DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Knoxville Nationals to Kyle Larson, Brandon Overton takes North/South 100 | DIRTRACKR Daily 8/16/21
Today is Monday, August 16th, two thousand and twenty one. This is DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Coming up we are talking Kyle Larson's Knoxville Nationals victory, a big money score for Brandon Overton, the Summer Nationals 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 60th Knoxville Nationals are complete, and as many probably predicted, including my own win picking formula, Kyle Larson came through for his first ever Nationals title. He started third, worked his way forward, took the lead from Donny Schatz on lap 25 right before the fuel stop, and held the field at bay over the final half to score the $176,000 win. He got $150k for the W and an extra 26 grand for leading 26 laps. Donny Schatz finished second, Brad Sweet third, Gio Scelzi fourth, and Logan Schuchart was fifth. It was yet another incredible performance for Larson in a season that has been full of them. 2020 was about quantity for Yung Money, and 2021 has been about quality. The 46 wins last season were remarkable, but I personally think 2021 has been more impressive. The Chili Bowl, Coke 600, Prairie Dirt Classic, Kings Royal, and now the Knoxville Nationals. He is stacking up crown jewels like he's royalty and we're running out of big time races he hasn't won. I'm not sure we've ever seen a season like this from a driver and we might never see it again. The combination of teams and cars that Larson has put together for himself are incredible and have allowed him to win at any moment in any division, and more is still possible this season, including a very good shot at his first ever NASCAR Cup championship. In the Saturday night feature he showed incredible control, going hard when he had to and being patient and protecting when necessary. Donny Schatz took two hail mary shots at him late, but with the rubber down around the bottom, Larson did everything he needed to do to secure the win. You could tell in victory lane how much the win meant to him, as he was choked up talking to Mike Roberts in his interview. You haven't seen that from Larson before, through all the winning he's done. This was one he wanted really bad and it showed. Behind Larson, there were plenty of other storylines from the weekend. Friday night saw Rico Abreu, Anthony Macri, Shane Stewart, and Brock Zearfoss all secure spots in the Saturday feature. It was a nice recovery for Stewart after his prelim night, and a fantastic performance for a guy who doesn't drive race cars anymore. The battle of the weekend was definitely the one for the final transfer spot in the Saturday B main. Sheldon Haudenschild somehow beating Spencer Bayston back to the line and not ending up completely wadded up afterwards was something for the ages. Complete heartbreak for Bayston, but what a drive and a move from Sheldon to get into the big show. He parlayed it into a top 10 finish as well. I've felt all season like we should be seeing more wins from Gio Scelzi, but sitting on the nationals pole, leading laps, and finishing fourth to three legends shows how talented he is. There is definitely more to come from Gio. And kudos to Bernie Stuebgen for getting both his cars into the Saturday A main, crew chiefing Gio's 18 and his own car with Stewart. That's one hell of a feat. Also, I'm disappointed for Carson Macedo. I think without that Thursday crash he would have been a factor on Saturday night. He was quickly into the top ten in the feature, but stalled out and finished 9th. I was also impressed with what Kasey Kahne got done this week in the Roth 83. To get the late call and end up with a Nationals top ten was pretty incredible. We'll have to wait and see who pilots that car going forward, but I'd say Kahne has made a nice case for himself. Overall, it was an incredible week of racing from Knoxville. Hopefully you got a chance to watch it. And if you haven't, go hop into the on demand section of DIRTVision. You won't be disappointed. Later in the week we'll jump back into the World of Outlaws season, but for now, we'll just bask in the awesomeness that was the 60th Knoxville Nationals.
The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series was in action over the weekend with big money on the line at Florence Speedway for the North/South 100. Following Friday night's heat races, points leader Tim McCreadie was on the pole of Saturday's 100 lapper with Michael Chilton to his outside. McCreadie stayed out front through the opening stretch, but third starting Brandon Overton was stalking him. With the two into lap traffic, Overton was able to sneak by and take the top spot on lap 22. From there, he went unchallenged for the remainder of the race, eventually winning by 4.7 seconds over McCreadie with Jonathan Davenport third, Jimmy Owens fourth, and Josh Rice completing the top five. It was a weekend sweep for Overton and it pushed his Lucas win total to four for 2021. We also had impressive drives from Nick Hoffman who went 21st to 7th after transferring in from a B main, and Stormy Scott was hard charger, starting 24th and finishing 9th. In the battle for the Lucas championship, McCreadie finishing in front of his nearest rivals extended his points lead to 175. That means that Davenport trails by something between 30 and 35 positions, depending on future results. There are 22 race nights left in the season, but not all of those will pay points. On average through the remainder of the year, Davenport probably needs to best McCreadie by around two positions per night to pull even for the title. Hudson O'Neal has slowly slid out of the battle, sitting 255 points out in third. Kyle Bronson and Jimmy Owens complete the top five. The run of big money races for Lucas continues this weekend with the Topless 100 at Batesville. We'll have more on that later in the week.
Something I wondered about this weekend as we were in the midst of the Knoxville Nationals. It felt like on social media that the entire dirt world was focused on Knoxville and not much else. Even with $50 grand on the line, not many were talking about what was happening with Lucas at Florence. With the perceived split along division lines, you would have expected that late model fans would have been focused on what was happening away from Knoxville and that chatter about Florence and the Summer Nationals would have been more prevalent, but it just wasn't. The sprint car side does a much better job on social across the board, from the series, drivers, fans, and media, and I think that's a big miss for the late model community. On a weekend like we just had, they were completely drowned out. And even looking at my own content, the sprint car stuff just does better. In my top 20 YouTube videos by views, very few were late model focused. It's a shame because there has been some great late model racing this season and there are some fun personalities. But for whatever reason, it just doesn't get the attention. Drop me a comment and let me know what you think about this topic. I know the audience is there. A packed grandstand at Florence and things like Hunt the Front's YouTube channel shows it. But why doesn't the late model community buy in? Where was your attention this weekend. Let me know.
With the Summer Nationals over the weekend, Brandon Sheppard and Bobby Pierce split the wins at Highland and Pevely. On Friday at Highland, Pierce and Sheppard put on a great show battling at the front for much of the race. Sheppard had taken the lead at one point, but a timely caution gave the top spot back to Pierce. And then later, a timely caution went the other way and put Sheppard out front for good. Contact between the B5 and the 32 with 12 to go nearly sent Pierce around and that ended up being the difference. Sheppy drove away to the $10,000 victory with Pierce second, Tanner English third, Garrett Alberson fourth, and Ashton Winger fifth. On Saturday night at Pevely, young Logan Martin led the field to green from the pole, but he collided with the lap car of Jeff Roth just seven laps deep which sent him into the wall and ended his night. That handed the lead to Daryn Klein for the impending restart, but Pierce slipped past him in turns one and two and that was it. Pierce drove away to his 12th win of 2021 and $10,000. Sheppy finished second, Ashton Winger third, Shannon Babb fourth, and Gordy Gundaker was fifth. With just four races left in the season, Pierce extended his series points lead over English and Winger. With the modifieds, Nick Hoffman was absent this weekend, competing in the Lucas shows at Florence with Scott Bloomquist. That opened the door for some other drivers to shine. Friday night at Highland it was Mike Harrison bagging the win, and Saturday at Pevely young Brandon Bollinger scored his first ever Modified nationals win. Both the late models and modifieds are off today and tomorrow, with the stretch to the end starting Wednesday at Butler Motor Speedway. From there, they race Thursday at I-96, Friday at Tri-City, and close out the year on Saturday at Merritt.
Other weekend late model winners included Jimmy Mars at Red Cedar Speedway, Ross Bailes in Carolina Clash action at Carolina Speedway, Michael Page with the Southern All Stars at Talladega Short Track, Payton Looney with the MLRA at Lake Ozark, and Kyle Hardy in a super at Hagerstown. For more from the late model weekend check out dirtondirt.com.
Other weekend open wheel winners included an MSCS sweep for Chase Stockon at Terre Haute and Haubstadt, stop me if you've heard this one before, Justin Sanders won at Ocean, Carl Bowser won at Sharon, Andy Forsberg at Placerville, and Nate Dussel won at Fremont in FAST Series action. For more from the open wheel weekend, check out TJSlideways.com.
There are two items on the streaming schedule for today. Speed Sport has sprint cars from Coos Bay Speedway and there is FloRacing 24/7. 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!