DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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World of Outlaws title fight heads to River Cities, Pauch takes STSS win | DIRTRACKR Daily 8/25/21
Today is Wednesday, August 25th, two thousand and twenty one. This is DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Coming up we are talking Outlaws at River Cities, news from Cole Bodine, and we've got results from last night's wild races at Fremont and Georgetown Speedway.
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.
After getting rained out on Friday night, the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars are back at River Cities Speedway tonight in Grand Forks, North Dakota. If you're around tonight, I'd definitely recommend getting to the track or watching this race live. River Cities always puts on good shows. The Outlaws will race tonight, Friday in Nebraska at I-80, Sunday at Black Hills in South Dakota, and then they head west for the traditional fall swing through the west coast. Barring any cancellations from weather or other factors, there are currently 22 race nights left for the Outlaws. That means 22 more chances for David Gravel and Carson Macedo to try and run down Brad Sweet for the championship. Gravel is currently 120 points out, with Macedo 162 back. At basically two points per position, Gravel needs to beat Sweet by 60 spots down the stretch to pull even. That's 2.7 positions on average per night. For Macedo, that number is 3.68. With as consistent as Sweet has been in recent seasons, both drivers are seriously up against it. For reference, Sweet has 219 top ten results in 256 Outlaw races since 2018. That means over 85% of the time, Sweet is finishing top ten. The most consistent driver in recent weeks with the series has been Donny Schatz. He has 12 straight top ten finishes, which includes nine top fives and that win at Red River Valley over the weekend. He's probably too far back to make a run for the title, but he will be in the mix for race wins down the stretch here. Looking at tonight specifically, Schatz has also won three of the last five races at River Cities. Kyle Larson and Logan Schuchart have the other wins. Another driver I'd keep an eye on tonight is James McFadden. He has two top six finishes in his last two River Cities appearances, and is riding a streak of 10 top tens in his last 11 Outlaw races. This might be a good place for him to get win number two of the year. Based on past races, I'd guess we'll be somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 to 30 cars tonight. Depending on track conditions, pay attention to qualifying. We've been in the 10 second range for the pole in recent years, with Larson just narrowly missing out on a nine second lap at the track in 2020, going 10.056. Grandstands open tonight at 4PM central time, with hot laps at 6:30.
I had a question on Monday's show in the YouTube comments about Larson's upcoming dirt schedule. I replied that I thought we could possibly see him this week at Port Royal in the late model or in the sprint car with the All Stars in Pennsylvania. But he told NBC's Nate Ryan that he has no dirt races on his schedule this week, but will race next week before the NASCAR playoffs begin at Darlington. I have no inside information here, but the most likely scenario for next week feels like the World of Outlaws late models. They are at Cherokee Thursday in South Carolina, Friday at Lavonia in Georgia, and Saturday at Volunteer Speedway in Tennessee. Those are all close to Darlington and would allow him to race three times before Sunday. Lucas is Saturday-Sunday next week in Ohio and West Virginia, the Outlaws are headed west, and the All Stars are in Ohio at Attica. Ryan also mentioned that Larson's open wheel schedule will tail off as the season continues, which makes sense as there aren't a ton of big sprint car shows left except the Tusky 50 and National Open. The late model is probably more likely going forward, especially with the World 100 coming up and the midweek FloRacing series starting back up in September.
We talked on the Monday Daily about Emerson Axsom replacing Cole Bodine in the Clauson Marshall non wing sprint car, but Bodine wasn't rideless for long. It was announced yesterday that he will race the Smackdown at Kokomo this weekend in a car owned in partnership by his dad Kevin and business partner Lynn Crow. The car will be the number 57 and feature sponsorship from Aidex Corp, Buckeye Educational Systems, and Desktop Metal. Bodine has made 19 USAC National Sprint Car appearances in the last two seasons, with a best finish of 8th at Lawrenceburg back in April, and an average feature finish of 15.3. His best Kokomo finish over that stretch was 17th there back in July. The Smackdown gets underway tomorrow night.
A 305 sprint car race at a track like Fremont in Ohio isn't normally something you'd expect to get a lot of coverage on a Tuesday night in August, but things got crazy last night in the AFCS race that was part of the Sandusky County Fair. There were some big crashes, and big infield brawl during the fourth heat race. If you were milling about on Twitter last night, you may have seen some of the videos. In the end, it was Shawn Valenti leading all 30 laps en route to his first ever sprint car win at Fremont and it was the richest 305 race there ever, with Valenti taking down $4100. DJ Foos, Paul Weaver, Seth Schneider, and Steve Rando made up the rest of the top five. All Star regular Cap Henry was 9th, while Cole Macedo ended up 23rd after a crash on lap nine.
With the Short Track Super Series, it was also a wild program last night at Georgetown Speedway. There were multiple big crashes, including a wild flip in turn three for Matt Sheppard, who entered the night second in points to Mike Mahaney. Sheppard was okay, but he was one of like four or five flips on the night. Out front in the feature, even with only 35 laps to get it done, it was 12th starting Billy Pauch Jr. who grabbed the win. He took the lead on lap 17 and drove away to the victory. Tyler Dippel, Stewart Friesen, Ryan Godown and Anthony Perrego completed the top five. Pauch was really good, driving through the series' heavy hitters to get to the lead from 12th right at half way. He became the seventh different winner in seven south region races for the Short Track Super Series in 2021. The win for Pauch will tighten things up in the top five in points, as he entered 69 behind Stewart Friesen for fourth. Things at the top won't change much, as it was a rough night for both Mahaney and Sheppard. They ended up 23rd and 26th respectively. The south region goes quiet now until the Speed Showcase 200 weekend at Port Royal in the middle of October. The north region keeps rolling next Tuesday night at Thunder Mountain Speedway. For more, check out shorttracksuperseries.com.
Looking at the dirt racing podcast page, there are a bunch of new episodes to check out this week from the various shows. Winged Nation has Steve Beitler, Cole Duncan, and Anthony Macri. Open Red has Gio Scelzi. LoudPedal has Briggs Danner. Stick Signals has Stewart Friesen and Max McLaughlin, Forward Bite has Hudson O'Neal, Ohio Dirt has Brian Smith, Quicktime has Brian Brown, Passing Points has Brandon Anderson, and Midwest Autosports has Jordan Goldesberry. There are also new episodes of the Dirt Reporters, Dirt Nerds, Dirt from Knoxville, and Wednesdays with Wayne. To see the full list of shows and episodes, hit up dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
There are five shows on the streaming schedule today. DIRTVision has the World of Outlaws at River Cities and weekly racing from Millbridge. FloRacing has non wing sprint cars from Kokomo and Flo 24/7. And Speed Sport has weekly racing from Buena Vista. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
Looking ahead to tomorrow, there will be a lot to talk about with both national late model tours in action, plus the All Stars and USAC. We'll recap tonight's Outlaw action and get you prepared for those races.
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!