DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Bayston to CJB Motorsports, full time Outlaw in '22; Overton in a micro | DIRTRACKR Daily 9/28/21

Today is Tuesday, September 28th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

Coming up we've got the full rundown on Spencer Bayston's move to CJB Motorsports and their plans to run the full World of Outlaws season in 2022. We've also got details on Brandon Overton getting some open wheel seat time, and we talk more about this ongoing USAC midget championship battle between Chris Windom and Buddy Kofoid.

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We found out last Friday that Spencer Bayston was departing the Sam McGhee Motorsports team following a pretty successful summer together between the Outlaws and All Stars, and it didn't take long to find out his destination. CJB Motorsports announced yesterday they have signed Bayston to a two year deal and will move back to being a full time World of Outlaws team in 2022. The Pennsylvania based sprint car team hasn't been a full time member of the series since they left following the 2019 season and split with driver Shane Stewart. They ran the 2020 season as a pick and choose schedule with Brent Marks and they entered 2021 with plans of chasing the All Star championship. But when things went sideways with Marks in the spring, it's been a round robin of drivers since. Paul McMahan was supposed to run a part time schedule in a second CJB car, and he was suddenly thrust into Marks' seat full time, with Spencer Bayston and Buddy Kofoid then scheduled to share that second machine. But it hasn't all gone to plan since then. McMahan picked up a win at Portsmouth to close Ohio Sprint Speedweek, but hasn't been in the five since August 12th because of a concussion he suffered in a crash at the Knoxville Nationals. Ian Madsen has been in the five as of late. Bayston and Kofoid did make a few starts in that second car, but Kofoid's season was scaled back when he suffered injuries in a pavement late model crash, and Bayston has been driving for McGhee. After all the chaos and instability this season, crew chief Barry Jackson and team owner Chad Clemens have decided to get back to what they know, fielding a high quality ride with the Outlaws. Jeremy Elliott at sprintcarunlimited.com wrote two different pieces about the Bayston signing, and in one of them, Jackson admitted things haven't gone how they've hoped since the departure of David Gravel following the 2018 season. Gravel finished third in the Outlaw standings three straight years with CJB, including that incredible 2017 run when he won 18 times. Jackson told Elliott quote "We’ve learned some hard lessons from the past. We had a really good thing going with David Gravel, and things got messed up. We’ve struggled to get back to that point" unquote. What an interesting moment of honesty and clarity from Jackson. I think it's pretty rare across the landscape of motorsports for a team to admit something like that. But I think this clarity from Jackson and Clemens is a big reason behind the move for Bayston. Find a young, talented driver like you had in Gravel and get back to what you know. Jackson also told Elliott that he isn't sure how the crew will be comprised yet, but he's prepared to be the crew chief for the season, but is also looking at just being the team manager. Going forward, CJB will field the five for Paul McMahan in the season's final All Star weekend at Fremont coming up, if he is cleared by his doctors. The team will also run with the Outlaws to close out 2021 with Bayston and get a head start for next season. Their first events together will be this weekend at Williams Grove for the National Open. For a driver that has been much improved this year, the stability could pay dividends for Bayston. He picked up his first World of Outlaws win at the Brad Doty Classic in July and added two All Star wins to his resume, at Sharon in July and Attica in September. He's not run a full sprint car schedule yet in his career, but the seat time this season definitely paid off in the stats. Besides the three wins, Bayston has picked up quite a few top fives and top tens, and his average finish with both the All Stars and Outlaws is better. Running full time with the Outlaws is a different beast though, but if Bayston and Jackson can gel quickly, they could compete for race wins next season and be in line for rookie of the year. Drop me a comment and let me know what you think of this move and your prediction for what the combination might do next season.

If you missed it last night on social media, Millbridge Speedway here in North Carolina tweeted out a video of late model star Brandon Overton getting some practice laps in a micro sprint. The car was one owned by Kevin and Jordan Swindell and it has been driven regularly by young up-and-comer Gavan Boschele. In the video, Overton looked comfortable riding around the Millbridge cushion, but there is no official word about where this could lead. There have been some rumors about Overton potentially working on a ride for the Chili Bowl, but we'll have to wait and see. Crossing over between late models and open wheel is something I don't think happens enough in dirt racing, but I think if anyone could do it right now and be successful right away, it's Overton. It's been really fun watching Kyle Larson do it for the past two seasons, and on top of it just being something I think a lot of us would like to see, it could be really good for Overton's career. Expose him to a new group of fans and maybe raise his stardom a bit. We'll keep you posted if more comes out of this.

I talked a bit on yesterday's show about the recent run of success for Chris Windom with the USAC midgets, and over the weekend at 4-Crown a third on a Friday along with Saturday night's win were good enough to see him snag the championship points lead from Buddy Kofoid. I wanted to dive a little deeper into this today, because Windom hasn't taken the points lead because Kofoid has struggled. Incredibly, Windom has done it by turning up the wick a lot and suddenly he's on fire with the series. Just to give you an idea on the season that Kofoid has had, in 30 midget starts with USAC this season, he has four wins, 20 top fives, 28 top tens, and an average finish of 5.2. He's also currently riding a streak of 13 straight top tens, and this has come despite him racing with injuries. When you compare those numbers to Windom's from last season when he won the championship, Kofoid would have probably been the 2020 champ with those stats. My point being, Buddy has had a very good season. So it's a bit shocking to think that he's not currently the series points leader. But since mid June, Windom has been very good and in hot pursuit of the young California shoe. Over Windom's last 17 races, he's finished 8th or better in 16 of them, including five wins. His average finish over the previous five races is a series best 1.6, and since finishing 21st at the BC39 at Indy in August, Windom has finishes of 4th, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 3rd, and 1st. That's how you put together a late season charge to win a championship. Down the stretch, Windom's experience will be tough to beat, but the final nine nights of the year all happen at west coast race tracks where Kofoid grew up racing. Late in 2020, Kofoid picked up victories at Bakersfield and Arizona, and finished second at Merced. All three of those tracks are part of that final stretch. Don't sleep on the USAC midgets here.

The only thing on the streaming schedule today is FloRacing 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 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!