DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Thornton bags $100k at DTWC; Sheppard, Feguson DQ'd after altercation; Friesen wins Port Royal | Daily 10-18-2021
Coming up we are talking the Dirt Track World Championship, including two big DQs and a first time crown jewel winner. We also dive into the Speed Showcase 200 at Port Royal, the ASCS championship race, and more.
Today is Monday, October 18th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
The 2021 Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series has officially come to a close and on Saturday night at Portsmouth Raceway Park for the Dirt Track World Championship, we got both a first time crown jewel winner, and some fireworks. On my YouTube thumbnail for the Friday daily show, I put that the gloves were off for the Dirt Track World Championship, but I'm not sure I thought that would literally be true. But in the end, an altercation following the fifth heat race would send both defending race winner Brandon Sheppard, and regional standout Chris Ferguson to the house early. The two started together on the front row of heat five, and Ferguson's move on the Rocket house car on the first lap to secure the lead drew the ire of Mark Richards and the Rocket squad. It's tough to tell from the video if there was any actual contact, but regardless, the move was not appreciated by the 1 team. Following the race, in which Fergie was the winner, Richards rode up to the 22 machine to show his displeasure, and that ignited a wild situation between the two teams. According to a post at dirtondirt.com, punches were thrown and members from both teams were involved. Lucas officials later disqualified both teams for the incident, which was a shame because Fergie would have gotten a top five feature starting position after the heat win, and defending winner Sheppard probably wouldn't have had much issue transferring from his B main. Obviously in these big money events emotions can run high, but you hate to see things devolve to this point.
Later, once the dust had settled, we were treated to a good race out front, with the $100,000 coming down to a battle between Ricky Thornton Jr. and Brandon Overton. Devin Moran led the race early from the second starting position, and at one point RTJ had dropped from the pole back to fifth. Overton drove up from eighth to take the lead on lap 36, and except for a brief pass from RTJ on lap 52, Big Sexy was in control until late. Following a restart, Thornton made his move, slipping by Overton for good on lap 83 and he drove away to the $100 grand and his first crown jewel win. Overton settled for second, Jonathan Davenport drove up from 17th finish third, Mike Marlar was fourth, and series champion Tim McCreadie completed the top five. It was a power win from RTJ, who was also crowned the series rookie of the year. We haven't seen many guys able to put moves on Overton late in these big races over the last few years, but Thornton had enough car and tire left late in the show to make it happen. So congrats to Thornton and his SSI team on the win and rookie of the year, and nice job to Tim McCreadie and his team on their first ever Lucas championship. TMac's consistency was really the difference for the 39 in 2021. In 45 races they had 30 top fives and 37 top tens. Those were both best in the series. He ended up with an average finish of 6.1, a total feature plus/minus of +54, had 18 heat race wins, nine quick times, and six feature wins. He bagged 22 top fives in 23 top five starts, an efficiency of better than 95%, and had 30 top tens in 32 top ten starts, also over 90%. And a new stat I've put together recently is how many races a driver has a positive plus minus. Basically if they finished higher than they started. For McCreadie, that was 25 out of 45 races, or 55.6%. All in all, I think it was a fun season for Lucas. Besides McCreadie getting his first title, we also witnessed the emergence of drivers like Thornton, and especially Hudson O'Neal who really took a big step forward in 2021. Earl Pearson Jr. looked resurgent down the stretch with his new team, Jonathan Davenport did Superman things all season, even though they had some stumbles late. I do think it was a disappointing season for a few guys, like Josh Richards. He had two early season wins, but their average finish for the season was nearly two positions worse than 2020, and they were never a factor. For dirt late model fans, the season is definitely not over yet. We still have World Finals with the Outlaws, some more FloRacing shows, Gateway in December, and we'll see how many guys go to Las Vegas in November for that $50,000 to win show. Drop me a comment, let me know your thoughts on the Lucas season, who impressed you, what wins were memorable, or whatever else is on your mind.
The other big money show from the weekend was the Speed Showcase 200 at Port Royal Speedway for the Short Track Super Series. Stewart Friesen started 15th, and although he wasn't to the lead until lap 74, his performance was dominant. He lost the lead after the halfway break because of pit strategy, but he took back control on lap 125 and drove away to the $50,000 win. It was Friesen's 32nd career series victory, and second $50,000 pay day in recent weeks which also includes the Fonda 200 back on September 18th. Matt Sheppard finished second after leading early, Matt Stangle was third, Ryan Godown fourth, and Mike Gular finished fifth. A win on Thursday night, plus a sixth in the 200 was good enough to see Mike Mahaney stretch away a bit from the competition for the championship lead. With just the finale on Georgetown left in the season, Mahaney now leads the south region standings by 45 points over Matt Sheppard. Anthony Perrego has dropped to thrid, 64 back, while Godown and Friesen complete the top five. The Short Track Super Series heads to Orange County Fair Speedway on October 22nd for a non-points race, and then the finale is on tap for Georgetown October 29th and 30th.
At Devil's Bowl Speedway near Dallas this weekend, we didn't get to see both races for the ASCS sprint cars, as Friday night was lost to wet grounds. But the Saturday night show did happen, and it was yet another win for JJ Hickle. The rookie, who is also in a fight with Blake Hahn for the championship, ended up winning all three trips to Devil's Bowl this season. And you have to wonder if they got the Friday race in, if he may have been able to make the championship battle just that much closer headed to the finale at I-30 this coming weekend. Johnny Herrara and Dylan Westbrook led early, but Hickle slipped by Westbrook on lap 15 and led the rest of the way for his fifth series win of 2021. Hahn ended up second, Sam Hafertepe Jr. was third, Westbrook was fourth, and Herrera was fifth. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finished 6th in a rare sprint car appearance, and Tyler Courtney was in attendance driving the Hills 67. He finished 23rd after a crash. So with the Short Track Nationals coming on Friday and Saturday, Hickle trails Hahn by 52 points. There has been some question about Hickle's status and whether or not he would race the finale, or head back west and run Trophy Cup, but it sounds today like he's going to stay east and run the finale. He'll probably need Hahn to have trouble, but this championship isn't out of reach. The ASCS points vary through the field, but your looking at about 2.67 points per position on average. If Hickle wins both nights, Hahn would need to finish at least fifth to hang on. With as tough as the fields can be at this event, Hahn finishing fifth both nights is certainly not guaranteed. We'll have more on the Short Track Nationals later this week.
After winning Thursday night at Port City, Buddy Kofoid stayed hot through the weekend with the POWRi Midgets. He won on Friday night at I-44 Riverside, topping Christopher Bell, Daison Pursley, Jake Neuman, and Brenham Crouch. On Saturday, Kofoid didn't win, but he did finish second behind eventual winner Daison Pursley. Cannon McIntosh, Chase McDermand, and Chance Crum completed the top five behind Pursley and Kofoid. With just one final weekend left, at Caney Valley on November 5th and 6th, Bryant Wiedeman is on his way to the POWRi midget championship.
Out west, Sprint Car Challenge Tour points leader Ryan Robinson picked up his first win of the season on Saturday night at Petaluma Speedway. He topped Colby Copeland, Andy Forsberg, Sean Becker, and Blake Carrick, and with just one race remaining, he extended his points lead to 47 points over Copeland. The final Sprint Car Challenge Tour event of the year is coming up on November 6th at Stockton.
In other weekend open wheel action, Mark Smith was a USCS winner at Super Bee, CJ Leary won the 410 show at Kokomo, Zach Hampton was a 410 winner at LErnerville, and Matt Campbell won the season finale at Lincoln. Freddie Rahmer is your 2021 Lincoln track champion.
The MLRA late model season came to an end on Saturday night at Tri-City Speedway with Brian Shirley bagging the win over Frank Heckenast Jr. and Gordy Gundaker. Tony Jackson Jr. clinched the championship by just taking the green flag.
In other late model action, Kyle Strickler was a $10,000 winner at Friendship Motor Speedway, Mark Whitener won the crate show at Boothill, Cade Dillard won the super late model show at Super Bee, and Cory Hedgecock bagged $5000 at Smoky Mountain.
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!