DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Sheppard wins at FALS, Firecracker/Lernerville Lucas switch a big deal | DIRTRACKR Daily 9/14/21

Today is Tuesday, September 14th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

Coming up we are talking last night's Flo Night in America race at Fairbury, what's ahead tonight, plus we talk about the Lernerville/Lucas news and I have some thoughts about announcers.

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.

We had a little Monday night dirt late model action last night with the return of the FloRacing Night in America Series following a summer break. They took to the Fairbury Speedway for $15,000 to win and the show drew a very nice field of 31 cars. In the feature, Kyle Larson led the field to green, but he wasn't able to grab the early lead. Shane Clanton used the momentum on the top to pace the opening laps. Larson finally got rolling a few laps deep though, and he was able to slide Clanton and take the top spot around ten laps in. Uncharacteristically though, Larson's lead didn't last. Fourth starting Garrett Alberson had his 59 car rolling and he snatched the lead from Larson just a few laps later and began to pull away. The course of the race changed on lap 20 when McKay Wenger's 42 went up in smoke. During that same caution period, Larson went to the infield with a flat tire putting him to the back. On the restart, Brandon Sheppard got going and took the lead from Alberson on the high side. It ended up being a race winning pass, as Sheppard led the rest of the way for the $15,000 win. Tanner English ended up second after starting 12th, Bobby Pierce was third charging from 17th, Mike Spatola was fourth, and Gordy Gundaker finished fifth. Larson raced his way back to sixth after the flat, and series points leader Jonathan Davenport was seventh after needing a provisional to start the feature. Headed to Farmer City next week, Davenport maintains the points lead with Larson second, Bobby Pierce third, Mike Marlar fourth, and Tanner English fifth. That Farmer City race is next Tuesday night and pays $10,000 to the winner.

If you're looking for more racing this week, the Texas Dirt Nationals are going on through Saturday night at the Dirt Track at Texas Motor Speedway. 10 divisions of cars are part of the event, with things culminating Saturday night with a $50,000 to win super late model race. Through the week you'll see outlaw modifieds, limited mods, factory stocks, Texas modifieds, stock cars, eco mods, outlaw street stocks, dwarf cars, hornets, and supers. There is also a $25,000 to win modified show on Friday, and a $10,000 to win super late model feature. Tonight, tomorrow, and Thursday are all qualifying nights, with Friday and Saturday being the main event days. This event will feel similar to the Bristol Dirt Nationals that happened at Bristol Motor Speedway back in the spring. The event is available to stream on XR+, and tickets are still available for the week. It will be interesting to see the field of late models that ends up racing, with the Late Model Knoxville Nationals happening this weekend. This was the race weekend that Jonathan Davenport teased early in the season he might appear at, but with where he stands in the Lucas points, I can't see him ducking out on Knoxville. The streaming links will be available on the watch tonight page at dirtrackr.com all week.

Also tonight, check out the ASCS National Tour at the Clay County Fair Speedway. They are getting in a little midweek racing before the series heads to Lucas Oil Speedway this weekend for the Jesse Hockett/Daniel McMillin Memorial. Scott Bogucki and Blake Hahn were winners over the weekend at I-80 Speedway, and Hahn was able to stretch out his points lead over Matt Covington and JJ Hickle. Only eight race nights remain for the ASCS this season, so Covington and Hickle are running out of time to run down Hahn for the championship.

There was a bit of event news from yesterday that I'm wondering if you paid attention to, let alone understand the ramifications of going forward. Lernerville Speedway announced that in 2022 the Firecracker 100 weekend, which is their traditional big money late model race, will switch from being a World of Outlaws event, to being a Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series show. The purse is being bumped from the traditional $30,000 to win, to now $50,000 to win and it will happen on it's traditional June weekend. This event switching allegiances feels like a big shot in the ongoing battle between the two national late model tours, and the parent companies in Lucas Oil and World Racing Group. Lernerville was owned by WRG not all that long ago, and has long been a DIRTcar sanctioned track. When the Firecracker was created in 2007, it was a World of Outlaws event, and the track was under WRG management at that point, so it's a big deal to see an event that was basically created by WRG switch like this. The track has hosted both the World of Outlaws Series, plus big DIRTcar events, and this move feels like it could have big ramifications in what happens at the Pennsylvania track going forward. If the Firecracker is no longer a World of Outlaws late model event, I have a hard time believing that WRG will keep sending the sprint car series there once or twice a year. The Outlaw sanction of events like the Silver Cup and Commonwealth Clash is probably in serious jeopardy. That's not to say those events won't still happen, as they definitely will, but it will either be as unsanctioned sprint car events, or with another series taking over, like the All Stars. As we move forward with schedules for 2022, keep an eye on this situation, as I'm sure this isn't the last time we'll hear about changes at Lernerville.

Before we close out today, I have a few thoughts to share about track and series announcers. When a track schedules a big series like the World of Outlaws or Lucas or USAC, one of the things that usually comes along with that is a series announcer. This is important, because it changes the experience of that track from the usual Friday or Saturday night show and makes things feel bigger. You bring in the big time drivers, corporate sponsor signage, and a different voice on the PA, and suddenly that series show feels like a big event. When that series announcer is on the mic, it needs to become normalized that the local guys take a back seat. I know we have some great local announcers across the country, and I'm not knocking those guys, but when the Outlaws are on track, I just want to hear Johnny Gibson. There are very few exceptions to this. One I think is someone like Tony Bokhoven at Knoxville. But those exceptions are few and far between. This dual announcer situation at a lot of these events starts to turn into a competition for who can talk more and say things louder, and it becomes distracting to the event. I don't want to hear names get messed up, or mistakes made about cars. Just let the guy who does it every single night take control. It's his show. When the local divisions are on track, then the local guys can take back over. In certain situations, dual commentators work great. James Essex and Dustin Jarrett at Eldora this past weekend is a good example. I also think the Pat Sullivan and Tony LaPorta stuff with USAC on Flo this season has been good. I have no idea how many track and series people listen to or watch my shows, but I would like to see this start to become normalized. Let the series guys handle their series.

There are seven shows on the streaming schedule for today, but that's actually a little deceiving. It's deceiving because three different services are showing the ASCS race at Clay County Fair Speedway. Besides the ASCS on Flo, RacinBoys and Speed Sport, DIRTVision has outlaw karts at Millbridge, RacinDirt has the first night of the WISSOTA 100 from I-94 Speedway, and XR+ has day one from the Texas Dirt Nationals at the Dirt Track at Texas Motor Speedway. 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!