DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Shane Stewart teams with Trackhouse for Knoxville Nats, Hoffman joins SBR | DIRTRACKR Daily 7/27/21
Today is Tuesday, July 27th, two thousand and twenty one. This is DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Coming up we are talking last night's Indiana Sprint Week show at Gas City, news from Nick Hoffman and Shane Stewart, and what's on tap for tonight.
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.
After the Indiana Sprint week opener got rained out last Friday night at Gas City, the USAC sprint cars were back at the track last night to make up the event. In the feature it was all Logan Seavey out front. He started fourth, but was past lap one leader Jake Swanson quickly and out front on lap two. Seavey led the rest of the way to earn his second win of the season and second in a row during sprint week. Brady Bacon tried to track him down late, but just couldn't get close enough to make a pass attempt. Kyle Cummins, Swanson, and polesitter Jason McDougal completed the top five. It was an interesting race to watch last night, as it was only slowed by a single caution, but was a very tricky and technical surface. The drivers were really challenged to maneuver through some of the ruts and rough places on the track. Going forward through the rest of sprint week and the season, one driver to pay attention to here is Jake Swanson. He's in his first full season with the USAC sprint cars and has really found his form in recent weeks. He's finished seventh or better in seven of his past eight races, including two seconds. He doesn't have a win yet, but it feels like it's close. He's got the third most laps led this season with the series, but doesn't have a win. That stat made me curious about drivers with a ton of laps led this season who are still winless. Looking around at the series in the dirtrackr.com analytics database, only Rico Abreu with the All Stars has more laps led than Swanson without a win. Swanson has led 71 laps, Rico 73. Brady Bacon leads both the national standings and the sprint week standings with three races complete during Indiana Sprint Week. He's 93 clear of Grant for the season championship, and 16 ahead of Seavey for the week. The series is off tonight for a quick break, but will be back in action tomorrow at Terre Haute for round number four. You can watch that live on FloRacing.
We were supposed to also have the Summer Nationals in action last night at Lake Cumberland Speedway, but that race was lost to rain. Series and track officials are working on a possible makeup date. What's weird now for the Hell Tour, is they go quiet until August 13th at Highland Speedway. That gives drivers the opportunity to race the Prairie Dirt Classic and the USA Nationals if they want. The Modified Nationals are part of the program this week at Fairbury, so they are still rolling.
And the one driver we've been talking a lot about with the Modified Nationals is Nick Hoffman, who had some news drop about him in the last 24 hours. Scott Bloomquist is sidelined currently because of issues with his leg, so Hoffman will drive the Bloomquist late model at Fairbury this weekend at the PDC. Hoffman has made a handful of late model starts in recent years, including appearances with both the Outlaws and Lucas, and most recently at the Dirt Late Model Dreams at Eldora. Hoffman recently won his 17th mod nats race of 2021 which made him the all time leader in series wins. It should be an exciting pairing for the event.
In other driver news from yesterday, we learned that Shane Stewart will return to the seat of a sprint car at the Knoxville Nationals coming up with help from his past car owner Justin Marks. Stewart will jump behind the wheel of Bernie Stuebgen's Indy Race Parts 71 with Marks' NASCAR organization, Trackhouse, on the side of the car. Marks was a co-owner with Kyle Larson in the Larson Marks Racing team that Stewart drove for with the World of Outlaws for several seasons. Stewart is no stranger to victory lane at Knoxville, as he's won the 360 Nationals five times, and also has 36 career World of Outlaws wins. It also looks like Stewart will race the 71 at I-70 Motorsports Park tonight with the All Star Circuit of Champions.
And looking ahead to tonight, there is plenty of dirt racing to watch or attend on this Tuesday. The aforementioned All Stars are headed to the newly renovated I-70 Motorsports Park near Kansas City. The Outlaws raced there earlier in the season with both wins going to Brad Sweet. Tyler Courtney is the current points leader over Cory Eliason, Hunter Schuerenberg, Cap Henry, and Zeb Wise. Courtney and Eliason have the exact same average finish over the last five races, sitting at a series best 3.8. Looking specifically at tonight, Courtney leads the series this season in average finish on 3/8 mile race tracks, while Justin Peck has the most 3/8 mile wins. Courtney is favored for the win tonight by the dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula. If you can't be at I-70, FloRacing has live coverage.
Also on the card for tonight is the Short Track Super Series south region at Bridgeport Motorsports Park in New Jersey. Mike Mahaney currently leads the south points over Anthony Perrego and Matt Sheppard. Sheppard, Andy Bachetti, Mat Williamson, Stewart Friesen, and Perrego all have south region wins this season. You can catch the modifieds tonight live on Flo.
Also tonight is the Southern Nationals late models from Tri-County Racetrack in North Carolia. They will race for $4000 to win, and Donald McIntosh currently leads the series points over Cody Overton and Jensen Ford. And the ASCS sprint cars will continue their speedweek tonight at Creek County Speedway in Oklahoma. Dale Howard, Matt Covington, and Ryan Timms have won the three speedweek races so far, and Covington has taken the national tour points lead over Blake Hahn. Both of these races are also on Flo.
There are seven shows on the streaming platforms today, with all but one happening on FloRacing. There is the Short Track Super Series at Bridgeport, the continuation of ASCS Sprint Week, Southern Nationals late models in North Carolina, MARS Late Models and the All Stars. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
A quick show note before we close out, there will not be a new episode of the daily show on Wednesday, that is tomorrow. Life stuff is getting in the way, so I'll be back Thursday and Friday with new episodes to close out the week. Thanks to all of you who continue to support this show and the dirtrackr project. I appreciate all the comments and emails and you sharing the shows and site with your friends. We are approaching 2000 subscribers on YouTube which is incredible, and the website traffic has more than doubled this year versus last. Unique visitors is up nearly 100% and site visits and pageviews are up nearly 160%. The advertising money that the YouTube channel is starting to generate has helped me upgrade some equipment and support some photographers in the community, and that support of those around dirt racing will hopefully grow in the future. Thanks again.
That's it for the show today, hope you have a good Tuesday. 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!