DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Christopher Bell adds sprint car races, Nick Hoffman Modified Nats champ | DIRTRACKR Daily 7/8/21
Today is Thursday, July 8th, two thousand and twenty one. This is DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Today on the show we've got details on Christopher Bell's upcoming sprint car schedule, Mike Barshinger is shutting down his team, plus results last night from the Summer Nationals and USAC East Coast Sprint Cars.
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 high banks of Spoon River hosted the Summer Nationals and Modified Nationals last night and it was yet another round of wins for Bobby Pierce and Nick Hoffman. Ryan Unzicker led most of the feature from his second starting position, but Pierce ran him down and took the lead with five to go. Unzicker was on the bottom and Pierce was ripping the lip. Pierce drove away to his sixth win of the season and 33rd of his career. Unzicker, Brandon Sheppard, Brian Shirley, and Jason Feger completed the top five. Pierce continued to extend his series points lead over Tanner English. In the modified feature, it was again Nick Hoffman leading all 25 laps en route to his 11th win in 11 starts. Tyler Nicely, Kelly Kovski, Brandon Roberts, and Mike McKinney were the rest of the top five. If you didn't realize this before right now, Hoffman will be the modified champion this season. There are still 21 races left to go, but only a driver's 12 best finishes count towards the modified points. So with one more victory, Hoffman will effectively have all 12 of his counted races be wins. Barring some sort of insane run by another driver, which feels very improbable, that won't be bested. And on top of that, Hoffman isn't going to stop racing once he reaches 12 wins. There is still plenty of money to make winning races, so his season won't be over. I'm not sure I've ever heard of a series championship being decided with two thirds of the races still to come, but that's effectively what we have. Just insane from Hoffman. The two series continue week four tonight at Macon Speedway. If you can't be there, watch live on DIRTVision.
Elsewhere last night, the USAC East Coast Sprint Cars put on a fun show at the Action Track USA in Pennsylvania. Pole sitter Chris Allen Jr. led early, but at half way, Briggs Danner battled past him to grab the lead. Danner went unchallenged the rest of the way to grab his fifth series win of 2021. The win for Danner and trouble for Alex Bright, saw Danner take over the USAC East Coast Sprint Car points lead. Action Track USA is a 1/4 mile track that is normally used for micros and SpeedSTRs, so having full size 360 sprint cars there created some wild racing. They even had a 410 winged show there a few weeks ago. You can watch that race replay over on FloRacing.
After sitting out from dirt racing for much of 2021 to focus on his NASCAR ride, Christopher Bell's schedule is suddenly starting to fill back up. After running two nights in the Swindell SpeedLab 39 during Pennsylvania Speedweek, Bell will be back with the team in the coming weeks. Through the Speedlab Twitter account, the team released their upcoming schedule which includes the Brad Doty Classic and Silver Cup at Lernerville with Bell, plus the All Star trip to Lake Ozark in a few weeks. Daryn Pittman will drive the car at the Kings Royals and the 360 and 410 Knoxville Nationals. Bell finished fifth at Lincoln and seventh at Grandview in his two PA Speedweek starts, and followed that up with a second at Road America in the Cup car on Sunday. Kyle Larson's incredible success bouncing back and forth between dirt and NASCAR this season has opened some eyes, and you've got to wonder if that hasn't had an effect on Bell's situation. Cup drivers participating in extracurriculars isn't a new phenomenon, but we haven't see it to the level that Larson has been doing it in many years. Besides Bell and Larson, we've seen several guys get dirt starts in 2021 for various reasons, including getting experience for Bristol. That list included Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, Kyle Busch, and others. And even this week, Matt DiBenedetto is driving one of Tyler Thomas' midgets at Garden City, Kansas. The crossover is good for all parties and benefits all sides. The local dirt tracks and series get the added exposure of the high profile drivers, the drivers have an opportunity to get seat time and add to their followings, and NASCAR is able to cultivate those connections between the lower and upper levels. You can see Bell next Tuesday night in the SpeedLab 39 at Attica.
Rumors started floating around in recent days, but yesterday it was confirmed. Pennsylvana sprint car owner Mike Barshinger is shutting down his number 24 team and selling off his equipment. Following the departure of Lucas Wolfe from the team in the offseason, Barshinger has had multiple drivers in the 24 this season, including Kerry Madsen, Jeff Halligan, and TJ Stutts. Madsen won at Bridgeport in an unsanctioned event back in April driving the car, but departed to be closer to his home in Iowa and has since joined Tony Stewart Racing to pilot the 14. Halligan and Stutts both had short tenures in recent months. Barshinger, who is 66 years old, told Jeremy Elliott that he didn't want to be involved for another 20 years like Davey Brown, and that he had contemplated selling everything following Wolfe's departure. He has owned cars since 1985 and had drivers like Johnny Mackison, Scott Ausherman, and Cory Haas during his run. Barshinger has already started the process of selling off his equipment. To see more on the story, check out sprintcarunlimited.com. The story is available to read for free.
The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series was supposed to be at Cherokee Speedway in South Carolina tonight, but that race has been cancelled because of Tropical Storm Elsa, which is currently moving across the Carolinas. The Lucas late models are in action tomorrow and Saturday at Smoky Mountain Speedway in Tennessee, with $12,000 to the winner Friday, and $20,000 to the winner Saturday. We'll have more on the Lucas weekend tomorrow.
There are six items on the streaming schedule today. Dirt Track Digest has action from Genesee Speedway, DIRTVision has the Summer Nationals from Macon, FloRacing has Flo 24/7 and weekly IMCA racing from Kossuth County, and Speed Sport has NOSA sprints and NLRA late models from River Cities and weekly racing from Clarksville. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
Looking ahead to the weekend, there is a ton of racing to watch and talk about. Both World of Outlaws series, Lucas in Tennessee, USAC sprint cars at Knoxville, the NASCAR trucks are at Knoxville with several dirt guys in the field. We'll get you ready for all of that on tomorrow's show.
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.
Thanks everybody for tuning in, I'll see you tomorrow for more DIRTRACKR Daily!