DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
Dirt racing news, results, discussion, analytics. Sprint cars, late models, modifieds, you name it. From national series, to top local shows. Brought to you five days a week. Email the show at info@dirtrackr.com.
USAC points explained, World 100 purses bumped, the Stewart Friesen problem | DIRTRACKR Daily 9/1/21
Today is Wednesday, September 1st, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Coming up I'm going to run you through an explanation of the USAC points breakdown, as those three series are the tightest championship battles we have currently. I've also got some World 100 and Super DIRTcar Series news plus results from last night's Short Track Super Series race.
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.
I know we've been talking a lot about points lately on this show, but I think there is good reason for it. Some of these championship battles are super interesting, and I think on a larger scale, the media covering the sport get lost in individual races and forget sometimes about the bigger battles that happen across the season. I did a show back in April about whether or not dirt racing championships matter, and I know that some don't necessarily agree, but I think they do. Especially in certain series. We talked yesterday on the show about what's gone down with the World of Outlaws all season, and I wanted to take a look today at the USAC divisions because they are probably the three closest battles we have right now. With the USAC sprint cars we have three drivers within 51 points. With the midgets it's three drivers within 41 points, and with the Silver Crown Series only 51 points separate the top two. I also want to dive into this because the USAC points are probably the most complicated among the major series. We know the two Outlaw series and the All Stars are four points between first and second, and two points the rest of the way. We also know that on average, you can figure about 6.5 points per spot with Lucas. In knowing this, it helps to understand the impact a single win or a single position gained or lost can have on the season long race for these championships. The USAC points though aren't quite that simple. Among the three divisions, the Silver Crown Series is the easiest. A win is worth 70 points, with the top ten separated by three points, 11 through 20 separated by two points, and then a single point after that. The quick timer gets an additional three points, and the driver who leads the most laps gets three points. With the difference between Kody Swanson and Logan Seavey right now being 51 points, you can figure that's probably in the neighborhood of about 20 positions. That one isn't super difficult. But things are decidedly tougher with the sprint cars and midgets. With the inverts that happen for heat races and the feature, the series needs a way to keep guys from sandbagging, so USAC awards points for qualifying, heats, the semis, and feature. In qualifying, the fast timer gets six points, second gets five, and so on down to 6th getting one. In a standard show with four heats, the top four cars that transfer into the feature from those heats are all awarded points as well. The heat winner gets eight, second gets seven, third gets six, and fourth gets five. So quick time and a heat win is worth a total of 14 points. Cars that don't transfer and run the semi don't get heat points, but do earn for their finishing position in the semi. The winner gets four, second three, third two, and fourth one. From there, feature points match what I already mentioned for the Silver Crown cars. The winner gets 70, with three points separating the top ten. So for example 10th gets 43. From there it's two points per position down to 20th. Everyone from 20th and beyond gets 23 points. If you average it out, you're looking at just shy 2.5 points per position. If you look at Buddy Kofoid's midget lead right now over Emerson Axsom which is 20 points, that's probably about 8.5 feature positions. But obviously if one of them qualifies in the top six, that is going to change, as well as where they finish in heat races. So it could be more than 8.5 positions, or it could be a lot less. Say this weekend at Angell Park, Axsom goes quick time with Kofoid seventh. Then Axsom drives through his heat race to bag the win, while Kofoid finishes 4th. That 20 point lead is suddenly only 11 with the feature still to come. That gives you an idea of how precarious these points leads are for both Buddy Kofoid in the midget and Brady Bacon in the sprint car. There are circumstances also, where drivers finishing 5th on back in heats can earn points, and 5th on back in the semi. It just depends on car counts and what the transfer numbers end up being. If for example, there are only three heats like we saw in some of the Eastern Storm shows, then the car that finishes fifth and makes the transfer gets four points. If there aren't enough cars for a semi, then every heat finisher gets points. Like I said, definitely more complicated than the other big series. I think the easiest way to think about this though, is top six in qualifying, top four in heats, about 2.5 points per position in the feature. Those additional points available through the night are a big reason why someone like Kevin Thomas Jr. is in the thick of the sprint car championship. He hasn't been able to match Bacon's consistency, with five less top fives and two less top tens, but he has added something like 104 points to his tally with seven heat race wins and eight quick times. Hopefully this explanation will make it a little easier to understand the implications the next time you are watching a USAC show. You can find points standings for all these divisions at dirtrackr.com/points, and the USAC rule book is available at usacracing.com.
When the World 100 kicks off next week at Eldora, competitors will be racing for more money than ever before in the event's history. A story at dirtondirt.com broke down the total prize money, with both the 50th and 51st editions of the race paying $3000 to start, which is up from $2500. Finishers towards the back half of the field will also get more money than past races. Just like the Dream and Kings Royal, Eldora is running two World 100s next week to make up for the lost events in 2020. Overall, the four night program will pay out over $760,000 in total purse money, with the winners bagging $54 grand and $53 grand for the big shows. Racing kicks off next Wednesday night, September 8th and runs through next Saturday night, September 11th. Jonathan Davenport has won three of the last five World 100s, including the last race in 2019. He was also the Intercontinental Classic winner in 2020. He'll definitely be up against it to try and repeat though, as Kyle Larson is expected to race, and Brandon Overton will be looking to repeat his success from Dream week. We'll have a lot more on the World 100 next week.
The Super DIRTcar Series was supposed to be in action tonight at the Bloomsburg Fair Raceway in Pennsylvania, but the show has been cancelled because of weather. Remnants of Hurricane Ida are impacting the region this week. The series does hope to have Bloomsburg Fair on the schedule for next season. Next up for the series is a stop at Lebanon Valley Speedway on Saturday for the Mr. Dirt Track USA that pays a nice $25,000 to the winner. Stewart Friesen is the current series points leader over Matt Sheppard. A sidenote here for the Super DIRTcar Series. We'll have to see how this championship situation plays out over the next several weeks. Friesen is the points leader, but he isn't actually a declared full timer with the series. To participate in the points fund, you have to be a full time member of the series, so things could get very strange as the season winds down if Friesen does indeed end up at the top of the standings. For those of you that aren't locked into the northeast racing scene, things are contentious between certain series and tracks, and it's not uncommon for their to be conflicts. Definitely something to keep an eye on as 2021 winds down.
With the Short Track Super Series last night at Thunder Mountain Speedway, it was all Matt Sheppard. He started on the pole of the 50 lapper and led every lap to score the $5000 victory. Alan Barker, Rusty Smith, Andy Bachetti, and Mike Mahaney completed the top five. The win for Sheppard will extend his north region points lead over Perrego with just two race weekends remaining for the modfied series in 2021. Next up for the north region is the $53,000 to win Fonda 200, which takes place September 16th through 18th.
It's Wednesday, so that means new dirt racing podcast episodes to mention. Winged Nation has Wade Aunger, Dominic Scelzi, and Jack Dover. The Rigsby Report has Nick Hoffman, Forward Bite has Ryan King and Mike Nuchols, and there are new episodes of Stick Signals, the Dirt Reporters, the Dirt Nerds, and Passing Points. To see the full list of shows and recent episodes, check out dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
The streaming schedule is quiet today across the services with only FloRacing 24/7 happening. 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!