to lead the points standings over Tanner English, Brian Shirley, Ashton Winger, and Ryan Unzicker. With seven race nights in the books, Pierce and Shirley each have two wins, while Devin Moran, English, and Shannon Babb all have one apiece. Tonight the Hell Tour is headed to Beaver Dam in Wisconsin, and keep in mind it's just the late models. The modifieds are off until Friday. I was asked earlier in the week about a possible car count for tonight, and I'd expect a decent field. Besides the regulars, we do know that Brandon Sheppard is racing this week in his family's B5 entry. The last time the World of Outlaws Late Models raced at Beaver Dam in 2020, they had 31 cars. So I'd hope they will get north of 20 for tonight with five gees on the line on a Wednesday. Either way though, with names like Shirley, Sheppard, Pierce, English and more in the field, you can expect some good racing. DIRTVision goes live tonight at 6:45 PM ET if you can't be at the track.
Jacob Hord from Ohio Dirt tweeted yesterday about my use of equating points to actual positions on this show to help better understand the differences in the standings, and thinking about it sent me down a rabbit hole. Points can often feel really arbitrary, but I think it helps to know how those points translate into positions on the track. I know pretty well the points breakdowns for both World of Outlaws series and the All Stars. I know them, because they are all basically the same. I realized that I have no clue how the Lucas points work, so I went digging for their breakdown as well. The most recent rulebook I could find online is from 2018, so hopefully things haven't changed in the three years since. As a comparison, for the Outlaws, drivers score points based on their feature finish, and then anyone who doesn't start the feature is awarded 90 show up points. The winner gets 150 points, second gets 146, and then it's two points per position afterwards. The Lucas breakdown is quite a bit different. Every driver who pays the entry fee and competes that night gets 50 points to start. From there, they also earn points based on B main finishes for non transfers, feature finishes and quick times. So for example, if a driver signs in, races through the night, goes quick time, and wins the feature, they earn 260 points. 200 for the race win, 10 for the quick time, and 50 for participating. The top four spots are separated by 10 points, and then everything from there is five points. 21st on back all earn 75. In the last race at Magnolia, points leader Tim McCreadie finished eighth on the night, so he bagged 50 participant points and 140 for the eighth, for a total of 190. It's interesting to note these differences, because it changes the weight of points gaps. For example, Sheppard's current 58 point lead over Madden is effectively 29 positions. 58 divided by two points per position. It Madden is winning, it would be a bit less. The gap from McCreadie to Davenport in third with Lucas is currently 150, which sounds like more. But when you break it out, its actually similar to the Sheppy/Smoky gap. At five points per position, that's 30 spots. If Davenport is finishing top three, it's actually less. So the Sheppy to Smoky difference is basically the same as the McCreadie/Davenport difference, even though the points are actually much higher. And it shows just how tight the Lucas points are currently, because Hudson O'Neal is only 30 points back in second, which is 6 positions or less. Those two could swap spots in a single night. When looking around the country right now, most of the major points battles are still in play. The only one that feels out of reach for second on back is the All Stars. Tyler Courtney has 256 points on Cory Eliason and Hunter Schuerenberg right now, which is 128 spots. That's a lot with nearly half the season over. I'll keep this discussion going as the season progresses with Lucas.
There are a plethora of new dirt racing podcast episodes this week. Winged Nation has Logan Schuchart, Dale Blaney, and Alan Kreitzer from Lincoln Speedway. Open Red has Donny Schatz, Loudpedal's feed just updated with episodes with Robert Bell, Bill Balog, and Ryan Timms. It kind of seems like they are only making episodes available in the public feeds every few weeks. Stick Signals has Nick Graziano who spent a week working on Bobby Pierce's late model, the Rigsby Report has Mark Richards, Forward Bite has Jeff Smith, Passing Points has Dylan Westbrook, Track Talk has AJ Flick, and there are new episodes of the Dirt Reporters, Dirt Nerds, Dirt from Knoxville, Ohio Dirt, Quicktime, and Wednesdays with Wayne. To see the full list of shows and episodes hit up dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
There are five shows on today's streaming schedule. Dirt Track Digest has sprint cars and modifieds from Can-Am Speedway, DIRTVision has the Summer Nationals from Beaver Dam, FloRacing has Flo 24/7 and Pennsylvania Speedweek from Port Royal, and the Cushion has FAST Series sprint cars from Atomic. 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 Wednesday. If you have thoughts about the topics on today's show, leave them in the comments below or tweet at me.
Thanks everybody for tuning in, I'll see you tomorrow for more DIRTRACKR Daily!