DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Mat Williamson stays hot at Brewerton, Sheldon Haudenschild's 2021 Outlaw season to date | Daily 10-6-2021

Today is Wednesday, October 6th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

Coming up I've got results from last night's kickoff to Super DIRT Week, we take a look at Sheldon Haudenschild's 2021 Outlaw season, plus there is news from X.CELERATED and the Wild West Shootout.

Before we get going, if you'd like a free and easy way to support what I'm doing you can subscribe and follow the show and leave me a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you watch or listen. You can also follow @dirtrackr on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. And dirtrackr.com is home to a bunch of cool dirt racing content. Now let's do this.

Super DIRT Week is off and running and the northeast big block modified competitors might need to prepare themselves for a fight with Mat Williamson. Going back to last Friday night at Fulton Speedway, Money Mat became the first ever Canadian driver to win the Outlaw 200, bagging the $20,000 check. He started deep in the field in 34th, and didn't take over the lead from Tim Sears Jr. until lap 177. I wanted to make sure I mentioned the Outlaw 200 today, because I got called out on YouTube by David for not mentioning it on the show yesterday. Back to Williamson, according to his own standards, he has struggled a bit this season, but he might be peaking at the right time. Last night at Brewerton Speedway, Williamson struck again in the Demon 100. He started fourth and battled for much of the race with outside pole sitter Larry Wight, eventually taking over the lead for good late in the going and picking up the $10,000 payday. Jimmy Phelps ended up second, Peter Britten third, Chris Hile fourth, and Matt Sheppard was fifth. Because of covid there was no Super DIRT Week in 2020, so Williamson is actually the defending winner from back in 2019. With the way he's raced over the last few days, we could be talking about the first back-to-back Super DIRT Week winner since Stewart Friesen went three straight from 2014 to 2016. Festivities for the event continue today around the area with tech inspection open at Oswego all day, the parade through town starts at noon, and then more racing is on tap tonight at Weedsport with the 358 and Sportsman modifieds in action. That program will be available on DIRTVision if you can't be at Weedsport. To keep up all week, make sure to head over to superdirtweek.com.

As I was putting together my notes for yesterday's show, I made a note about wanting to talk about Sheldon Haudenschild on today's show. We've been pretty heavily focused on the guys out front with the World of Outlaws in Sweet, Gravel, and Macedo and for good reason. Those guys have all won double digit races and have been in contention all season long. And on yesterday's show, I was neck deep in Macedo's win and Gravel not being able to make any ground on Sweet in a notoriously not great area for the Big Cat. But for Haudenschild, it seems as though he's maybe been lost a bit in the mix this year. He took a big step forward in 2020, bagging seven wins and his first career top five points finish. He and crew chief Kyle Ripper really got things going into the summer last season, and I think a lot of folks, myself included, expected them to be a serious contender this year. Unfortunately for Sheldon and that team though, that never really materialized. When you look at Sheldon's 2021 stats versus his 2020 stats, certainly part of the story can be found there. His numbers this year are still very solid, but he's not quite on the pace he was in 2020. His win, top five, and top ten percentages are all down a bit, and while his qualifying average and average feature start are better, his average feature finish is actually just a tick down. Come feature time, he's not passing as many cars, and that shows in his feature plus/minus being down, and he's not protecting his good starts as well either. Both his top five and top ten efficiency numbers are off from 2020. Sheldon finished fourth in the standings last season and as of now is sixth with a few race nights left. Under normal circumstances, you wouldn't expect a two tenths of a position drop in average finish to cost you two points positions from one year to the next, but I think 2021 has been a bit of a different season. Last year, Sheldon finished ahead of both David Gravel and Carson Macedo, and this season those guys have obviously been near the front a lot. So if you take Sheldon's miniscule drop in performance and add in two drivers on the rise, you get a better idea of the full picture. And I think that's the most surprising part for that Stenhouse Jr. Marshall team. With as little as we've talked about them, you would have expected a big dropoff in the results, but that's really not the case. They've just been overshadowed by guys that have been much improved this year. Sheldon does have a career best eight wins this year, and with that team's ability to get hot, they could easily finish 2021 with double digit victories. If you'd like to see some of these numbers for yourself, head over to dirtrackr.com/analytics.

X.CELERATED, the promoter behind events this season like the Bristol Dirt Nationals and Texas Dirt Nationals has made a few different announcements recently that I wanted to cover off on. First, with dirt returning to Bristol in 2022, the Bristol Dirt Nationals is expanding to basically two weeks of racing next season with action running from March 20th to April 2nd. There will be eight nights of super late models, with each feature paying $25,000 to win and drivers will earn points from each night towards a $100,000 week long championship. In addition, the promoter has added the Belleville Dirt Nationals to the schedule next season, with Friday and Saturday late model shows paying $25,000 and $50,000 to win. The event is scheduled for June 5th through the 11th, which is a bit curious as it seems those are the dates for the 2022 Dirt Late Model Dream. I'm sure that event will draw some cars with the money available, but I don't see a scenario in which the big names miss Eldora, especially for a first time event. XR is also creating their very own series, calling it the XR Super Series, which encompasses their events between Bristol, Charlotte, Belleville, Stuart Speedway in Iowa, Texas, and the Duel in the Desert at Las Vegas. If you're a dirt late model competitor, these announcements are great news, as they provide different options for some of these weekends, and there is money to be made. I'll be curious to follow the progress of these events and this series though, as they are throwing around a lot of money and probably stepping on some toes of the late model establishment in the process. We've seen plenty of other situations like this in the past that didn't survive long, so we'll have to wait and see if these events are supported by fans and competitors and if they have any sort of staying power. If you'd like more details about these events and the news, visit racexr.com.

The Wild West Shootout doesn't take to Vado Speedway Park until January, but the event did have some news yesterday. Penske Racing Shocks has put up a big bonus program for drivers if they are somehow able to sweep the week. Six wins will earn a driver an additional $300,000, if they win five they'd get $100,000, and if they win four it's $25,000. With the amount of talent that usually is in attendance for the week, winning all six features is probably not super realistic, but four definitely is as we saw Jonathan Davenport win three nights in 2021. The weeklong event runs from January 8th through the 16th, and is at Vado this season after moving over from Arizona Speedway. For more event info, check out wildwestshootout.net.

If you're looking for other dirt racing podcasts this week, there is plenty to choose from. Winged Nation has Spencer Bayston, Carson Macedo, and Parker Price Miller. Open Red has Lyndsey Barna, the Rigsby Report has Robby Allen, Suavetalk has Kyle Bronson, Passing Points has Noah Gass, and there are new episodes of Stick Signals, the Dirt Reporters, the Dirt Nerds, and Wednesdays with Wayne. To see the full list of shows and episodes, hit up dirtrackr.com/podcasts.

There are three shows on the streaming schedule today. DIRTVision has micro action from Millbridge Speedway and Sportsman and 358 modifieds at Weedsport, and there 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 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!