DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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World of Outlaws World Finals starts, KTJ chasing Bacon out west, Kvapil takes Millbridge $10k | Daily 11-4-2021
Coming up we look ahead to tonight's World Finals opener, talk USAC Oval Nationals, and I've got results from last night's $10,000 to win show at Millbridge. Let's go.
Today is Thursday, November 4th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
The final World of Outlaws and Super DIRTcar Series weekend of the season is upon us with World Finals at Charlotte getting underway today. Because of expected cold temperatures in the area through the weekend, the scheduled has been altered to get things started earlier in the day and hopefully avoid being at the track late. Today, the pit gate opens at 11 with grandstands at 2, and hot laps on track at 3PM. The schedule is similar for Friday and Saturday with grandstands open at 2 and opening ceremonies at 3. Keep an eye on things today though, as there is some rain in the area this morning. It should push out by the afternoon, but it may affect the program tonight. Thursday at World Finals is always prelim action with hot laps and qualifying for both the World of Outlaws Series, and hot laps, qualifying, and heat races for the Super DIRTcar Series. Friday and Saturday then will have features each night for all three divisions. We know all three champions have secured their titles, with Brad Sweet, Brandon Sheppard, and Matt Sheppard set to collect trophies on Saturday night, so the focus will just be on the actual races themselves and who can close out 2021 with victories. Tonight's qualifying will be important for the next two nights with the cold temperatures and rain leading into the event. Track position will be at a premium, and good results tonight will be vital towards trying to win on Friday and Saturday. One of the big storylines from this event last season was the dust from the surface that made the races difficult to navigate for the drivers and almost impossible to watch for the fans. Back in December, Eric Singhaus, who is an Event Manager for Charlotte tweeted that they had the dirt tested and found a significant chemical imbalance which caused the problems. For this year though, that dust should not be a concern. Following 2020, the track made significant changes to the surface to correct the issue, and if you watched any of the World Short Track Championship last week, you didn't see any of that dust. If you're in the area, make sure to wear something warm, if not, pour yourself a beverage and enjoy the racing tonight on DIRTVision.
Recently, sprint car driver Parker Price Miller announced he'd been diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and would be undergoing treatment to deal with it. In the meantime though, he plans on continuing to race, and yesterday his car owner Sam McGhee revealed a special green paint scheme that PPM will campaign this weekend at World Finals highlighting awareness of this particular form of cancer. It's an awesome gesture from McGhee and you won't be able to miss the bright green car on track. If you haven't seen it, the World of Outlaws Twitter account has photos.
The USAC west coast swing to complete the season starts tonight out in California at Perris Auto Speedway. The USAC Oval Nationals take over for the next three nights with the USAC National Sprint Cars and USAC/CRA sprint cars on the card. At last check the pre entry list included 36 cars and fans will get to see them in action for three complete race nights. The track was open last night for practice, and at the end it was Tanner Thorson at the top of the sheet, with Jake Swanson and Brady Bacon completing the top three. One driver we won't see coming up is Robert Ballou. He anounced yesterday he is skipping the trip because of work commitments, which is a shame because he'd been full time with the series in 2021 up to this point. Ballou was strong through the early part of the summer grabbing two wins and climbing to near the top of the standings, but it's been a slog for him and that team since July. In their past 20 races they've only had seven top ten finishes, with a best finish of third at Terre Haute on October 1st, and several nights outside the top 15. Ballou said he does plan to spend the winter getting his program built back up again and be ready to go for Florida in February. As for the USAC sprint car championship, things are not decided. Brady Bacon enters Perris with a 64 point lead over Kevin Thomas Jr. and there are still plenty of race nights left for KTJ to mount a charge. Thomas has been resurgent this season after a dismal 2020, and he leads the series with eight wins on the year. Unfortunately for him though, Bacon has been incredibly consistent and currently leads the series in average finish over the last five and ten races. In 38 starts, Bacon has only finished outside the top ten twice this year. KTJ will have to keep up those winning ways to close down the gap, and this could be a good weekend to do that. He won the Oval Nationals in back to back seasons in 2017 and 2018. CJ Leary is the defending event champion from 2019, as the race was not held in 2020. Perris Auto Speedway is located about 70 miles east of Los Angeles, so if you live out that way, enjoy the track this weekend. If not, FloRacing has you covered with the live stream.
At Millbridge Speedway last night for the finale of the Carolina Micro Showdown we had a little bit of drama late in the going with leader Brent Crews. He'd dominated the feature, but inside five to go the lap car of Nick Hoffman got in trouble in front of Crews and the youngster had nowhere to go. He was collected in the incident, and he was not happy afterwards to be sent to the rear for coming to a stop during the crash. He chose to just take it to the trailer instead of running out the final few laps. Ryan Timms was also running up front at the time and he was also involved, but was able to continue. The trouble for Crews handed the lead to Carson Kvapil for the restart with Timms in tow. Over the final three laps, Timms threw two huge sliders at Kvapil, but both times Carson was able to drive back by. In the end, Kvapil beat Timms back to the line for the $10,000 score. Timms finished second, Nick Drake third, Alex Bright fourth, and Brian Carber completed the top five. Elsewhere through the field, it was a tough night for some of the heavy hitters, with Gavan Boschele and Buddy Kofoid both having issues in the Swindell SpeedLab cars and not being a factor. Also, Christopher Bell went for a spin and ended up with damage that put him out of the event. If you missed the action last night, the replay is available at DIRTVision. It was definitely a wild couple of days at Millbridge.
I've had a few requests for a Q&A type show and with the season starting to wind down, it might be a good time to do that. I'll pick a day in the next few weeks to do a mailbag type episode, so if you have a question for me, feel free to shoot me a DM on Twitter on my personal account or @dirtrackr. You can also email questions to info@dirtrackr.com. I'll gather them up and do my best answering them coming up soon.
There are four shows on the streaming schedule today. DIRTVision has night one of the World Finals from Charlotte, FloRacing has the opening night of the Oval Nationals from Perris Auto Speedway and Flo 24/7, and RacinDirt has the American Racer Modified Series from Boothill Speedway. 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!