DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Kerry Madsen and Donny Schatz resurgent with Tony Stewart Racing; Leary, Bowman sweep Millbridge | Daily 10-27-2021

Coming up we've got midget results from Millbridge, a new owner for the ASCS, and we dive into TSR's resurgence with Donny Schatz and Kerry Madsen. Let's go.

Today is Wednesday, October 27th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

Last night was the final night of the Carolina Midget Showdown at Millbridge Speedway, with $7500 going to the night's winner. Just like the night before, we again had 15 cars in the field. We saw an impressive run for Jade Avedisian early on in the night as she bagged quick time in qualifying, topping both Christopher Bell and CJ Leary. The young racer from California has been running a lot of micro stuff this year and has mixed in limited midget starts with Chad Boat and out on the west coast. In 10 POWRi feature appearances this season she had three top tens and a top five result. Write her name down as another one to keep an eye on in the future. In the night's A main, Leary and Cannon McIntosh led the field to green, with McIntosh able to use the top side to grab the early lead. After a caution just a few laps in though, Leary was able to sneak by and pick up where he left off from Monday night. The 55 was out front until we got into the second half of the race, when Gavan Boschele, driving for Keith Kunz, put together a challenge and took the lead briefly with 16 to go. Unfortunately it was short lived for the teenager, as not long later he made a mistake on the cushion and that let Leary back by. Inside ten to go, McIntosh got the top rolling again and was on his way back to the front, getting by Boschele with a big slider and reeling in Leary. On the white flag lap, he got a big run down the backstretch and tried to go low around Leary in three and four, but Leary protected. The two made contact, sending Cannon Mac around and out of contention. On the ensuing restart, Leary was able to hold off the field for the $7500 victory and the event sweep for the Alex Bowman owned team. Boschele finished second, Bell was third, Ethan Mitchell fourth, and Ryan Timms was fifth. It was a very strong showing for Leary and I believe I heard it was a new car that Bowman had put together. They definitely had it tuned up. Boschele was again impressive and without that mistake could have been in line for the win. As for Bell, he was never a factor last night after leading laps on Monday. He snuck onto the podium late in the going. All around good couple of nights at Millbridge, and hopefully they can continue to grow this event going forward. It's a tough sell with so few midgets around, but they didn't lack for quality. If you missed either night, the event replays are available on DIRTVision.

The 2021 ASCS National Tour came to a close last weekend at I-30 Speedway and with it the 30th year of competition. Going forward though, the series and sanctioning body will have a new owner. The ASCS announced yesterday that 26 year old Terry Mattox is taking over from series founder and current owner Emmett Hahn. Hahn created the series in 1992, but is getting out because of his age and some family stuff they have dealt with lately, including the loss of his wife Fuzzy. Hahn will work with Mattox over the next year to make the transition smoother, but that isn't the only change coming for the series. Matt Ward, who has been running the series for his grandfather is stepping down, as is his wife Ashleigh who had been handling timing and scoring. They will focus on the running of the Chili Bowl and Tulsa Shootout going forward. Bryan Hulbert is remaining as the series announcer and PR guy. If you are unaware, the ASCS National Tour is a traveling series for 360 sprint cars that covers much of the country. The ASCS also sanctions several regional series across the US. Mattox has been in charge of scheduling for the ASCS in recent years and has been the competition director for the Sooner Region. He also built and manages the NOW 600 series for micro sprints, and is the co-owner of the Oil Capital Racing Series. So even at just 26, Mattox has plenty of experience running series and promoting events. Across the landscape of dirt racing, the advanced age of some promoters, track owners, and people that run series is a real issue, so it's nice to see some young blood getting involved here with the ASCS. For more on the series and announcement, visit ascsracing.com.

It's been no secret that Tony Stewart Racing and Donny Schatz have been off their usual pace the last few seasons as they've dealt with a ton of change. Schatz's team changed crew chiefs from Ricky Warner to Steve Swenson, and they have been trying to work through the implementation of the new Ford Racing 410 sprint car engine. I even did a daily episode about it back in March. Lately though, Schatz has been back to form and has been the hottest World of Outlaws driver. He leads the series in average finish over the last five and ten races, and even though he isn't winning, he's racking up a bunch of top five and top ten runs. I think one thing that's helped that team this season is them bringing in Kerry Madsen to run the 14. After he departed Mike Barshinger's car in Pennsylvania, Madsen was brought over to TSR for a limited schedule, and he's been downright fast all season. Three Outlaw wins, two All Star wins, and a ton of good finishes have helped to add momentum to TSR's recent resurgence. The last time the Mad Man had an average finish inside the top ten with the Outlaws was 2018, when he only made 32 starts, but had an average finish of 9.87. In both 2019 and 2020, Madsen was outside the top ten a lot, but now paired up with TSR in 2021, he looks like a different driver. In 24 starts he has three wins, 14 top fives and 18 top tens. His average finish is a very good 6.32, which if he was able to do that over an entire season would probably put him second in points right now to Brad Sweet. He's qualifying well, has made 12 of a possible 19 dashes, and is a perfect 100% in both top five and top ten efficiency. All that performance has been great for Madsen, but through the summer Schatz has been on a tear as well. Over his last 29 Outlaw races, he's finished 9th or better in 28 of them, and has moved all the way back to third in the standings. This stretch also includes Schatz's 300th and 301st Outlaw wins. A marked improvement from where that 15 team was early on in the year. I have no idea what the future holds for TSR, but imagine a two car World of Outlaws campaign with Donny Schatz and this version of Kerry Madsen. It would definitely be fun to watch. The Outlaws are in action this weekend, we'll have more on that Friday.

There are plenty of new dirt racing podcast episodes to check out this week. Winged Nation has Rico Abreu, Justin Clark, and Gio Scelzi. Open Red has Dave Sharpley, LoudPedal has Merle Bettenhausen, Stick Signals has Daulton Wilson, SuaveTalk has Boom Briggs, and there are new episodes of the Dirt Reporters, the Dirt Nerds, and Wednesdays with Wayne. To see the full list of shows and recent episodes, hit up dirtrackr.com/podcasts.

There are two shows on the streaming schedule today. FloRacing has Flo 24/7 and DIRTVision has weekly micro and outlaw kart action from Millbridge. 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!