DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

Dirt racing news, results, discussion, analytics. Sprint cars, late models, modifieds, you name it. From national series, to top local shows. Brought to you five days a week. Email the show at info@dirtrackr.com.

Gio Scelzi and KCP without a crew chief as Bernie departs, Mat Williamson wins 3rd race in 6 days | Daily 10-7-2021

Today is Thursday, October 7th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

Coming up we've got last night's Super DIRT Week results including yet another win for Mat Williamson, we've also got details on the future of Super DIRT Week, plus Bernie and KCP have parted ways.

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 kept rolling along last night with sportsman and 358 modified action at Weedsport Speedway, and in the 358 race it was once again Mat Williamson taking the victory. He battled all race long with Tim Sears Jr., with the two swapping the lead multiple times. In the end though, Williamson was just too strong. He led the final 11 laps en route to the $4000 victory, which was his second of the week, and third in just six days. With plenty more racing to come, Williamson has now won the Outlaw 200, the Demon 100, and last night's Super DIRT Week Kickoff at Weedsport, and he did it in two different race cars, across two divisions. Behind Money Mat, Sears, Larry Wight, Ronnie Davis III, and Jordan McCreadie completed the top five. Besides the fact that he's looking to defend his win in the 200 from 2019, Williamson will also be in Saturday night's 150 lap 358 race, an event he has yet to win in his career. If his car is tuned up like it was last night, he'll definitely have a good chance. Today at Oswego will be the first time this week that we have cars on track at the converted pavement facility. Both the big blocks and 358s have practice this morning before qualifying gets underway later this afternoon. The top six from both qualifying sessions will be locked into the features. And then later tonight, the 358s and sportsman head over to Brewerton for the Hurricane Harvey 75. Make sure to have your phone or computer locked to DIRTVision today, as all of the action from Oswego will be live starting at 10AM ET. Tonight's Brewerton show will also be live.

Along with last night's racing, we did get some clarity about the future of Super DIRT Week yesterday. World Racing Group CEO Brian Carter along with Oswego, New York mayor Billy Barlow announced that the event will return to Oswego Speedway in 2022 for the 50th edition. Additionally, Carter said the pieces are place to keep Super DIRT Week at the track for the next five years. I was an employee at World Racing Group when the event transitioned from the fairgrounds in Syracuse to Oswego, and I remember all the work that went in to trying to find a new venue, and then what all the northeast folks did in trying to recreate that atmosphere at a different track. It's nice to see the event get some stability going forward. You can read more about the announcement over at dirttrackdigest.com. DTD's Bill Foley was at the announcement and did a writeup, including quotes from the various officials.

I think a bunch of us missed the tweet from back on Tuesday, because I didn't see the news floating around until yesterday, but Bernie Stuebgen posted that he and KCP Racing have parted ways following the National Open at Williams Grove. Bernie, who a lot of sprint car fans will know as the owner of Indy Race Parts and the black and green 71 car, had been serving as the crew chief for Gio Scelzi and the KCP team for much of this year. The team started out 2021 with Tyler Swank on the wrenches, but Bernie took over in late February or early March after Swank was released. It's been a bit of an up and down year for Gio and that KCP team. Their biggest win of the season came in the 360 Knoxville Nationals back in August, but they've had mixed results when they've raced against the Outlaws and the All Stars. In 44 Outlaw appearances in 2021, Gio has 11 top fives and 25 top tens with a best finish of second. One at Williams Grove in May and one at Beaver Dam in June. Gio was also second on his Knoxville Nationals prelim night and fourth in the Nationals feature. But there are also some not so great results in there, including this past weekend at Williams Grove. Gio failed to get out of the B main on Friday night, and was 18th in the big show on Saturday. And the results are similar with the All Stars. No wins, nine top fives in 23 starts, and some tough nights as well. I think I'm not alone in believing that Gio is a young driver in the sprint car ranks with a very bright future ahead. He's already got wins with both the All Stars and Outlaws, and that 360 Nationals victory shows he can compete in the big events. And this move to full time sprint car racing with KCP I thought would bear fruit pretty quickly. But as the stats show, it hasn't been easy. I also know that KCP was one of the teams that was going to run the new Toyota sprint car engine, but there were struggles with that piece and I'm sure that didn't help things, especially early in the year. There is no indication from Bernie's tweet about whose idea the split was, but it's not all that surprising. With Bernie trying to operate his business and his own team, it had to be difficult to also look after the 18. In his weekly sprint car top 50, Jeremy Elliott of sprintcarunlimited.com mentioned that the KCP team will likely not race at Port Royal this weekend with the World of Outlaws as originally planned. We'll obviously keep you posted on any news from the team about their crew chief situation going forward. As for Bernie, he had Justin Henderson at the National Open in the 71, and it looks like they are sticking around PA this week to run at Port Royal.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, we'll get you amped up for another busy dirt racing weekend, including shows for Lucas, USAC, the Outlaws are at Port Royal, the final All Star weekend of the season, and what to watch for at Super DIRT Week. There are still championship battles to watch and plenty of money will be won over the next few days.

There are six items on the streaming schedule today with DIRTVision leading the way with two Super DIRT Week shows, one from Oswego and one from Brewerton. MAVTV Plus and RacinDirt both have the first day of the USRA Nationals from Lucas Oil Speedway, Speed Sport has action from Brownstown, 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 Thursday. 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!