DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Madsen, Bayston get Outlaw wins; Gravel closes on Sweet, but too little too late; Weekend winners | Daily 10-11-2021
Today is Monday, October 11th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Coming up we've got champions for the All Stars, Lucas, and Silver Crown Series, David Gravel keeps chopping down Brad Sweet's Outlaw points lead but why that doesn't matter, results from Super DIRT Week, and a lot more.
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The final two nights of the season for the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series in Central Pennsylvania are in the books, and a bit surprisingly, neither race at Port Royal was won by an Outlaw or Posse team. On Friday night it was Kerry Madsen emerging from a several week break to bag the victory. He kept Logan Schuchart at bay in the early going, and then held off a late charge from Lance Dewease right at the line to score his third Outlaw win of the year. Dewease, Anthony Macri, Donny Schatz, and Brent Marks completed the top five. Schuchart was good early and I think had the speed to challenge Madsen, but contact with the sideways Curt Stroup ended Schuchart's night. It also wasn't a great race for points leader Brad Sweet, who had a flat tire under the same caution as Schuchart and ended up 14th. On Saturday night, future full time Outlaw Spencer Bayston showed what's possible for him and that CJB Motorsports team. They started on the pole and led all 30 laps to take a dominating victory, which was Bayston's second of the season with the series. David Gravel, Schatz, Madsen, and Jacob Allen were the rest of the top five. Bayston continues to show rapid improvement this year, and the future is bright I think for he and CJB. He'll definitely need to focus on consistency for the future, but there is no doubt he has the talent to win on any given night. As for the Outlaw championship picture, Gravel gained more ground on Saturday, with Sweet's fall from 5th to 12th in the final results. Headed to Lakeside Speedway on Friday, the gap between the top two is now 92 points. With the way Sweet always struggles in Pennsylvania, it's not shocking to see Gravel close up, but honestly I think Gravel needed to do more, especially last weekend at the Grove, to really make this a fight. 92 points is about 46 positions, so with five features still to go, that means Gravel needs to beat Sweet by more than nine positions per night the rest of the way. Even if Gravel wins out, Sweet can average about a ninth place result in the final races and still take the title. This will be a talking point over the final weeks, but I still think this is done. As for the Posse drivers this weekend, it wasn't a terrible showing. Dewease, Macri, Marks, Lucas Wolfe, Freddie Rahmer, and Danny Dietrich were all top ten runners Friday, while Dewease, Marks, and Logan Wagner were all in the top ten on Saturday. No wins, and no top five finishers on Saturday night shows that there is still a gap to be closed by the PA regulars. As I mentioned before, the Outlaws are back in action on Friday.
The 2021 All Star season came to a close over the weekend at Fremont Speedway. It was supposed to be two nights, but Friday's racing was lost to a very wet facility. On Saturday night we got to see Tyler Courtney crowned series champion, which was obviously no surprise. He'd been running away with it all summer. He closed out the year with an eighth place finish, and it was wild to think that it was his first top ten finish in more than a month with the series. Between Port Royal, Williams Grove, Lincoln, and Eldora, Courtney went six races in a row finishing outside the top ten. In the end though, it didn't matter. His epic run from Tri City Raceway Park on May 2nd through Attica on September 4th was absolutely unmatched by his All Star competition and that four month span is what won him the championship. In the 35 races between May 2nd and September 4th, Courtney had all eight of his 2021 wins, 19 podium finishes, 25 top fives, and 33 top tens. The only two finishes outside the top ten were an 11th at Fremont on June 12th and a 12th at Attica on September 3rd. In 53 total races in 2021, Courtney had eight wins, led 234 laps, had 27 top fives and 40 top tens, an average finish of just a tick higher than 7th, an average start about 8th, a total feature plus minus of +55, he had 14 heat race wins, four dash wins, made 35 out of a possible 50 dashes, and was overall quick time on five occasions. The All Stars recognize the champion based on owner's points, so in the end, Clauson Marshall topped Buch Motorsports and Justin Peck by 218 points in the standings. Sam McGhee Motorsports was third with several drivers, Rudeen Racing fourth with Cory Eliason, and Vermeer Motorsports fifth with Hunter Schuerenberg. In Saturday night's final series race of the year, Cole Macedo slipped past early leader Cap Henry on lap 27 and drove away through lap traffic to the win. It was Macedo's first ever series win in 24 appearances with the All Stars. Henry, Peck, Schuerenberg and Eliason completed the top five. A side note about Macedo and his Ray Brooks Racing team. If you're a young driver out there looking at teams for the future, I don't know how you don't have Mike and Steven Linder on your list of people to drive for. They helped develop Carson Macedo who is now a legit title contender with the Outlaws, Buddy Kofoid then came out from California, won a track championship and is one of the brightest young stars in the sport. And now you've seen what they're doing with Cole Macedo. Multiple race wins this year including now an All Star victory. Their track record is just incredible over the last several years. Congrats again to Tyler Courtney and his Clauson Marshall team on their championship.
And speaking of championships, the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series title was wrapped up by Tim McCreadie over the weekend in Georgia. Finishes of 4th and 3rd meant he left the weekend with a 520 point lead over Hudson O'Neal and with just the Dirt Track World Championship left, McCreadie has officially clinched his first ever Lucas championship. As for the races at Dixie and Rome, it was a home state sweep for Jonathan Davenport. He led all 50 laps on Saturday at Dixie, and slipped past Jimmy Owens just past half way on Sunday at Rome. The wins for JD were his seventh and eighth Lucas wins of the year and he now leads all drivers in wins on the season. Brandon Overton, Chris Madden, McCreadie, and Earl Pearson Jr. were all top five runners on Saturday, while Overton, McCreadie, Kyle Bronson, and Ricky Thornton Jr. completed Sunday's top five. Even though the championship is over, there is still some business to settle this upcoming weekend. Saturday night's Dirt Track World Championship at Portsmouth Raceway Park pays $100,000 to the winner and that event will take center stage with the Outlaws off and racing seasons across the country starting to wind down. Brandon Sheppard is the defending race winner, and you should see a healthy field of cars, with last year's event drawing north of 60. We'll have more on the DTWC later in the week.
The USAC National Midgets lost their Friday show at Wayne County to rain, but they did get to race on Saturday night at Tri-State Speedway in Haubstadt, Indiana. The championship battle here is incredibly tight between Chris Windom and Buddy Kofoid, but Windom was able to get a little breathing room on Saturday night with the west coast looming. In the feature, Kofoid started third and was battling inside the top five when disaster struck right before half way. He tangled with Cannon McIntosh and Thomas Meseraull and ended up tipped over on the frontstretch. His Keith Kunz team was able to get him back rolling again though and they recovered to a ninth place finish. That kept Kofoid's top ten streak alive at 14 straight races. Unfortunately for him though, Windom was on the move, starting 14th and ending up with a fifth place finish. With nine nights still to go, Windom extended his advantage to 13 points. Out front, Kevin Thomas Jr. led the first 24 laps from the second starting position, but TMez ran him down from seventh and took the lead on lap 25. Meseraull drove away to his second Haubstadt win in his last three races there. KTJ finished second, Justin Grant hard charged from 17th to finish third, pole sitter Daison Pursley was fourth, and like I said Windom was fifth. The USAC National Midgets go quiet now for the next month, before their final stretch of races out west begins at Arizona Speedway on November 12th. Stay tuned though, because this championship battle is far from over.
One USAC title that is over though, is with the Silver Crown Series. That group entered Sunday's finale at Toledo with just one point separating leader Kody Swanson and second place Logan Seavey. With the final race being on pavement though, that very much favored Swanson, and that advantage is exactly what played out over the day. Swanson took the pole in qualifying by nearly two tenths over Justin Grant, and then he led every circuit of the 100 lap race from the pole to earn his fourth Silver Crown win of the season and clinch his sixth career Silver Crown championship. The day wasn't without drama though. Late in the going Swanson got caught up in a mess with some lap traffic and ran the final 13 laps with a hole in the nose and a bent front axle. The damage wasn't enough to slow him down though. Behind the winner, Bobby Santos, Brian Tyler, David Byrne, and Davey Hamilton Jr. completed the top five. Challenger Logan Seavey ended up 10th after starting from the 12th spot. The championship was quite the feat for Swanson, who ended up not even running all the races. It's the first time since Jimmy Sills in 1994 that the Silver Crown champ did not have perfect attendance. Congrats to Swanson and his team.
Super DIRT Week at Oswego wrapped up over the weekend and four different event champions were crowned. In the DIRTcar Pro Stock finale, Chad Jeseo lead the final 39 laps to take his first win in the 50 lap main event. Jason Casey and Rob Yetman completed the podium, but results are still unofficial pending tech inspection. With the sportsman modifieds, Zach Sobotka started deep in the field in 19th, but that didn't stop him from grabbing his first win at Oswego in just his third time at the event. He grabbed the $4000 win over Matt Janczuk and Brian Calabrese. On Saturday night in the Salute to the Troops 150 for the 358 modifieds it was Stewart Friesen grabbing his first ever win in that race. He'd finished second four times, and is a multi-time winner of the 200, but had yet to capture the 358 main event. He took the lead from Mike Maresca on lap 115 and held on the rest of the way for the win over Mat Williamson and Jimmy Phelps. Maresca was actually second at the checkered, but he was DQ'd following the race for being more than 20 pounds light at the scales. And in Sunday's big $50,000 to win finale, Mat Williamson capped off his incredible week with his second consecutive win in the 200 lap feature. He inherited the lead on lap 151 when leaders Peter Britten and Tyler Dippel made contact, and never looked back. Billy Decker, Matt Sheppard, Friesen, and Larry Wight completed the top five. Williamson ended the week with five wins and over $100,000 in prize money.
In other weekend late model action, Zach Dohm was the $20,000 winner at Richmond Raceway, Frank Heckenast Jr. won the $15 grand at Fairbury, and Devin Moran swept the weekend at West Virginia Motor Speedway.
In other weekend open wheel action, Dominic Scelzi and Mitchell Moles split the feature wins with the King of the West sprint cars at Hanford, Scelzi also grabbed the Sprint Car Challenge Tour victory Friday at Hanford, Ayrton Gennetten was a MOWA winner at Jacksonville, and Roger Crockett and Joe B. Miller grabbed ASCS region wins at Tri-State and Lake Ozark.
It's a quiet day on the streaming platforms with just FloRacing 24/7 on the docket. 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!