DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Kasey Kahne replaces Aaron Reutzel at Roth, Larson wins Stoops Pursuit | DIRTRACKR Daily 8/19/21
Today is Thursday, August 19th, two thousand and twenty one. This is DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Coming up we have driver news from Roth Motorsports, Paul McMahan is sitting out, we've got last night's results from the BC39, and we look ahead to tonight's World of Outlaws Late Model and Lucas races.
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.
We'll kick today's show off with a few different sprint car news items from yesterday. First, after a successful week at Knoxville and Osky, Roth Motorsports announced yesterday that Kasey Kahne will pilot the 83 car for the remainder of the World of Outlaws sprint car series season. Kahne picked up a top five at Southern Iowa Speedway before going quick time and finishing sixth on his prelim night. He rounded out the Nationals with a top ten in the Saturday finale. Grant Boyum will crew chief the 83 for the rest of 2021 as well. Kahne replaces Aaron Reutzel, who is under that suspension from the World of Outlaws stemming from the chassis tubing thickness issues a few weeks ago and his team messing with inspection stickers. If you'd like more details on that, I'll link to the Reutzel penalty video I did below in the description on YouTube. In response, Aaron Reutzel did put out a statement yesterday about the penalties and his future. I believe it's the first time we've had public comments from Reutzel since all this started. He said quote They (Roth Motorsports) made a proposal to finish out the season that I wasn’t comfortable with, I felt it was best for us to part ways and I’ll pursue some other opportunities that have been presented unquote. About the penalties specifically, Reutzel said quote It has been a favorite car of mine for years, so I made the mistake of changing the sticker. I own up to it, it was a stupid mistake on my part and something I’ll never do again. The car was never intended to be illegal in any way unquote. There had been a lot of rumors about Reutzel being out of the car even after the penalty was served, but this at least makes it sound like he had a chance to stay. It's also nice to see someone admit to the penalty, instead of either blaming someone else or denying it completely. Once the suspension has been served, it sounds like we'll see A-Aron back somewhere, we'll just have to wait for more details on what that will look like. If you'd like to see the full release from Reutzel, you can find it at aaronreutzelracing.com. The Outlaws kick off a three race weekend starting tomorrow.
Elsewhere, Paul McMahan will be sitting out of All Star competition for at least the next few weeks while he recovers from a concussion suffered during that wild prelim night crash at the Knoxville Nationals. That was the one that started with Carson Macedo and wiped out several cars. While he's healing up, Ian Madsen will take his place behind the wheel of the CJB Motorsports five car starting with this weekend's All Star shows at I-96 and Waynesfield. McMahan didn't compete on Knoxville Saturday after the incident, while Madsen was an A main starter, picking up a 16th place finish. Following this weekend, the All Stars head to Pennsylvania to close out the month of August with shows at Grandview, Williams Grove, Lincoln, and BAPS.
The first of two nights of the BC39 for the USAC midgets took place last night at the Dirt Track at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and there were plenty of fireworks. The eight heat races were won by Cole Bodine, Chase Randall, Tyler Courtney, Aiden Purdue, Justin Grant, Ryan Timms, Corey Day, and Kyle Cummins. Other drivers with strong runs included Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, Logan Seavey, Kaylee Bryson, and Kevin Thomas Jr. Those heat races will determine tonight's qualifiers, and then following those we'll have mains set. Also last night was the Stoops pursuit race, which eliminated drivers from the field every five laps during competition yellows. Right at the start we had a big pileup which collected Ryan Newman, Chris Windom, Thomas Meseraull, Aiden Purdue, Buddy Kofoid, Ryan Timms, Corey Day, Chase Elliott, Kaylee Bryson, Logan Seavey, and Spencer Bayston. Those drivers were all eliminated from the race before we even had a lap complete. At the first competition yellow after five laps, we lost Chase Randall and Jerry Coons Jr. During the second segment we lost Conor Daly and Cole Bodine to incidents, and then nobody after five laps because Bodine was the leader to start round two. In the third round we lost Daison Pursley to a spin while everyone else held serve. And then before the final round we lost Tyler Courtney, Emerson Axsom, and Chase Briscoe. That left seven cars to battle it out over the final five laps for the win with Kyle Cummins leading, Justin Grant second, Kyle Larson third, Tanner Thorson fourth, Brady Bacon fifth, Zeb Wise sixth, and JJ Yeley seventh. Once green, both Grant and Cummins ended up making mistakes, basically handing the lead to Larson who drove away on a restart with two to go to bag the win. Thorson finished second with Bacon third, Grant fourth, and Wise fifth. I think if Cummins doesn't spin coming to two to go, he may have won it. I'm not sure Larson could have gotten enough momentum to get by. Either way, it was a fun night, with a bunch more to come tonight. Grandstands open at 4PM, with cars on track for hot laps at 4:30.
Last night with the Summer Nationals, Bobby Pierce continued his hot summer picking up win number 13 of 2021 and his 40th career Hell Tour victory. Following an opening lap caution, Pierce grabbed the lead from pole sitter Devin Moran on the complete restart and was out front officially for all 40 laps. Ashton Winger ended up second, Moran third, Mitch McGrath fourth, and Rusty Schlenk completed the top five. A crash and a 21st place result for Tanner English pushes him further behind Pierce in the standings and all but guarantees the Smooth Operator his fourth series championship. In the modified race, Will Krup led all but one lap to go back-to-back at Butler Motor Speedway in Modified Nationals competition. He held off the field on a late restart and drove away to win over Hunt Gossum, Dillon Nusbaum, Chad Bauer, and Brandon Bollinger. Nick Hoffman will be the eventual series champion, but he isn't competing in this final week as he will again be behind the wheel of the Scott Bloomquist late model this weekend at Batesville with Lucas. Just three Hell Tour races remain, with action shifting to I-96 Speedway tonight. For more info, visit dirtcarsummernationals.com.
Both national late model tours have busy weekends on tap that start tonight. The Topless 100 is at Batesville Motor Speedway through the weekend for the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. Thursday and Friday are prelim nights featuring a full program of racing and $5000 to win features. Drivers will earn points through the first two nights which will setup Saturday's action that will be capped by a 100 lap, $40,000 to win main event. The top 16 in combined points will be locked into Saturday's feature. Last season at Batesville, Tim McCreadie and Jimmy Owens split the prelim nights, with Owens going on to lead all 100 laps in the Saturday feature, holding off Earl Pearson Jr., McCreadie, Billy Moyer, and Dale McDowell. McCreadie will be looking to match that success this weekend as he tries to extend his points lead over Jonathan Davenport and Hudson O'Neal. For defending champion Owens, 2021 has been a battle with only six top fives in 29 starts, but Batesville could be coming at a good time for him. He's on a run of three straight fourth place finishes and this is as good a track as any for Owens to break through this year.
With the World of Outlaws Late Models, they begin a four race weekend tonight at the Orange County Fair Speedway in New York. When they roll in though, they will be missing a series regular. Cade Dillard, who has two wins and currently sits sixth in the standings, announced via his social media yesterday that he is dropping off the tour full time. According to his post, he wanted to miss tonight's Outlaw show to be there for his daughter's first day of school, but couldn't work out a solution with the series that would allow him to keep his full time status. If that's true, it's a shame, because Dillard has been one of the main contenders the last few seasons with the Outlaws. But as a dad that's missed a lot of things because of racing, I certainly don't blame him for making the decision. Family is too important. Going forward, Dillard will pick and choose his schedule, which will start this weekend with him racing the Topless 100 with Lucas. As for the Outlaws, the points battle between Brandon Sheppard and Chris Madden continues, with Smoky really needing to start making big moves to claw his way back in to the fight. He's currently 102 points behind BShepp and is running out of races. Joining the fray tonight are regular modified runners Stewart Friesen and Max McLaughlin. Friesen will be behind the wheel of his Halmar team's Longhorn Chassis that has been out a few times this season, including a seventh place finish with Lucas at Bubba Raceway Park in February. Max will be in a car owned by Boom Briggs making his series debut. Both the Outlaws and Lucas races will be live streamed if you can't attend.
And speaking of streaming, it's a busy day on the services with 12 different shows on the docket for today. Dirt Track Digest has weekly action from Mohawk, DIRTVision has the World of Outlaws Late Models at Orange County and the Summer Nationals. FloRacing has night two of the BC39, plus IMCA racing from 141, weekly action at Kossuth County and Flo 24/7. MAVTV Plus has the first night of the Topless 100, and there are four local shows on Speed Sport. 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!