DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Fireworks between CJ Leary & Tanner Thorson, Tyler Courtney wins again | DIRTRACKR Daily 7/30/21
Today is Friday, July 30th, two thousand and twenty one. This is DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Coming up we are talking last night's All Star win for Tyler Courtney, fireworks between Tanner Thorson and CJ Leary, what ahead this weekend, 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.
The All Star Circuit of Champions took on the Missouri State Fair Speedway last night and when the race on the big half mile was over, we were watching Tyler Courtney celebrate win number seven on the season. He slipped by early leader Zeb Wise on lap eight and went basically unchallenged the rest of the way to earn the victory. Kerry Madsen finished second after a spirited battle with Ayrton Gennetten who was third, Justin Peck finished fourth, and Kasey Kahne completed the top five. Gennetten, who just hired former Brian Brown crew chief Chad Morgan, was impressive on the night. He went quick time, made the dash, and started on the pole before finishing third. He's been impressive all week with the All Stars, with two top tens at Lake Ozark and the third last night. An experienced wrench like Morgan could be a big boost for the young driver from Missouri. As for early leader Zeb Wise, he went for a wild ride later in the feature. He was running up front when it appeared something on the car broke, sending Wise tumbling out of the ballpark in turn two. He was okay, but will be looking for more answers today. Back to points leader Courtney, his win last night made it 12 straight top seven finishes with the All Stars. Over the last 26 races, his worst finish is 11th and there are 25 single digit results. Just to show you how insane his run has been, here are his last 26 finishes: 2nd, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 8th, 2nd, 3rd, 1st, 1st, 5th, 6th, 5th, 11th, 7th, 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 5th, 4th, 3rd, 1st, 4th, 1st. Over that span he's won better than every third race, and his moving last five and last ten average finishes are both insanely low at 2.6 and 3.4. It's no wonder why he's stretched the points lead to 280 over Cory Eliason. Looking ahead, the All Stars are at 34 Raceway tonight before heading to Knoxville on Saturday. These are the final two races for the series before they take a 20 day break. I'd expect that field on Saturday night to be pretty packed with guys looking for track time ahead of the nationals. Don't forget you can watch the All Stars all season long live on FloRacing.
Indiana Sprint Week continued last night for the USAC national sprint cars, and if you haven't seen the feature and what transpired after yet, pause this show and go watch it. We had drama right at the outset with points leader Brady Bacon not even making the start. He suffered magneto problems and was in the pit area when the green flag fell. His 22nd place finish opened the door for Logan Seavey to take the sprint week points lead with two nights left. Once underway, CJ Leary was the dominant force out front. He got by polesitter Cole Bodine on lap seven and ended up leading 23 of the 31 laps. Tanner Thorson chased Leary for much of the feature, but couldn't get close enough to make a move. Things got interesting though late in the race when Shane Cottle and Chase Stockon got turned around on the frontstretch on the white flag lap. That setup a green-white-checkered run to the end, and on the restart Thorson made his move. He tried a slider into turn one, but wasn't going to clear for the lead. Leary, up top, made a mistake on the cushion with Thorson to his inside and got up on the bike. That allowed Thorson to slip by down the backstretch and that was all she wrote. Thorson drove away to his third sprint car win of the season. Chris Windom, Leary, KTJ, and Logan Seavey rounded out the top five. The fireworks then started after the checkered fell. Leary, for some reason, was upset with Thorson and made his feelings known, hitting Thorson on the cool down lap, and then meeting him in victory lane. After a verbal confrontation between the two that involved sign language and choice words, Leary finally walked away and Thorson began his celebration. What's wild, is I'm not sure what Leary was mad about. After watching it, there was clearly no contact. Thorson's slider wasn't going to clear, and he knew it, so he gave Leary room on the top. CJ just looked like he screwed up. In his post race interview, Thorson said he was going to apologize for cutting it close, but I don't see anything there that warranted an apology. It was just close hard racing, with no contact. I'm not sure what else Leary wanted there. Either way, super entertaining finish. With Bloomington and Haubstadt left to go, Seavey is now the sprint week points leader over Thorson and KTJ, with Bacon falling to fourth. Bacon's season long points lead over Justin Grant is now also down to 57 after the rough night. With things tightening up, it should be a fun next two nights. Make sure to tune in live on Flo.
One driver who has been missing from the last two nights of sprint week is Paul Nienhiser. There has been nothing posted that I could find, but it appears he's out of the KO Motorsports entry he's been piloting all season in his rookie run. He'd struggled through the first three nights of sprint week, not transferring from any of the semis and needing a provisional to start the feature at Lawrenceburg. We will keep you posted on what's next for both parties as we know more.
Also last night, it was 17 year old Sam Seawright taking the Southern Nationals late model win at Boyd's Speedway. He topped Donald McIntosh and Dale McDowell. McIntosh is the current series points leader with two points nights remaining. And at I-30 Speedway, Timothy Culp bagged the $5000 Comp Cams Super Dirt Series win over series points leader Brian Rickman and Logan Martin. The series is back in action tonight at Batesville Motor Speedway.
At 81 Speedway last night, young Ryan Timms hard charged from 11th to take his third win of the week with the ASCS National Tour. He led the final two laps, topping JJ Hickle, Blake Hahn, Matt Covington and Brandon Anderson. Timms has finished first or second in five of the six sprint week races. The ASCS heads to Tulsa Speedway tonight, and closes out the week tomorrow at Outlaw Motor Speedway.
Looking ahead to the weekend for the World of Outlaws, both series are in action. The World of Outlaws Late Models are at Fairbury tonight and tomorrow for the Prairie Dirt Classic. Tonight's program features qualifying and four, 25 lap showdowns. Tomorrow is hot laps, 20 lap last chance showdowns, and 25 lap shootout, and then the 100 lap, $50,000 to win Prairie Dirt Classic. Brandon Sheppard is the defending race winner, back to 2019. 72 cars took part, and Sheppard passed leader Bobby Pierce with one to go to bag the win. Mike Marlar finished second, Pierce third, Ricky Weiss fourth, and Gordy Gundaker was fifth. This year's field will be stacked, including all of the Outlaw regulars, plus Kyle Larson in the Rumley 6, Brandon Overton, Pierce, Jonathan Davenport, Kyle Bronson, Hudson O'Neal, Devin Moran, Brian Shirley, and many others. Fairbury always puts on good races and this event is a big time fan favorite. If you can't be at Fairbury, watch live all weekend on DIRTVision.
And the sprint car series is headed to the northeast for stops at Ransomville and Weedsport. This will be the first stop for the series at Ransomville since July of 2018. David Gravel was the winner that night over Brad Sweet and Donny Schatz. It's also been since 2018 that the series has been at Weedsport. Brent Marks is the most recent winner there, taking the victory over Sheldon Haudenschild and Jacob Allen. The dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula actually likes Sheldon Haudenschild for the win both nights. He's coming off a win and a second at Williams Grove and has eight wins on 3/8 mile tracks back through 2018. Sweet still holds a 112 point lead over Carson Macedo in the championship standings, with David Gravel 138 back in third. Schatz and Sheldon complete the top five, with Logan Schuchart sixth, Aaron Reutzel seventh, James McFadden eighth, Kraig Kinser ninth, and Brock Zearfoss tenth. As usual, both nights will be streamed live on DIRTVision.
The Xtreme DIRTcar Series, which is the winter series that runs in the southeast, announced their 2021-2022 schedule this week. They will race eight times from November 20th through February 26th at Lancaster, Cherokee, I-75, Volunteer, Lake View, Lavonia, and Modoc. Five races are $5000 to win, one is $7000 to win, and two are $10,000 to win. The series champion, which has been Chris Madden the previous two years, will win $15,000. The full tour will again be streamed live on DIRTVision. For more details, visit xtremedirtcar.com.
There are 41 shows on the streaming schedule for tonight, with a bunch more to come this weekend. That includes the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars in the northeast, the Prairie Dirt Classic, the All Stars, USAC, and a ton of local and regional racing. If you're looking for something to watch, hit up dirtrackr.com/watchtonight and click some links!
That's it for the show today, hope you have a good Friday and a good weekend. 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!