DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Sweet steals River Cities win, comparing McCreadie & Sheppard's leads | DIRTRACKR Daily 8/26/21

Today is Thursday, August 26th, two thousand and twenty one. This is DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

Coming up we are talking last night's World of Outlaws win for Brad Sweet, Robert Ballou won at Kokomo, we preview tonight's racing action, including a comparison of the Outlaw and Lucas points battles, 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 World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series and the River Cities Speedway is a combination that rarely disappoints, and last night's show was no different. Leading into last night's race, we talked on the show yesterday about David Gravel and Carson Macedo needing to start taking steps to run down Brad Sweet for the championship, but the KKR 49 bunch showed why they are two time and defending champions. They had a decent showing early in the night, going 9th quick in qualifying and making the night's dash with a 3rd to 2nd run in their heat. They drew fifth for the dash, and that's where they finished. And before half way in the feature, you wouldn't have really even known they were racing. The focus was very much on the front, and Sweet actually backed up at the start, at one point I saw he was eighth. As the laps ticked off though, and Carson Macedo and Sheldon Haudenschild battled out front, Sweet quietly worked his way forward. Macedo led the first 28 laps, with Haudenschild rolling by him in lap traffic on lap 29. With five laps left, Sweet made his presence known moving into second and taking off after the NOS 17. Lap traffic was brutal the whole race, and it ultimately did Sheldon in. Wayne Johnson was just fast enough to make things difficult for Sheldon, and that allowed Sweet to close up. On the final lap, Sweet jumped out front in one and two, and beat Sheldon back to the checkered in a drag race. When it mattered the most, Sweet was fast, and last night's win was not only number 15 of the season, it extended his championship lead over both Gravel and Macedo. Macedo ended up third, Donny Schatz fourth, and Logan Schuchart was fifth. After winning on Sunday at Huset's, Gravel was never a factor, starting 8th and finishing 6th. With as stacked as this season is in terms of teams and drivers, I thought we'd have a tighter battle for the championship, but Brad Sweet just continues to show how good of a driver he is. That team gets it done when they need to, and it's starting to look like we are on the verge of three in a row. The Outlaws are back Friday at I-80 Speedway in Nebraska.

At Kokomo Speedway last night was the Bob Darland Memorial for 410 non wing cars. It was a nice little preview for what we're going to see over the next three nights for the Smackdown. In the feature, Emerson Axsom was super impressive in his new drive with Clauson Marshall. I believe I heard it was his first time there in a sprint car, and he was good, especially early on, leading a bunch of laps from the outside pole. The track changed quite a bit from start to finish, and the top got really treacherous, more so in turns one and two than three and four. Axsom made a few mistakes late that wiped out his big advantage and then let Robert Ballou by for the lead. Ballou himself almost threw it away with just a few laps to go, getting big time sideways in one and two. I'm not sure how he didn't spin it and not stall it out. In the end though he was able to hold off Logan Seavey for the $3000 win. Seavey was second, Axsom third, Tanner Thorson fourth, and CJ Leary was fifth. It was a nice win for Ballou who hasn't been much of a factor with USAC in the past two months. He started out the season really strong, and was fast through the month of June. But since Plymouth in July, he's had seven finishes outside the top ten in his past 11 races. At one point it looked like he could be a factor for the championship, but has since faded to sixth, over 300 points behind Bacon. As for Axsom, leading laps and grabbing a podium against what was basically a full USAC field was really fun to watch. He's been so good in the midget, and it's great to see that talent transfer over to the sprint car. He's definitely one to watch for the rest of the season and in years to come. Looking ahead to tonight and the weekend, Smackdown officially gets underway with the first of two prelim programs. Tonight and tomorrow are full normal race nights with the features paying points toward determining Saturday's lineups. Kyle Cummins won both prelim nights in 2020, while Tyler Courtney took down the finale, leading the final 13 laps. The USAC competitors don't have to worry about Sunshine, as he'll be off in Pennsylvania with the All Stars, but there will be nearly 50 cars in attendance to contend with. The USAC National Sprint Cars have already made one trip to Kokomo this season, back during Indiana Sprint Week. Justin Grant was the winner that night in a rain shortened affair over Bacon, KTJ, CJ Leary, and Thorson. Unlike some of our other national dirt series, the USAC sprint car championship is still very much in doubt with Bacon only leading KTJ right now by 39 points. There are still 17 race nights left this season, so a lot can and will happen. Hot laps are scheduled for tonight at 6:30PM ET, so as they say, get your ass to Kokomo.

Elsewhere tonight, both the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series and the World of Outlaws Late Model Series begin three race weekends. Lucas is headed to Port Royal and the Outlaws are at Davenport. The Lucas guys are racing for over $200,000 in purse money over the three days, with tonight paying $10,000 to win, Friday paying $12,000 to win, and Saturday a nice $30,000 to win. Kyle Larson and series points leader Tim McCreadie were Port Royal winners in 2020. The Outlaws are racing for similar money at Davenport with two $10,000 to win shows leading into Saturday's $30,000 to win finale. The interesting contrast between the two series right now is the points battles. The difference between first and second is nearly identical, with McCreadie leading Jonathan Davenport by 155 and Brandon Sheppard leading Chris Madden by 158. But those two leads are very different because of the series points breakdowns. Sheppard's lead is actually much bigger, with effectively two points per position being the difference, Sheppy's lead over Madden is basically about 79 spots. But Lucas is five points per position, except the top four, which is 20 between first and second, and 10 for 2nd through 4th. So McCreadie's lead is actually 31 spots or less, depending on how they run. If JD got hot and McCreadie had trouble, this championship could turn around in two nights. As for the Outlaws, BShepp's lead is much safer, and Davenport is a track he dominated at in 2020. Wins this weekend could be just what he needs to really knock Madden out of this fight. I'd expect strong fields for both series, and both weekends are available on the streaming services. It's going to be a good weekend to be a late model fan.

If you're a sprint car fan of the winged variety, even though the Outlaws are off, there is plenty of good racing to come tonight. The All Stars are kicking off a four day run through Pennsylvania with $6 grand on the line tonight at Grandview Speedway. Danny Dietrich is the most recent winner at the track, and Tyler Courtney still holds a big 296 point advantage in the standings. We will see a few different drivers tonight, with the Swindell SpeedLab 39 being piloted by Parker Price Miller, and JJ Grasso taking the reigns of the McGhee 11. Spencer Bayston is taking the weekend off because his sister is getting married, so Grasso is filling in. And if you want to stay up a little later, the NARC King of the West sprint cars begin the Fastest Four Days in Racing tonight with the opener at Merced Speedway. Dominic Scelzi currently holds a slight six point lead over DJ Netto for the title, and we've had six winners in nine races so far with Scelzi on top with three victories. There are rumors floating around that Justin Sanders is going to pilot the Works Limited 57 all week with Paul Silva crew chiefing, so we'll have to see how that pans out. It could be a potent combination.

In other west coast sprint car news from yesterday, Country Builders Racing will have Austin McCarl behind the wheel to finish the season. Kyle Offill has decided to step away from racing, but the Offill family wanted to keep fielding a car. McCarl will debut with the team next weekend at the Louie Vermeil Classic, and then they will run with the World of Outlaws during the west coast swing, and mix in some King of the West and 360 shows to end the season.

There are nine shows on the streaming schedule today, including the World of Outlaws Late Models on DIRTVision, the All Stars at Grandview, the Smackdown at Kokomo and the King of the West all on FloRacing, and the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series on MAVTV Plus. 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!