DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
Dirt racing news, results, discussion, analytics. Sprint cars, late models, modifieds, you name it. From national series, to top local shows. Brought to you five days a week. Email the show at info@dirtrackr.com.
David Gravel wins Knoxville Nationals prelim, Gio Scelzi tops points | DIRTRACKR Daily 8/12/21
Today is Thursday, August 12th, two thousand and twenty one. This is DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Coming up we go deep on night one of the Knoxville Nationals including results and who's in a good spot for Saturday. We also preview tonight's North South weekend opener for the Lucas late models, talk about the Super DIRTcar Series at Orange County, and Tyler Erb has been reinstated.
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 first of two Knoxville Nationals prelim nights is in the books and suddenly, things are looking very similar to 2019 for David Gravel. The defending champion is off to nearly the same start in 2021 at the Nationals as he got off to in 2019. Both years he won the Capitani Classic, and both years he won his prelim night feature from the sixth starting position. What are the differences? He's driving for a different team now, his prelim night in 2019 was Thursday, not Wednesday. And he won the Cappy from third in 2019. This year it was from fifth. But either way, Gravel and his Tod Quiring-owned Big Game Motorsports team have done just about everything they've needed to do so far. The name of the game on these prelim nights is getting into that feature from your heat race with the inverts. The drivers that qualified towards the front and were able to get inside those transfer spots all ended up pretty high in the points, including Donny Schatz, Gio Scelzi, Gravel, and James McFadden. Gio is the high point man after night number one thanks to a P2 in qualifying, a fourth in his heat, and second in the feature. The rest of the top eight includes Schatz, Gravel, Logan Schuchart, Brooke Tatnell, McFadden, Justin Henderson, and Justin Peck. The top 16 in combined points from the two nights are locked into Saturday's feature, so you'd figure that at least the top five here are pretty much good to go. McFadden, Henderson, and Peck are all separated by one point, so it could get tight there depending on what happens tonight. That should mean Brooke Tatnell is good to go, which is pretty cool. He was quick time last night, which was his first Nationals quick time of his career. Logan Schuchart also did a hell of a job to get up into the mix after not making the transfer through his heat race. He won the B main and then drove from 21st up to 7th to grab hard charger last night. One driver who had a brutal night last night was Hunter Schuerenberg. They appeared to have engine issues, and the 55 was never really on track except for a brief appearance during hot laps. He'll have to come back strong on Friday night. And if you want a demonstration of the desparation that happens during an event like the Knoxville Nationals, look no further than Scott Bogucki in the B main. The battle for the transfer was on betwen Don Droud and Roger Crockett, and with just a few laps left, Bogucki went full send into turn one and tried to get by both. Instead, he ramped off the berm and nearly wiped out several cars. It wasn't a move that was going to stick, but I applaud the attempt. For the night's feature, I don't think I would have predicted the front two rows to consist of Zeb Wise, Justin Henderson, Justin Peck, and Josh Baughman at the start of the day. It was nice to see some other guys in the mix though. Unfortunately for Wise, after leading lap one, he had issues near half way while running in the top five and was pushed to the work area trailing oil. He will also have to come back on Friday night. Through much of the feature, local favorite Justin Henderson was in control, but Gravel was able to work his magic through lap traffic and run Henderson down, taking the lead with four to go. Scelzi and Schatz also nipped Henderson late, but Justin should be right on the edge of a guaranteed feature start. As for Donny Schatz, he got a lot of praise last night for his performance. He went 7th to 3rd in the feature, and looked fast. He'll no doubt be a serious threat on Saturday night for his possible 11th Knoxville win. Looking down through the points, drivers from 9th to 13th will have a shot at a B main start on Saturday night, and that group from last night includes Danny Dietrich, Josh Baughman, Spencer Bayston, Cory Eliason, and Sheldon Haudenschild. Other drivers that will need to try and make something happen on Friday include Kyle Reinhardt, Jason Sides, Anthony Macri, Tim Shaffer, Lucas Wolfe, and Mark Dobmeier. For tonight, we are going to do it all over again. The other half of the field gets their chance to try and snag a spot in Saturday's big show, including drivers like Kyle Larson, Brad Sweet, Carson Macedo, Tyler Courtney, and more. Hot laps again are scheduled for 7:15 PM CT.
It's been a few weeks since the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series was in action, but they are back for a big weekend at Florence Speedway starting tonight. The North/South Shootout is on the docket for today which will pay $10,000 to the winner before action shifts into the North/South 100 Friday and Saturday. Saturday night's 100 lap main event pays a cool $50,000 to the winner. Tim McCreadie enters as the series points leader over Jonathan Davenport and Hudson O'Neal. In the last race at I-80, McCreadie's second place finish extended what was a shrinking advantage previously. The gap back to Superman is currently 150, with O'Neal another 10 back. Davenport will be looking to build off the momentum from the USA Nationals win last weekend at Cedar Lake to try and gain some ground. McCreadie was the winner of the North South 100 last season, so you know he can get it done this weekend. But Davenport has had past success at Florence as well. He won the event in 2015, and earlier this season grabbed a podium finish and led some laps at Florence in May. Chris Madden, Ricky Weiss, and Bobby Pierce are all also recent event winners. The Outlaws are off this weekend, so car counts should be strong. It will be interesting to see if any guys skip out on the Summer Nationals races this weekend to instead race at Florence. It sounds like Nick Hoffman won't be racing in his modified, instead choosing to continue driving Scott Bloomquist's late model while he is out. Not that it matters much, because he's already going to win the Modified Nationals championship. I'd also keep an eye on Kyle Bronson over the next few nights. He won the big money at I-80 a few weeks ago, and dang near won the USA Nationals with the Outlaws last weekend. We'll see if he can keep the speed going. One driver we won't see at Florence is Chris Ferguson. Fergy tested positive for covid this week and is sitting out the event. Hopefully he gets well soon. Looking at who's hot with the series, nobody has been on a super incredible streak the previous five races. Stormy Scott actually tops all drivers in average finish over the last five features, currently sitting at 7.2. Davenport leads all drivers with six wins in 2021, while McCreadie tops both the top five list and top ten list. Modifieds are also on the schedule for tonight, with grandstands opening at 5:30 and racing starting at 7:30.
If you aren't interested in the Knoxville Nationals or Lucas late models tonight, the Super DIRTcar Series is another option. They take on the Orange County Fair Speedway in New York for the $10,000 to win Centennial 102. Stewart Friesen is the current series points leader and the most recent winner, back last week at Canandaigua. He'll be looking for win number six of the season at the track operated by his car owner Chris Larsen. Matt Sheppard, Peter Britten, Mike Mahaney, and Mat Williamson make up the rest of the top five in the standings. Williamson, who is the defending series champion, is trying to climb back into the title fight, as he's 142 points out, and Orange County could be a good place to keep that going. He's the defending Centennial 100 race winner. Hot laps get under way at 6:30 PM ET, with racing set to start at 7.
Following his year long suspension and completion of steps outlined in his penalty, Tyler Erb has been reinstated by the World of Outlaws and DIRTcar. Erb was suspended last season at the USA Nationals for turning his car around backwards on the track to retaliate against Bobby Pierce among other violations. Per a series release, Erb can return to competition beginning September 1st quote provided he applies for a DIRTcar license unquote. That would mean Erb would be eligible to race the World 100 at Eldora which gets underway on Wednesday, September 8th. Erb has been racing full time with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series this season. He's currently fifth in the points standings with four wins and 15 top tens in 27 starts.
There are nine shows on the streaming schedule today, headlined by the Knoxville Nationals second prelim night on DIRTVision. The Super DIRTcar Series is also on DIRTVision from the Orange County Fair Speedway. FloRacing has weekly racing from Kossuth County, another night from Action Track USA and Flo 24/7. MAVTV Plus has the opening night of the North South weekend at Florence and Speed Sport has races from Whynot, Victory Lane, and Sunset. 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 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!