DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Schuchart, Tyler, Dietrich get Labor Day wins; more week day dirt racing | DIRTRACKR Daily 9/7/21
Today is Tuesday, September 7th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Coming up we are rolling through all of the dirt racing from the Labor Day Monday, including the World of Outlaws at Grays Harbor, a surprise Silver Crown winner 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.
I know yesterday was Labor Day, which is a big reason why we had racing, but I do love some good week day shows. Everything seems to get packed into the weekends, and for obvious reasons, but I feel like having some shows during the week really helps break up the work week and give us something to look forward to. For yesterday that included the Outlaws at Grays Harbor, the Silver Crown cars at Du Quoin, plus the IMCA Super Nationals and sprint cars at Port Royal and Huset's. I wish more tracks and series would find ways to put on programs during the week. I think it could be done, especially if you get the programs finished early enough where it wouldn't affect those attending the races going to work the next day. It certainly works for the MLB, NBA, and plenty of other leagues. Do one or two division shows, have hot laps on track by 6 or 6:30 and the program done by 9 or 9:30. It would also mean your racing wouldn't get buried on the streaming services. I see it every week putting the streaming schedule together. You might get a handful of shows Monday through Wednesday, but by Friday and Saturday, there are 30 or 40+ shows. When fans can only afford to watch so much racing, both because of money and time, it forces them to choose. Week day shows means much less competition. Anyways, that was a tangent. On to the racing from yesterday.
After three days at Skagit Speedway over the weekend, the Outlaws traveled about 3 hours south west to Grays Harbor Raceway last night for a $10,000 to win show. I mentioned last week on an episode about Logan Schuchart's off season and that he hadn't won an Outlaw race since the Jackson Nationals back in June. He's been more consistent though as of late and running towards the front, and last night he finally broke the streak. After 25 Outlaw appearances without a win, Schuchart led every lap at Grays Harbor, bagging his fourth win of the season. He topped Carson Macedo, Brad Sweet, Donny Schatz, and David Gravel. Schuchart is off pace from where he was during a very strong 2020 campaign, and hopefully the recent run of good finishes can get him going back in the right direction. The previous two years he's been in the double digits for win percentage, but with only four victories in 64 races this season, his win percentage is only 6.25%. I think the level of competition with the Outlaws, especially at the top, has gotten better this season, but I also think that Schuchart has had a bunch of bad luck and rough nights. You just can't afford to have stretches where you finish outside the top 15 in four straight races and stay in contention. We talk about it all the time, but it's this need for consistency that's playing out right in front of us right now with the championship contenders. Neither Carson Macedo or David Gravel have been able to make up ground on Brad Sweet lately, and that's with them finishing really well. Macedo's average finish over the last five races is 4.6 and Gravel's is 3.8, but Sweet keeps edging away because his average finish over that same stretch is 3.6. When your rivals are top five and top ten runners almost every single night, you have to find a way to do the same just to keep pace, let alone make up ground. Looking elsewhere, it was a nice four race swing for local Trey Starks. We've seen Trey plenty with the Outlaws in the past with his time in the midwest and in Central PA, but his worst finish at Skagit was 11th over the three nights, and he went 18th to 9th last night. And I believe this weekend and yesterday were the first four appearances for young Oregon driver Tanner Holmes with the Outlaws. Tanner has been a past guest of mine on a Conversations episode and he's got a nearly 50,000 subscriber following over on YouTube as he documents his sprint car career. He raced during Ohio Sprint Speedweek this season and some around the midwest, including the 360 Nationals at Knoxville. He started top ten last night before finishing 14th. The Outlaw teams get a few days off now to travel and get their cars together as the west coast swing heads next to California. The Gold Cup is happening this coming Friday and Saturday at the Silver Dollar Speedway, with the fall west coast trip coming to a close the following weekend with stops at Keller Auto Speedway and Placerville.
Elsewhere yesterday, we had a surprise winner with the USAC Silver Crown Series at Du Quoin and the points battle closed up with only two races left. Points leader Kody Swanson sat on the pole for the Ted Horn 100 and ended up leading the first 47 laps. But 53 year old Brian Tyler, who was making his first series start in two years, ran Swanson down from 11th and took the lead in lap traffic on lap 48. Swanson suffered engine issues just a few laps later and ended up 17th. Out front, Logan Seavey challenged Tyler late in the race but couldn't find a way by and Tyler stretched away over the final laps to bag his first Silver Crown win in 10 years. The 18th career Silver Crown victory for Tyler also made him the oldest series winner ever. Seavey, Jake Swanson, Jerry Coons Jr., and Shane Cockrum completed the top five. The second for Seavey along with the 17th for Swanson means Seavey took a huge chunk out of Swanson's points lead. With just Eldora and Toledo left in 2021, only 16 points separate the top two. The Silver Crown Series returns to action during the 4-Crown weekend late this month at Eldora.
In other sprint car action from yesterday, we had 39 cars at Port Royal for the Labor Day Classic. A lot of guys were in attendance to get laps before the Tuscarora 50 takes place this coming weekend. In the feature Danny Dietrich took the lead from Hunter Schuerenberg with 20 laps to go and went unchallenged the rest of the way for the $6000 score. Aaron Reutzel finished second, Schuerenberg third, Gerard McIntyre went 19th to fourth, and Jeff Halligan completed the top five. A few drivers had rough days, including Anthony Macri who ended up flipping, and Brent Marks who went out after spinning a few times early. The field also included names like Brian Brown, Justin Peck, and Spencer Bayston.
At Huset's last night, Parker Price Miller bagged the MSTS 360 sprint car win. Justin Henderson made a late race mistake and got sideways in turn three, which allowed PPM to slip by for the win. It was his second Huset's win of the year driving for Guy Forbrook.
At Boone Speedway this week in Iowa, the IMCA Super Nationals are off and running. Last night was the first of six nights of action, following the prelude nights over the weekend. In the late model division, Justin Kay bagged his first ever Super Nationals championship, leading 48 of 50 laps, and beating Cory Dumpert and Richie Gustin. Racing continues all week, with late models, modifieds, stock cars, Northern SportMods, hobby stocks, sport compacts, and mod lites competing. To keep up, visit imca.com and myracepass.com.
There are three items on the streaming schedule today. Fast Four has day two of outlaw karts from Cycleland Speedway, Speed Sport has the IMCA Super Nationals from Boone Speedway, and there is FloRacin 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 Tuesday. 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!