DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Kyle Larson wins $50k Prairie Dirt Classic; Reutzel, Gravel split WoO wins | DIRTRACKR Daily 8/2/21
Today is Monday, August 2nd, two thousand and twenty one. This is DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Coming up we are talking a huge late model win for Kyle Larson, some unexpected performances with the Outlaws in New York, a Kerry Madsen All Star sweep, we crowned the Indiana Sprint Week champion, and a bunch 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 just a little more than two weeks ago at Eldora that Kyle Larson picked up the first crown jewel win of his career in a sprint car. He bagged the 37th Kings Royal and $175,000, and that was after he crashed earlier in the day and missed the 38th Kings Royal feature. This weekend, he was back in the Rumley 6 late model, and surely he couldn't win a late model crown jewel just a few weeks after winning a sprint car crown jewel, right? Wrong. On Saturday night at Fairbury in the Prairie Dirt Classic, Larson started seventh and was leading by lap 31. He led the final 70 laps en route to the $50,000 victory and became the first driver in history who has wins with both the World of Outlaws Late Models and World of Outlaws Sprint Cars. It was yet another stand out performance for Larson, and he did it beating the best in the game. 74 cars were in the field that included Sheppard, Davenport, Overton, Madden, Babb, Owens, Pierce, and many more. Larson started out on Friday going quick time in his group by more than two tenths and set himself up for a decent starting position with a second place finish in his heat. In the Saturday feature, Bobby Pierce led the first 30 laps from the pole, but Larson tracked him down and pounced on lap 31. The two actually made contact and Pierce was none too pleased with the move. Larson then drove out to a big lead, but both Pierce and Shannon Babb closed up to the six when a caution flew on lap 22. Over the final laps with Larson mostly through the middle and bottom, Pierce tried to roll the top back to the lead, with both drivers making wild moves through lap traffic. In the end though, Pierce couldn't get close enough to mount a serious attempt and Larson bagged the win. Pierce finished second, Babb third, Chris Madden fourth, and Brandon Sheppard was fifth. I'm out of nice things to say about Larson. He is hands down the best race car driver in the country. This season he's won the Chili Bowl, the Coke 600, the Kings Royal, and now the PDC. It is completely unprecedented. As for the Outlaws, Brandon Sheppard leaves the weekend with an 86 point lead on Chris Madden. The rest of the field is more than 300 points behind. The series is at Outagamie Speedway tomorrow night before the $50,000 to win USA Nationals at Cedar Lake happen this weekend. We'll have more on that later in the week.
The World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series was in New York this weekend for the first time in a few years. Friday night at Ransomville we had a standout performance by a young local driver and Saturday night it was Sheldon Haudenschild again losing a win late in the going. At Ransomville, Aaron Reutzel led all 30 laps to bag his fourth win of the season. Behind him though, we nearly had a massive upset for the win. Paulie Colagiovanni started fourth raced past guys like Brad Sweet and Carson Macedo, and challenged Reutzel late before settling for second. Announcer Johnny Gibson kept talking about how it would be the biggest upset in Outlaw history if Paulie would have won, and looking at the stats, it's easy to understand why. Entering Friday, Paulie only had four prior appearances with the Outlaws and three feature starts. He had a 16th place finish at Fulton and a 17th place result at Ransomville in 2017. He was 23rd at Ransomville in 2018, with no Outlaw appearances in 2019 or 2020. But the young New York driver has been on the rise lately. He has a USCS and Patriot Sprint Tour win this season, a URC win in 2020, and 11 Empire Super Sprint wins back through 2017. His 2nd at Ransomville and an eighth on Saturday night at Weedsport were impressive finishes, and hopefully we'll get to see more of him in the future. On Saturday night at Weedsport, David Gravel led the final two laps to earn his seventh Outlaw win of 2021. The story though was yet another late mistake from Sheldon Haudenschild. Sheldon passed pole sitter Donny Schatz on lap 22 to take the lead, and it looked like he was on his way to a commanding victory. But with two to go, Sheldon inexplicably made contact with the lap car of James McFadden into turn one and ended up in the outside wall. The two almost tangled out of turn four, and I'm not quite sure where Sheldon was going into one. He had a decent enough lead that he could have been patient with McFadden and not risked the lead, but instead drove right over McFadden's left rear on corner entry. He later finished 12th. I've said it before, but the aggressiveness is what makes Sheldon fun to watch, but also really frustrating at times. He'd have so many more wins and good finishes if he could just find a little patience. Leaving the two races, the points remain status quo. Sweet leads Macedo by 120 and Gravel by 136. The Outlaws are back Friday and Saturday for the Ironman 55 at Pevely.
The All Star Circuit of Champions is now on a break until later in the month, but before they went quiet, they had two shows in Iowa this weekend. Friday night at 34 Raceway it was Kerry Madsen hard charging from 10th to bag his first series win of 2021. He topped Tyler Courtney and early leader Bill Balog. It was the second time a winner had started 10th this season, but not the furthest we've seen an All Star winner charge. If you might remember Paul McMahan won at Portsmouth from 12th during Ohio Speedweek, and Logan Schuchart won at Volusia early in the year from 13th. And then Saturday at Knoxville, Madsen went ahead and just made it a clean sweep, leading the final 10 laps and topping Spencer Bayston and Gio Scelzi. We had a fantastic mid race battle between the top three, with Madsen eventually coming out on top. And as expected, we saw a healthy field of cars in attendance. Drivers from all over took advantage of the night to get laps ahead of the upcoming Knoxville Nationals. The 46 car field included the All Star and Knoxville regulars, plus guys like Rico, Shane Golobic, Chad Kemenah, Tanner Holmes, Sye Lynch, and Kasey Kahne. Heading into the break now, Tyler Courtney's championship lead has ballooned to 308 over Cory Eliason. Eliason needed a provisional to start the feature on Saturday night and ended up 19th. The series is back August 20th at I-96.
In sprint car action on Friday and Saturday of the non-wing type, Indiana Sprint Week for the USAC competitors came to a close with stops at Bloomington and Haubstadt. At Bloomington, early leader CJ Leary slipped off the backstretch on lap 15 and that handed the top spot to Brady Bacon. Bacon went on to the victory after not even making the feature start the night before because of magneto issues. The win brought him to within 12 points of sprint week leader Logan Seavey headed to the finale, but incredibly neither driver would end up with the sprint week title. On Saturday night at Haubstadt, both Bacon and Seavey started deep in the field and that opened the door for Kevin Thomas Jr. KTJ was third in the points entering the night and his second place finish behind a dominating win for Justin Grant was good enough to earn him the week long championship. Seavey ended up 14th, while Bacon's hard charge from 22nd to eighth just wasn't quite good enough. It ended up being a really entertaining speed week though, with Logan Seavey showing some muscle, the fireworks between Thorson and Leary, and the come from behind championship for KTJ. Bacon maintains the season long championship lead over KTJ and Grant, and the series is off now until August 20th.
The 2021 Southern Nationals series for late models came to an end this weekend with three final races. Friday at 411 it was Cory Hedgecock taking the $10,000 win over Randy Weaver and Pierce McCarter. Saturday at Tazewell in the last points paying race, Michael Chilton was the $10,000 winner over McDowell and Zack Mitchell. A fifth place finish for Donald McIntosh was good enough for him to win the Southern Nationals title. And in the Sunday finale at Volunteer Speedway, Dale McDowell dominated, leading all 40 laps en route to the win over Zack Mitchell and Dakota Knuckles.
With the ASCS National Tour this weekend, Sprint Week came to a close with two shows. Friday at Tulsa Blake Hahn and leader Jason Martin came together late in the race, and Hahn survived an encounter with an infield tire to take the lead and drive away to the win. Ryan Timms and JJ Hickle joined him on the podium. On Saturday at Outlaw Motor Speedway, Ryan Timms led all but one lap en route to this fourth win of the week and it secured him the sprint week title. He was followed to the line by Matt Covington and Jason Martin. It was an incredible week for Timms who finished first or second in every race but one. With sprint week complete, the battle for the 2021 national tour title is still tight at the top. Blake Hahn leads Matt Covington by just five points with JJ Hickle only 33 points back in third. The busy stretch for the ASCS continues this week with the series headed to Lakeside Speedway on Tuesday and the 360 Knoxville Nationals this weekend.
Other weekend open wheel winners included Trey Jacobs at Attica, Jordan Mallett with the USCS at Deep South, Max Stambaugh at I-96, Scott Thiel with the IRA at Langlade, Harli White won the NRA show at Limaland, Dominic Scelzi was a 360 winner at Ocean, Cole Duncan won at Atomic, DJ Foos at Fremont, Gio Scelzi in the 360 at Knoxville, Freddie Rahmer at Lincoln, Matt Campbell at Williams Grove, Brent Marks at Port Royal, and Mark Dobmeier won the Sunday 410 feature at Huset's. For more weekend open wheel winners, visit tjslideways.com.
Other weekend late model winners included Tyler Erb sweeping the Ultimate Heart of America weekend at Circle City and Shadyhill, Zack Mitchell won a Carolina Clash show at Lavonia, Kyle Beard won the Comp Cams feature at Batesville, Dillon Brown was an All Star winner at Wythe Raceway, Max Blair won at Stateline, and Gregg Satterlee won Saturday at Port Royal. For more from the late model weekend, check out dirtondirt.com.
There are just two shows on the streaming schedule for today with FloRacing 24/7 and SpeedSport streaming weekly action from the Clay County Fair Speedway. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, 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!