DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Rough weekend for David Gravel, Shannon Babb gets 100th Hell Tour win | DIRTRACKR Daily 7/12/21
Today is Monday, July 12th, two thousand and twenty one. This is DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Today on the show we are talking about David Gravel's rough Saturday night, two more All Star winners, Shannon Babb's 100th Summer Nationals win, and more.
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.
It was a brutal weekend for rainouts across the country, with all three Lucas shows being wiped out, both USAC nights, one of the All Star races, and two of three Summer Nationals shows. We did get to see a little bit of racing though.
The World of Outlaws Late Model Series season kept rolling along this weekend with two shows at the Jackson Motorplex in Minnesota. I know there were a lot of factors, and I understand this season has been difficult with fuel prices and parts shortages, but the car counts at Jackson were brutal. 18 on Friday for the $10,000 to win show and only 16 on Saturday with $20,000 to the winner. I certainly would have thought with those types of purses, even with chances of weather, there would have been more cars. If you're a promoter, it's tough to justify purses like that for the future with such low car counts. Over to the racing, Friday night's story was the heartbreak for Cade Dillard. He led the first 27 laps from the second starting position and looked to have the field covered. But on lap 28 the center of his right rear wheel broke out, sending Dillard around and out of contention. He later finished 12th. That handed the lead to birthday boy Frank Heckenast Jr. who led the final 13 laps to bag the win. It was Heckenast's second career Outlaw win, and first since 2015. Brandon Sheppard, Ryan Gustin, Chris Madden, and Brent Larson completed the top five. On Saturday night in the 50 lapper, it was all Dennis Erb Jr. The One Man Band led all 50 laps to earn his second victory in the last eight races. He was nearly untouchable for most of the feature, but late cautions closed up the field and Erb had to hold off challenges from both Sheppard and Heckenast in the closing laps. At the checkered flag it was Heckenast finishing second, Sheppard third, Madden fourth, and Dillard in fifth. Even with a pair of top five runs, Madden lost just a little bit of ground to BShepp over the two nights, with Sheppy finishing second and third. The gap in the standings right now sits at 64. It's a quick turnaround for the Outlaw teams as they race tomorrow night at Gondik Law Speedway in Wisconsin. They follow that up this weekend with three more northern shows at River Cities, I-94, and Red Cedar.
About six and a half hours away from Jackson on Saturday night, the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars were at Wilmot Raceway in Wisconsin for the Badger 40. David Gravel was the odds on favorite entering the night, as he'd won four of the previous six features at the track, but things didn't go his way. Gravel is the best qualifier in the series this season, averaging a sixth position and currently sitting on 10 quick times. But he was off on Saturday night, ending up 14th and three tenths off the pace. A fourth place finish in his heat race set him up to start 11th in the feature, and winning from that far back was going to be a difficult propostion. We've only had one winner from outside the top ten in 41 races in 2021. Things went real bad for Gravel pretty quickly in the feature. With only one lap officially complete, Gravel went for a tumble in turn three, but after significant repairs in the work area, was able to rejoin the field. Later, as the race approached 10 laps to go, Gravel was actually able to work his way back into the top ten, but incredibly his bad night wasn't done. This time, he caught the berm wrong in turns one and two, and flipped yet again. This time, the damage was too much to over come and Gravel was done for the night. He finished 19th. It was the third time in the past six races that Gravel has finished outside the top ten. Out front, Logan Schuchart led the first 22 laps from the pole, but Brad Sweet slipped past him in heavy lap traffic, led the final 18 laps, and bagged his third win a row and 13th on the season. Schuchart, Donny Schatz, James McFadden, and Aaron Reutzel were the rest of the top five. It was a nice recovery for McFadden who was involved in an early incident and spent time in the work area. In the battle for the championship, it was not the night Gravel needed. His 19th and Sweet's win sees the gap grow to now 132 points. That's 66 positions that Gravel needs to make up. Carson Macedo is now only eight points behind Gravel for second as well. I know he's working with a new team this season, but if Gravel and the Big Game 2 are really going to contend for this championship down the stretch, they need to find some consistency, and quickly. We know Gravel can win any night out, but his average finish and efficiencies are off significantly this season versus 2020. As good as Sweet has been, they can't let this hole grow any bigger. The Outlaws were off Sunday and today, but a busy week, which includes some big paydays, starts tomorrow with the Brad Doty Classic at Attica and continues through the week at Eldora. We'll have more on that tomorrow.
In other 410 sprint car competition over the weekend, the All Stars got two of three race nights completed. Friday night at Stateline Speedway in New York, third starting Hunter Schuerenberg slipped past early leader Zeb Wise on lap 14 in traffic and drove away to his first career All Star win. Wise, Justin Peck, Paul McMahan, and Cory Eliason rounded out the top five. Schuerenberg has USAC wins without the wing, and has been transitioning to winged racing in recent seasons. He's been very solid in his first full All Star campaign, currently sitting third in the standings with 20 top tens in 32 starts. On Saturday at Sharon Speedway, Spencer Bayston threw a big move at early leader George Hobaugh on lap 13, just barely clearing him, but it turned out to be the race winning pass. He led the final 18 laps en route to his first All Star win of the season and first since taking over the McGhee Motorports 11. Tyler Courtney tried a big move for the lead with two to go, but ended up hitting the outside wall and limped his way to the checkered with a shredded right rear. Cory Eliason ended up second, Bill Balog third, Danny Dietrich fourth, and Courtney was fifth. Leaving the weekend, Sunshine still holds on to a massive 248 point lead in the standings now over Cory Eliason, with Schuerenberg third, Wise fourth, and Balog fifth. The All Stars are off this weekend, and return July 23rd at Lake Ozark.
As I mentioned at the open, the Summer Nationals lost the Saturday and Sunday shows to rain, but did race Friday night at Farmer City. And fans were treated to a little bit of history. Shannon Babb raced past leader McKay Wenger on lap 24 and drove away to his 100th career Summer Nationals win. He's now tied with Billy Moyer for the most career Summer Nationals wins ever. Wenger, Garrett Alberson, Brian Shirley, and Joe Godsey were the rest of the top five. Points leader Bobby Pierce was 13th. Nick Hoffman bagged his 12th win of the season with the modifieds. Week five of the Hell Tour starts tomorrow night at Lake Cumberland Speedway in Missouri.
Other weekend late model winners included Josh Rice at MRP Raceway Park, Rodney Sanders in Dirt Kings action at Mississippi Thunder, Jeff Rine won Saturday at Port Royal, Max Blair was a ULMS winner at McKean County, and Jacob Hawkins won at Elkins. For more on the late model weekend, check out dirtondirt.com.
In other weekend open wheel action, Blake Hahn and Scott Bogucki won ASCS shows at Gallatin, the Foos brothers won the 305 and 410 shows at Attica, Dominic Scelzi won at Ocean, Morgan Turpen was a USCS winner at Travelers Rest, Tim Kaeding won the King of West show at Petaluma, Tyler Ross won at Lincoln, Anthony Macri at Port Royal, and Justin Henderson won Sunday at Huset's. For more, visit tjslideways.com.
Before we close out today, a couple of driver moves for this busy sprint car week. Ian Madsen is in the Demyan Rudzik 49x and is racing tomorrow night in the Brad Doty Classic. Anthony Macri will race all four nights at Eldora this week in the Indy Race Parts 71 for Bernie. Bernie is still without a trailer after his was stolen from his shop, but is borrowing one this week. This will be the first time Macri will drive a 410 sprint car for another owner.
There are two items on the streaming schedule for today. FloRacing has Flo 24/7 and Speed Sport has the Western Sprint Tour from Coos Bay Speedway. To see the full daily streaming schedule, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
That's it for the show today, hope you have a good Monday. 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!