DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, Chase Briscoe highlight BC39 USAC Midget field | DIRTRACKR Daily 8/18/21
Today is Wednesday, August 18th, two thousand and twenty one. This is DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Coming up we go full ham on the BC39, including a format rundown, who's racing, and tonight's heat race lineups. We are also talking Summer Nationals, and news from the ALl Stars, Super DIRTcar Series, and King of the West.
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.
One of the more unique races on the calendar is kicking off tonight, with the USAC midgets set to take on the Dirt Track at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the BC39. This will be the third time the event has been contested with Brady Bacon and Zeb Wise being the previous two winners. I say unique because of the setup of the race track. The 1/4 mile dirt oval is located inside turn three of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which is wild to think, because also inside the track is the normal infield stuff you'd find at a big track, plus plenty of open space for other events, and several holes of the Brickyard Crossing golf course. It gives you an idea of just how big Indy is if you haven't ever attended a race there. The field of cars expected for the next two nights is completed slam packed with talent and is 72 entries strong. That includes all your favorite USAC National Midget contenders like Buddy Kofoid, Chris Windom, Tanner Thorson, Justin Grant, Logan Seavey, Thomas Meseraull, Emerson Axsom, Kevin Thomas Jr., and more. The field will also include Tyler Courtney back in a midget, Kyle Larson fresh off his Knoxville Nationals triumph, NASCAR drivers Chase Elliott, Chase Briscoe, Ryan Newman, and JJ Yeley; IndyCar star Conor Daly, and plenty of young talent like California's Corey Day, Ohio's Jacob Denney, and Washington's Chance Crum. I'm also stoked to see my buddy Brian Dunlap and his dad Mike fielding a car for Gary Taylor. Thursday's 39 lap feature will pay $15,000 to the winner, but a very different than normal format is being used to lineup the potential 26 car field. Tonight the field is broken up into eight heat races with drivers earning passing points. Those points standings will then lineup Thursday's six qualifying races. Drivers will also earn passing points in those races, with the final standings setting lineups for the eventual D Main, C Main, B Main, and feature. Also on the card for tonight is the Stoops Pursuit race which is a 25 lapper split into five lap segments, with cars being eliminated at each break if they don't gain positions. The field for that race is being set by heat race winners, highest points earner in each heat, and promoters options. Tonight's heat race lineups were set by a draft that happened last night. The field was randomly ordered and drivers could pick their starting spots in each heat race. It was an interesting exercise as drivers chose between track position or the possibility of more passing points starting deeper. HEAT RACE LINEUPS? Action today at IMS gets underway at 5PM for hot laps, with heat races scheduled for 7:30. It's shaping up to be a really entertaining two days. For more info on the event, visit usacracing.com.
The 2021 Summer Nationals come to a close this week with four final race nights. It all begins tonight with a trip to Butler Motor Speedway for both the late models and modifieds. The two championships are basically done with Nick Hoffman set to be the Modified Nationals champion and Bobby Pierce getting ready to break Brian Shirley's string of three straight Hell Tour titles. This will be Pierce's fourth championship, after he went three straight from 2015 to 2017. For Hoffman, this will be his fourth championship overall and fourth in a row. He did it on the strength of 19 wins this season, just an incredible run. Looking at tonight, Will Krup was the modified winner at Butler in 2020, while Brian Shirley was the late model winner. Outside of the champions and the wins from the usual suspects, I've been really impressed with Ashton Winger this season. To come in and pick up four late model wins against these types of fields has been really fun to watch. He's definitely a rising star in the late model ranks, and hopefully he's able to parlay this success into more appearances with the big series and at the big shows and maybe a return full time to a national series. To keep up, make sure you're following @SummerNationals on Twitter, and you can find more at dirtcarsummernationals.com and modifiednationals.com.
Due to impending weather this weekend in Indiana, the All Stars have made an audible to their weekend schedule. They will still race on Friday night at I-96 Speedway in Michigan, but the Saturday race has been shifted. Instead of taking on Plymouth Speedway, the series will now co-sanction Saturday's FAST Series race at Waynesfield Raceway Park in Ohio. Both shows are $5000 to win. The All Stars have already appeared at both tracks in 2021, with series points leader Tyler Courtney winning the I-96 race back on May 14th. That was a pivotal win for Courtney who has since won six more times and racked up 27 top ten finishes in his past 28 races to seize control of the championship lead. The last appearance for the series at Waynesfield was during Ohio Sprint Speedweek where Kyle Larson was the winner. So, Friday is the same at I-96. Saturday has shifted from Plymouth to Waynesfield. For more on the announcement, visit allstarsprint.com. We'll have more on the All Stars later in the week.
Last night's Super DIRTcar Series race at Brewerton was lost to weather, but officials announced that the event will be rescheduled as part of Super DIRT Week coming up in October. The race will now be run on Tuesday, October 5th and it will still be an opportunity for someone to grab a guaranteed starting spot in the Super DIRT Week finale the following Sunday. You can find ticket information at superdirtcarseries.com.
The NARC King of the West Sprint Cars have a busy schedule of races coming up next week, but the Fastest Five Days in Motorsports will now be four. The opening race at Placerville Speedway, which was scheduled for next Wednesday the 25th has been cancelled. The El Dorado County Fairgrounds where Placerville Speedway is located is being used as a staging area for nearby wildfires. The week will now get started next Thursday at Merced, before continuing Friday at Ocean, Saturday at Stockton, and closing out Sunday at Petaluma. It's not uncommon for these fairgrounds facilities to be used like this, and hopefully they are able to get those fires contained soon. Through nine races so far in 2021, Dominic Scelzi is the King of the West points leader by just six over DJ Netto. Bud Kaeding, Tim Kaeding, and Sean Becker complete the top five. Scelzi leads the series with three wins, Tim Kaeding has two, while Billy Aton, Becker, Netto, and Justin Sanders all have one each. For more on the upcoming races, hit up narc410.com.
On the dirt racing podcast front, there are a bunch of new episodes from the past week to check out. Winged Nation has Brad Doty, Carl Bowser, Eric Arnold, Gio Scelzi, plus they posted recordings of their live shows from Knoxville. Open Red has Kyle Larson, Forward Bite has Kenny Collins, TJSlideways has Kevin Feeney, and there are new episodes of Stick Signals, the Dirt Nerds, and Wednesdays with Wayne. To see the full list of shows and episodes, hit up dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
There are six shows on the streaming schedule today. DIRTVision has the Summer Nationals and action from Millbridge, and FloRacing has the BC39, sprint cars from Bridgeport, IMCA racing from 141 Speedway and Flo 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 Wednesday. 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!