DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Kyle Larson enters Knoxville Nationals, Brandon Overton's contrasting stats | DIRTRACKR Daily 7/7/21
Today is Wednesday, July 7th, two thousand and twenty one. This is DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Today we are talking Summer Nationals at Knox County, Super DIRTcar Series at Ransomville, news from Kyle Larson and USAC, plus new podcast episodes and today's streaming schedule.
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.
The Summer Nationals and Modified Nationals kicked off week number four last night at the Knox County Fairgrounds in Illinois. It was the series first trip to the track, with the fair board stepping up this season to draw a bigger series for their yearly fair race. In a piece at dirtondirt.com, Todd Turner wrote that the Summer Nationals purse is more than double what the track has paid in recent seasons for their unsanctioned events around the fair. And I'd say the risk paid off. They had nearly 50 cars among the divisions, and the frontstretch grandstand looked packed. For those of us that watch and get to attend bigger races regularly, it's easy to lose a bit of perspective on these events. You forget that for some tracks and towns, securing a Summer Nationals event is a big deal. As for the track itself, it's an interesting facility with some different challenges for the drivers. It's a pretty big half mile, but it's narrow and flat all the way around. Drivers were carrying a ton of speed down the straightaways and then having to get slowed down for the flat corners. I do think for future events, they need to find a different place to park the team haulers. There were points where fans in the stands and those watching on DIRTVision couldn't see the action because the trucks were blocking views. Over to the actual racing, the night's late model feature was hampered by a lengthy red flag for a big crash down the backstretch that involved Ryan Unzicker, Jason Feger, Joe Godsey, Rich Bell, Brandon Lance, and others. It took a while to get all the cars untangled and towed off, but all the drivers were okay. Once rolling though, it was all Ashton Winger out front. He led all 30 laps from the outside front row and held off Bobby Pierce to grab his first career Summer Nationals win and $5000. Winger was the 2020 World of Outlaws rookie of the year, and is running the full Summer Nationals tour this season. Pierce finished second and extended his points lead over third finishing Tanner English. Mitch McGrath and Feger completed the top five. In the night's modified feature, it was yet again all Nick Hoffman. The two car started on the pole and led every one of the 20 laps. Drake Troutman tried to challenge him early, but Hoffman was too strong and drove away through the course of the race. Hoffman has led every lap he's been a part of this season. Troutman, Zeke McKenzie, Ray Bollinger, and Jacob Rexing completed the top five. Both the late models and modifieds head to Spoon River tonight to continue week four. Kent Robinson bagged the late model win at Spoon River in 2020, while Will Krupp was the modified winner. You can watch the action live tonight on DIRTVision.
Last night's Super DIRTcar Series 100 lapper at Ransomville turned into the Matt Sheppard show. He went quick time, won his heat race, and dominated the feature from the second starting position. Peter Britten finished second after starting eighth, Stewart Friesen was third, Mike Mahaney fourth, and Erick Rudolph was fifth. Pole sitter Mat Williamson had a tire go down and ended up 17th after battling with Sheppard early. It was the second consecutive win for Sheppard with the series and he chipped away at Friesen's points lead. Friesen and Sheppard are the only drivers with multiple wins through the first seven races. This run of Tuesday night races continues next week when the Super DIRTcar Series heads to Albany Saratoga for the rescheduled Horsepower Hundred. For more on the series, checkout superdirtcarseries.com.
Knoxville Raceway has opened up entries for the upcoming 360 and 410 Knoxville Nationals and one of the favorites for the event has submitted his paperwork. Kyle Larson will compete in the 410 Nationals with Paul Silva and the 57 machine. The NASCAR Cup Series is on the road course at Indy that week, but the logistics should be fairly easy for Larson to maneuver. His prelim night won't be affected, but the Cup cars do have practice on Saturday from 11:05 to 11:55. The tracks are about 430 miles apart, but I'm sure Larson can find a jet to take him to Knoxville following practice. He'll then run the Nationals Saturday night before heading back to Indy for the road course race on Sunday afternoon. Larson bagged the big win at Knoxville in 2020, but it wasn't the Nationals because of the pandemic. His last two appearances in the big race were in 2018 when he finished third and 2017 when he finished second. Larson's last five appearances at Knoxville with the Outlaws include four wins and a second, so he will definitely be a favorite. Just off hand, I think you're probably looking at Larson, Carson Macedo, David Gravel, Brad Sweet, and Kerry Madsen as the guys to really keep an eye on for the Nationals win. They haven't updated the list in a few weeks, but you can keep an eye on pre-entries for the event at knoxvilleraceway.com.
We've seen a lot of raised purses in recent seasons and more points fund money being added across dirt racing, and USAC's Indiana Sprint Week is the next in line for increases. The series announced yesterday that each of the seven races will be $6000 to win and $600 to start, and that the week long points fight will now pay $10,000 to the champion, with the top eight in the standings getting paid. Chase Stockon is the defending sprint week champion, and the seven races will take place at Gas City, Kokomo, Lawrenceburg, Terre Haute, Lincoln Park, Bloomington, and Haubstadt. Sprint Week runs July 23rd through the 31st and includes two off nights. Kudos to USAC and the tracks for bumping the payouts, and you're seeing these increases because of the rising popularity of dirt racing and the influx of cash from some of these streaming deals between services like FloRacing and DIRTVision. It was only a matter of time before that money started to trickle down to the racers. For more on the announcement, check out usacracing.com.
Looking at other dirt racing podcasts this week, Winged Nation has Justin Henderson, Lachlan McHugh, and Kerry Madsen. Stick Signals has Ashton Winger and is talking Hell Tour, Forward Bite has Freddy Smith, the Dirt from Knoxville has Matt Juhl, and there are new episodes of the Dirt Reporters and the Midwest Autosports podcast. To see the full list of dirt racing shows and episodes, check out dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
There are five shows on the streaming schedule today. DIRTVision has the Summer Nationals from Spoon River, FloRacing has Flo 24/7 and the USAC East Coast Sprint Cars at Action Track USA, and Speed Sport has weekly action from Clarksville and Buena Vista. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
Before we close out today, a couple of Brandon Overton stats for you. First, over the last 107 World of Outlaws races, Brandon Sheppard obviously has the most wins with 35, but did you know Brandon Overton is second? He has 13 wins, which is more than any other driver except Sheppard, and he's run less than half those 107 races. On flip side for Overton, I and others have heaped a ton of praise on him, but it is often feast or famine with Big Sexy. Over his last 49 Outlaw starts, 20 have resulted in finishes worse than 10th. With Lucas, his percentage is worse. Over his last 36 starts with that series, 11 have been finishes of worse than 10th, including his three most recent races. He finished 20th at Florence, 19th at Ponderosa, and 19th at Bubba. It's an interesting contrast to think about, especially after we saw him dominate at Eldora, followed by two out of three wins at Lernerville for the Firecracker. For more stats and numbers, check out dirtrackr.com/analytics.
A quick show note. I'm trying some different audio settings today on both the podcast and YouTube videos. Let me know if it's an improvement or not. I know very little about audio, so I'm digging in and trying to make the shows sound better.
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!