DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Hudson O'Neal, Kyle Larson get late model wins; Gravel climbs to 2nd | DIRTRACKR Daily 8/23/21
Today is Monday, August 23rd, two thousand and twenty one. This is DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Coming up we've got a full rundown on everything you need to know from the dirt racing weekend, including results from the Topless 100, another Kyle Larson win, Outlaw wins for David Gravel and Donny Schatz, and a whole lot 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.
At Batesville Motor Speedway in Arkansas over the weekend we had the Topless 100 for the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. With the way he's run lately and his success in the past at Batesville, I thought defending series champion Jimmy Owens would be a factor over the two nights, and that ended up coming to fruition. On Friday night in the lone prelim program, he was quick time, won his heat race, and led all 30 laps from the pole. It was his first Lucas win of 2021, which is wild because he won 11 races in 2020. Tim McCreadie, Nick Hoffman, Brandon Overton, and Ricky Thornton Jr. completed the top five. Friday's action set the first eight rows of the Saturday feature, plus the night's B main lineups. In the 100 lapper that was $40,000 to win, McCreadie and Owens were out front for the first 38 laps. But sixth starting Hudson O'Neal took over on lap 39 following a restart and led the final 62 laps en route to his fourth series win of 2021. Down the stretch, Jonathan Davenport ran him down from 7th and made things interesting. On the white flag lap he threw sliders into both sets of corners, but both times O'Neal was able to drive back by. Davenport had to settle for second at the line, with Brandon Overton third, McCreadie fourth, and Owens fading to fifth. It was a great finish, and it showed how good Davenport is late in these longer races. He just kinda hangs around and saves his stuff, and it damn near paid off on Saturday night. For O'Neal, he continues to show big improvement this season. He's now got wins at East Bay, Atomic, Lucas Oil for the Show Me 100, and Batesville. These last two were big money scores for over $30 grand and $40 grand and he topped big fields to win both. He just needs a bit more consistency to really battle for the title. In the championship standings, JD was able to knock 20 points off of McCreadie's lead, but the gap is still 155. O'Neal is third, 215 back, with Kyle Bronson and Jimmy Owens completing the top five. It's a pretty quick turnaround this week for the Lucas competitors, as they are back in action on Thursday for three straight days of racing at Port Royal. We'll have more on that later in the week.
Elsewhere with national touring late models, the World of Outlaws Late Model Series closed out a busy four race weekend with stops at Williams Grove, Sharon, and Eriez. And joining the Outlaws, fresh off his BC39 win, was Kyle Larson who was back in the Rumley six on Friday at the Grove and Saturday at Sharon. On Friday night, Gregg Satterlee started on the outside pole and led every lap en route to the win at Williams Grove. The $10,000 score was his first Outlaw victory since 2014. Larson started sixth and tried to run Satterlee down in the closing stages through lap traffic, but ended up pulling off with four to go. He had a huge mud clod go through the hood in turn one that caused a tire rub. Behind Satterlee, Chris Madden, Kyle Hardy, Rick Eckert, and Matt Cosner completed the top five. Larson and Kevin Rumley rebounded on Saturday at Sharon though. They went quick time in their group, won heat three, started on the pole, and led every one of the 40 laps. Ryan Gustin hard charged from 14th to finish second, and he tried to track Yung Money down late, but came up short. Brandon Sheppard, Tyler Bruening, and Colton Flinner rounded out the top five. It was a brutal night for Chris Madden who needed a good run. He pulled off with 13 laps to go running seventh with what I believe was rear end issues. He finished 16th and gave up big ground to Sheppard for the championship. And that gap between Smoky and BShepp got even bigger on Sunday with Sheppard leading 36 of 40 laps at Eriez Speedway, bagging his sixth win of 2021 and 75 Outlaw win of his career. He's now in sole posession of second place on the all time wins list, just three behind Josh Richards. Dave Hess Jr. hard charged from 25th to finish second, Chub Frank was third, Dennis Erb Jr. fourth after leading laps early, and Boom Briggs was fifth. I went digging through the dirtrackr.com analytics database, and of the 763 races entered, Hess' +23 charge is third for biggest mover, among all series. Of the 121 Outlaw late model races I have, it's P1, and only a Tony Jackson Jr. 30th to 6th with Lucas back in January, and David Gravel going 26th to 2nd with the Silver Crown cars at the Illinois State Fairgrounds in 2020 were bigger charges. That's pretty incredible. Back to the championship, leaving the weekend, the gap between the top two is now 158. Over the four races, Sheppard went win, sixth, third, win, while Madden was 13th, second, 16th, sixth. 158 points is about 79 positions, and this is starting to feel like it's slipping away from Smoky. This week the Outlaws are headed to Iowa for three nights at Davenport Speedway, starting Thursday.
The World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series was supposed to have three races over the weekend, but the Friday race at River Cities was lost to rain. They will now run that show on Wednesday night this week. That left Saturday at Red River Valley and Sunday at Huset's. I mentioned a few times last week that I thought this would be a good weekend for Donny Schatz to get win number two of the year and it happened on Saturday at Red River Valley. He battled with Logan Schuchart through lap traffic during the middle part of the race and eventually took the lead for good on lap 22. He gapped the field on a late restart to earn win number 301 of his career and he did it in front of his Fargo, North Dakota home town fans. David Gravel finished second, James McFadden was third, Schuchart faded to fourth, and Sheldon Haudenschild was fifth. On Sunday at Huset's Speedway in South Dakota, we had a bit of an unusual front row. Wayne Johnson was on the pole for the first time in seven years with the Outlaws, and Austin McCarl started second. Johnson ended up leading 13 of the first 14 laps, before later finishing seventh. It was his best result of the year. There was trouble for points contender Carson Macedo early in the going. He actually took the lead from Johnson on lap eight, but then tangled with the lap car of Matt Juhl, sending him around and out of the lead. He later finished 18th and gave up big ground in the standings. More on that in a minute. Out front, Austin McCarl took the lead from Wayne Johnson on lap 15, but he was quickly under fire from David Gravel through lap traffic. Gravel, driving the Huset's Speedway sprint car, grabbed the top spot from McCarl on lap 24 and survived two late restarts to earn his eighth Outlaw win of 2021 at his owner's race track. McCarl settled for second, Jacob Allen was third, Donny Schatz fourth, and Kraig Kinser was fifth. It was Gravel's third win in four appearances at Huset's in 2021, with two of those being Outlaw wins. Leaving the weekend, a second and a win was good enough to move Gravel into second in the standings behind Brad Sweet. The gap is 120, which is about 60 positions. A tough weekend for Macedo saw him fall to third, 162 points back. Donny Schatz and Sheldon Haudenschild complete the top five. This is still very much Brad Sweet's title to lose. Macedo certainly didn't need the trouble, and it will be a very tall task for him to climb back in this. Gravel will have to stay white hot to keep the pressure on. He does though have two wins in his previous five full point Outlaw starts. Following River Cities on Wednesday, the series heads to I-80 in Nebraska on Friday and Black Hills Speedway on Sunday.
After three weeks off, the All Star Circuit of Champions continued their 2021 campaign over the weekend with stops at I-96 and Waynesfield. Friday at I-96, Zeb Wise started on the front row and was strong out front early. But he made a mistake up top in three and four on lap four and crashed from the lead. He later finished 11th with the damaged car. The issue for Wise gave the lead to Ian Madsen who is filling in for the injured Paul McMahan in the CJB Motorsports five car. He and Cory Eliason got into a spirited battle through lap traffic, with Eliason eventually coming out on top. Eliason led the final 13 laps en route to his first All Star win of 2021. Points leader Tyler Courtney finished second, Spencer Bayston was third, Justin Peck fourth, and Hunter Schuerenberg was fifth. After originally thinking he was the championship favorite, I can't believe it's taken Eliason until August to finally win his first feature of the season. On Saturday at Waynesfield, it looked like Eliason might go back-to-back. He got by early leader Cap Henry on lap four and ended up leading 23 of the 30 laps. But after a restart with just a few to go, Cole Duncan slipped by the Rudeen 26 and led the final four laps. It was Duncan's second All Star win of the year and sixth of his career. Eliason settled for second, with Peck third, Bayston fourth, and Henry fifth. Eliason did manage to chop a few points out of Courtney's lead, but the gap is still 296. Courtney is currently riding a streak of 16 straight top tens, and if he keeps that up, it will be incredibly difficult for Eliason to run him down. The All Stars head to Pennsylvania this week for stops at Grandview, Williams Grove, Lincoln, and BAPS.
With USAC on Saturday, the Silver Crown cars were in action at the Illinois State Fairgrounds for the Bettenhausen 100. The race was shortened to 76 laps because of rain, and at the end it was points leader Kody Swanson hard charging from 23rd to the win. He changed tires after qualifying and started in the rear. Logan Seavey finished second after leading 32 laps, Shane Cockrum was third, Jerry Coons Jr. fourth, and Kyle Steffens was fifth. A bunch of drivers had issues in qualifying and ended up not racing, including Kyle Cummins, Brady Bacon, CJ Leary, and Chris Windom. Ken Schrader finished 21st in his return to the series. With three wins in six starts, Swanson extended his points lead over Logan Seavey to now 51. The Crown cars are back in a few weeks at Du Quoin.
The national sprint cars of USAC were at Paragon Speedway last night for the first time in 23 years, and we had a new addition to the field. It was announced back on Friday that USAC Midget championship contender Emerson Axsom was joining Clauson Marshall Racing to pilot their 39BC non winged car, replacing Cole Bodine. Axsom will compete in select events for the rest of the season alongside his full midget ride with Petry Motorsports. Bodine made 16 sprint car starts this season, with a best finish of 8th at Lawrenceburg back in April. It was his only top ten finish. Axsom has been very good in midget competition, earning two wins, 16 top fives, and 19 top tens in 24 USAC starts. He's currently second in the standings to Buddy Kofoid. Axsom ended up 10th last night at Paragon after starting 7th. Out front, Logan Seavey led the first seven laps from the outside front row, but Kevin Thomas Jr. was quickly on his heels. KTJ took the lead on lap eight, and drove away to the win in a non-stop feature. Seavey finished second, Kyle Cummins third, points leader Brady Bacon fourth, and Chris Windom hard charged from 18th to finish fifth. We talked last week on the Tuesday show about KTJ's turnaround from 2020, and his fifth win of 2021 keeps him right in step with Bacon. With the Smackdown at Kokomo looming this week, it's only a 39 point difference between Bacon and Thomas. KTJ leads all drivers in moving five race and ten race average finish, and the win was his 16th straight top ten. The Smackdown starts Thursday night at Kokomo.
Don't forget, if you'd like to see full results and stats on any of these races, hit up dirtrackr.com/analytics.
The 2021 Summer Nationals and Modified Nationals seasons came to a close this weekend. Ashton Winger won the final two late model races at Tri-City and Merritt, while Bobby Pierce was crowned the series champion. Hunt Gossum and Jacob Poel split the modified wins, with Nick Hoffman officially crowned the champion for the fourth time. Both Pierce and Hoffman were dominant throughout. Congrats to them on the championships.
Other weekend late model winners included Spencer Dierks at West Liberty, Brian Shirley with MARS at Peoria, Payton Freeman with the Southern All Stars at I-75, Devin Gilpin won at Portsmouth, and Ross Bailes was the Carolina Clash winner at Harris Speedway. For more from the late model weekend, hit up dirtondirt.com.
In other weekend open wheel action, Cole Macedo won Friday at Attica, Alex Bright grabbed a USAC east coast victory at Bedford, Cannon McIntosh was a POWRi Midget winner at Charleston, TMez and Jake Swanson split non-wing wins at Gas City, Paul Nienhiser won the Sprint Invaders show at Lee County, Anthony Macri bagged his first 410 win at Williams Grove, Mario Clouser won the WAR feature at Lake Ozark and is on the verge of the series championship, Chase Dietz won at Lincoln, Shane Golobic won with the Sprint Car Challenge Tour at Ocean, Macri won Saturday at Port Royal, Brody Roa was the CRA winner at Perris, Trey Jacobs won at Wayne County, and Scotty Thiel bagged the IRA win Sunday at Angell Park. For more, visit TJSlideways.com.
The only thing on the streaming schedule for today 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!