DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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McFadden, Sweet, Macedo get Outlaw wins; Axsom gains ground on Kofoid | DIRTRACKR Daily 9/6/21
Today is Monday, September 6th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Hope you're enjoying this Labor Day Monday. Coming up we check off on all the major racing series and events from the weekend including the World of Outlaws at Skagit, All Stars at Attica, plus the Lucas and Outlaw late model shows 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.
With three nights at Skagit Speedway now in the books for the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars, Brad Sweet's points lead has grown just a little bit more over David Gravel and Carson Macedo. He gained four points on Gravel and eight points on Macedo, so it's now 124 and 168 respectively. We had three different winners through the weekend, with James McFadden leading all 30 laps on Friday night, topping Sheldon Haudenschild, Gravel, Donny Schatz, and Sweet. McFadden was able to keep Sheldon at bay through lap traffic and down the stretch. It was his second win of 2021. On Saturday night, Gravel led the first 21 laps from the pole, but Sweet ran him down in lap traffic from the third starting spot and took the lead with nine to go. Sweet then drove away to his first career Skagit win. Schatz finished second, Gravel slipped to third, McFadden fourth, and Sheldon was fifth. Sweet has now matched 2019 for most wins in a season for his career with 16. I said it earlier in the spring, but I definitely think 20 wins is achievable for that NAPA 49 team. On Sunday night with $25,000 going to the winner, we had a nice battle through lap traffic between Macedo and Logan Schuchart. Schuchart took the lead for about four laps near half way, but Macedo made some nice moves to take it back and he led the final 18 laps en route to his eighth win of 2021. McFadden finished second, Schuchart third, Sweet fourth, and Gravel fifth. It was a very strong weekend for JMac, picking up that Friday win, plus two more top fives. He's suddenly got 12 straight top ten finishes. Schatz and Haudenschild also continued their top ten streaks as well. As I suspected last week, the car counts weren't massive, but still decent with 24 on Saturday and Sunday. We did not end up getting a contingent of California drivers to tow north, but did have Rico Abreu and quite a few locals like Trey Starks, Austen Wheatley, and Jason Solwold. I would expect much of the same tonight. The Outlaws' continue the west coast swing tonight with a stop at Grays Harbor Raceway. Gravel and Macedo are quickly going to start running out of races to run Sweet down.
The World of Outlaws Late Model Series closed out their southern swing on Friday and Saturday nights with stops at Lavonia in Georgia and Volunteer in Tennessee. Friday night at Lavonia it was South Carolina driver Ben Watkins who dominated the show, bagging $10 grand and his first ever series win. He held off a mid race challenge from rookie Tyler Bruening, but ended up leading all 40 laps. Over the last three seasons, Watkins has only nine appearances with the Outlaws, and his best finish before Friday night was an 11th at Cherokee in 2020. He picked a good night to have a good night. Bruening, Brandon Sheppard, Brandon Overton, and Zack Mitchell completed the top five. Chris Madden again lost ground in the standings with a 10th place finish. On Saturday night at Volunteer Speedway, it was a complete mess to start the feature. We had three cautions, before we'd even got a lap complete. The third of those cautions happened when pole sitter Chris Madden and third starting Ricky Weiss tangled at the start, causing a big pile up on the front stretch. Madden was none too pleased with Weiss, and even got out of his car to yell at the Canadian shoe. Both cars had pretty big body damage, but both continued. Once things settled out, it was all Brandon Sheppard out front. He took the lead from Madden at the start, dodged a bullet later in the feature when Dakota Knuckles spun in front of him, and drove away to the win. He and Knuckles did make contact in that incident, but Sheppard was able to continue with minimal damage. Madden ended up second, Michael Chilton third, Tyler Bruening fourth, and Dennis Erb Jr. was fifth. The win was Sheppard's eighth of the season, and brings him to within one of tying Josh Richards for the most all time. He's also closing in on the series championship, leading Madden by 180 with only six race nights left in the season.
The Lucas late models were supposed to get two shows in this weekend, but lost the Sunday Hillbilly 100 at Tyler County to weather. That event will now be pushed to 2022. On Saturday night at Portsmouth it was points leader Tim McCreadie who earned his fifth win of 2021 and second in a row. He took Devin Moran and Kyle Bronson three wide on lap five on the highside and took the lead. He went unchallenged the rest of the way to score the victory and extend his series points lead. Moran finished second, Ricky Thornton Jr. hard charged from 19th to finish second, and that was after a tire change during the feature. Tyler Erb was fourth, and Jimmy Owens was fifth. McCreadie's closest competition in the standings in Hudson O'Neal and Jonathan Davenport, finished 6th and 8th. With the late model Knoxville Nationals up next, TMac has stretched the points lead to 270 over JD, while O'Neal is now only five points behind Superman for second. McCreadie hasn't finished outside the top five since I-80 on July 22nd. He's getting hot at just the right time to try and take down this championship. Both the Outlaws and Lucas are quiet this week as the World 100 takes to Eldora Speedway. We'll have more on that later in the week.
For the All Star Circuit of Champions, it was an Attica double header on Friday and Saturday. Tyler Courtney's massive 300+ points lead in the standings means we are just racing for wins at this point. Friday night though, we did see rare mistakes for Sunshine. In the feature, he spun off the top of turn four on two different occasions, went to the back and then could only race back to 12th. It ended his streak of 19 straight top ten finishes. Another driver with Friday night issues was Justin Peck. He started on the pole and was up front early, but a flat right rear killed his night and he ended up 15th. Out front, Tim Shaffer led the first 27 laps and look strong in the Bryan Grove 28. But late in the going, Zeb Wise slipped past him and drove away to the win. Shaffer later broke something and ended up out of the race. Jac Haudenschild finished second, Skyler Gee third, Spencer Bayston fourth, and Hunter Schuerenberg was fifth. The Saturday program was run as a day show to avoid weather in the area. Local favorite Craig Mintz actually ended up leading the most laps, but he came up short for the win. He battled with Zeb Wise for much of the 40 laps, but late in the going Spencer Bayston was on the move. He started 8th, methodically picked his way through the field, and took the lead for good with five to go. It was Bayston's second All Star win of the year. Wise finished second, Courtney was third, Mintz fourth, and Justin Peck fifth. With eight races still to go, and the Tuscarora 50 coming up at Port Royal, Courtney's championship lead is 302 over Cory Eliason. The Tusky will pay a cool $54,000 to win this coming Saturday night.
Over to USAC, the Saturday Silver Crown race at Du Quoin was postponed to weather, and is actually being run as I record this show. Hopefully you tuned in on FloRacing. Yesterday though, we did get to see the midgets at Angell Park for the Fireman's Nationals. The 30 lap main event was only slowed one time by a caution, but it ended up being a pivotal one in the race for the win. Cannon McIntosh lost his engine inside ten to go, and that created a short run to the finish. On the restart, Tanner Thorson went third to the lead, getting by teammates Justin Grant and Thomas Meseraull. He cruised over the final eight laps to snag his seventh win of the season. TMez, Grant, Chris Windom, and Logan Seavey were the rest of the top five. With both Windom and Emerson Axsom finishing ahead of Buddy Kofoid, the championship battle got even cozier. Kofoid's lead over Axsom is now only nine points, with Windom 25 back in third. Three nights for the USAC Nationals at Huset's are up next for the midgets, and they will be key in the title fight as the season enters the final months.
With the Super DIRTcar Series on Saturday night at Lebanon Valley Speedway, Andy Bachetti was the guy to beat for much of the feature. He was penalized late though on restart and got sent back a row, but even that couldn't slow him down. Following a caution with less than ten laps left, Bachetti took back the lead from Stewart Friesen and drove away to the $25,000 victory. Sheppard also slipped by Friesen late to finish second, with Stewie third. We talked last week about the issue with Friesen leading the series points standings and what might happen if he still isn't a registered series full timer, but quietly the problem has been resolved. It is in the rule book, but series full timers have been award bonus points for their appearances at DIRTcar sanctioned events this season outside of the main series races, dropping Friesen from the lead to 19th. So now, Matt Sheppard leads the standings by 89 over Peter Britten, with Billy Decker, Mat Williamson, and Mike Mahaney completing the top five. The SDS big block modifieds are back this weekend for two shows at Weedsport.
In other late model competition over the weekend, Michael Norris was a $12,000 ULMS winner at Bedford Speedway, Donald McIntosh won an Iron Man show at Boyd's, Matt Henderson took down $20,000 in a crate late model at Cochran, Bobby Pierce was the MARS winner at Fairbury, Luke Goedert won $10k at 300 Raceway, Rusty Schlenk was the Sunday winner at Merritt, and Spencer Hughes won the $5000 show at Eldora. For more from the late model weekend, visit dirtondirt.com.
Other weekend open wheel winners included Aaron Reutzel taking the Pete Jacobs Memorial at Wayne County. He was a non factor with the All Stars at Attica. Justin Sanders took the Louie Vermeil finale at Silver Dollar, Damion Gardner won the non-wing portion of the night, and promptly came at Brody Roa in a firey, profanity laced post race interview. Gavan Boschele won the POWRi midget race at Lake Ozark, Brent Marks won Friday at Williams Grove, Alan Krimes and Tyler Esh split the Lincoln features, Lance Dewease won at Port Royal, and Critter Malone bagged an MSCS win at Haubstadt. For more from the open wheel weekend, visit tjslideways.com.
There are 14 shows on the streaming schedule for this Labor Day Monday, with some that were meant for today, and others that were postponed from the weekend. Dirt Track Digest has three shows across Thunder Mountain, Utica Rome and Big Diamond. DIRTVision has the Outlaws from Grays Harbor, Fast Four has outlaw karts from Cycleland, FloRacing has a bunch of stuff including the Silver Crown cars at Du Quoin, sprint cars at Port Royal, USAC CRA at Petaluma, and more. Plus the Super Nationals are starting at Boone Speedway on Speed Sport. To see the full list of shows 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!