DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Lucas drops 2022 schedule, Speed Showcase 200 starts tonight, POWRi Midgets in Oklahoma | Daily 10-14-2021
Today is Thursday, October 14th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Coming up we've got the 2022 Lucas schedule to talk about, plus I'll preview tonight's Speed Showcase 200 opener, POWRi midgets at Port City and more.
Before we dive in... I'd appreciate if you'd subscribe to the show. Also if you followed @dirtrackr on social media. Also if you visited dirtrackr.com. Let's dive in.
In advance of this weekend's final Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series event of the season, the series has dropped their full 2022 schedule and they aren't messing around. The full slate features 65 races, which I believe is up three events from the 2021 schedule. With rainouts and cancellations through the year though, it will end up being much less. This year's 62 events was more like 45. But through the season, purses at a lot of events have been juiced up and there are now 17 races paying $20,000 to win or more and 11 events paying $50,000 to win or more. Those 11 are the Show-Me 100 at Lucas Oil Speedway, the Historic 100 at West Virginia Motor Speedway, the Mountain Moonshine Classic at Smoky Mountain, the Firecracker 100 at Lernerville, the Gopher 50 at Deer Creek, the Silver Dollar Nationals at I-80, the North South 100 at Florence is now $75 grand to win, the Topless 100 at Batesville, the Port Royal Rumble by the River, the Late Model Knoxville Nationals, and the Dirt Track World Championship. On top of the additional purse money available at these races through the season, the series has also added a ton of money to the championship. The 2022 Lucas champion will earn $150,000, which is double what Tim McCreadie will get this year. Second place will get $75,000 and third $50,000. The top 12 in Lucas points will share more than half a million dollars. That's a lot of cheddar available if you're a dirt late model competitor. The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series will kick off the 2022 season on January 26th at Golden Isles Speedway, and finish out on October 15th at Portsmouth for the Dirt Track World Championship. This schedule with the raised purses and bigger points fund feels like a direct shot at the rest of the late model world. We've seen the XR deal announce their own series and a ton of big paying races and offering money like this is their way to defend their series and try and lure as many big time drivers and teams as possible. I've heard series director Rick Schwallie say in the past that he wants there to only be one national series, and while I don't think that's really feasible, this schedule is also a big shot at the World of Outlaws Late Model Series. They swiped the Firecracker 100 and upped the purse, and they've made some moves here with races and the points fund that the Outlaws probably can't match. It's definitely a wild time in dirt late model racing right now, and it will be interesting to continue to see how this plays out. A lot of schedules used to come out around the PRI show in December, but we have seen this trend towards earlier and earlier schedule releases in recent seasons. The Outlaw late models have already dropped some of their bigger events, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the rest of the schedule maybe around World Finals in a few weeks. If you'd like to see the full Lucas schedule and their press release, visit lucasdirt.com. Drop me a comment and let me know what you think of this schedule for Lucas and the state of dirt late model racing right now.
The Short Track Super Series has just three race weekends left in the season, and this final stretch starts tonight with the opener at Port Royal for the Speed Showcase 200. The North Region is wrapped up with Max McLaughlin winning last weekend at Afton Motorsports Park and Matt Sheppard claiming the title. The South Region though is still very much up for grabs with two events left, including this weekend's racing at Port Royal, and Georgetown coming up in a few weeks. Anthony Perrego and Mike Mahaney are tied at the top, with Stewart Friesen only seven points back in third, Matt Sheppard 24 points back in fourth, and Billy Pauch Jr. is still alive in fifth, 66 points behind. A who's who of northeast late model racers will be in attendance this weekend, including the championship contenders I just mentioned, plus guys like Larry Wight, Erick Rudolph, Rocky Warner, McLaughlin, Ryan Watt, and defending race winner Mat Williamson. Money Mat is coming off that incredible stretch between the Outlaw 200 and Super DIRT Week where he won five times and picked up over $100 grand in prize money. A win in Saturday's $50,000 to win 200 lapper would be a stellar boost to his bank account. Tonight's program features a 40 lap, $5500 to win prelim race, before qualifying takes place Friday and the big show Saturday. If you can't attend Port Royal this weekend, watch live on FloRacing.
Elsewhere tonight, the POWRi National Midgets kick off a three race weekend with a stop at Shane Stewart's Port City Raceway for the Sooner State 55. They will then head over to I-44 Riverside Speedway for Friday and Saturday. With five race nights left in the year, Bryant Wiedeman currently leads Brent Crews by 180 points for the championship, with Wiedeman looking good to lock up the title. It's been a fun battle this season between the two young guns and their Keith Kunz and Chad Boat teams. Karter Sarff, Jake Neuman, and Cannon McIntosh complete the top five in points. With USAC off until November, I'd expect the fields this weekend to be pretty stacked. If you can't make it out to either Oklahoma track, MAVTV Plus will have live streams all three nights.
A quick stat for your Thursday before we close up shop. There are currently 832 races in the dirtrackr.com analytics database between the seven series and the Chili Bowl. The Chili Bowl has the lowest average finish for feature wins, with the winner averaging a starting position of about 2.5. Of the series, the World of Outlaws Late Model winners average the lowest starting position at 2.8, while the USAC Silver Crown Series has the highest average start for winners at 7.33. I'm guessing Brandon Sheppard's dominance has something to do with the low starts for Outlaw winners. For the Silver Crown winners, I have a pretty small sample size at 15 races, and the longer features allow for more movement through the field. To see more stuff like this, visit dirtrackr.com/analytics.
There are six items on the streaming schedule today. FloRacing has Flo 24/7 and the opening night of the Speed Showcase 200 weekend at Port Royal, Fast Four has action from Lemoore Raceway, MAVTV Plus has POWRi Midgets at Port City, and Speed Sport has racing from Batesville and Lernerville. 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!