DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Thoughts from World Finals, greatest motorsports season ever for Kyle Larson, USAC at Arizona | Daily 11-12-2021
Coming up we get back at it and talk World Finals, 2022 stuff, USAC this weekend, Chase Elliott getting more dirt starts, and a lot more.
Today is Friday, November 12th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
After a short couple of days off following the end of the NASCAR season, I'm back to jump head first into things since World Finals. There may be a few more off days through the winter months, but those should be few and far between. The Daily will keep rolling, I'm going to get back into some interview shows, and some of the things I talked about on last Friday's show with the website are on the horizon as well. So full speed ahead with DIRTRACKR.
Looking back at World Finals, there are a few things I wanted to mention. First, we already knew the three champions entering the weekend, and they all got their moments in the sun. Brad Sweet made it three in a row, and Brandon Sheppard and Matt Sheppard added to their already stacked resumes. Besides those guys, there were a ton of other things to keep an eye on all weekend. Big shoutout to Alex Yankowski on his first ever Super DIRTcar Series victory on Friday night. The 17 year old driver lost his grandfather earlier that morning and nearly didn't race. It was a tough day for sure, but he made the most of it, going quick time, winning his heat race, and bagging the victory. He only made a handful of SDS starts in 2021, but he'll be one to watch in the Northeast in the coming years.
With the World of Outlaws Late Models, it was a weekend sweep for Superman Jonathan Davenport. He went fourth to the win on Friday, and sixth to the win on Saturday. He only ran 10 Outlaw shows this season, but won three of them and had seven top tens. Brandon Sheppard led laps both nights, but had to settle for second on Friday and third on Saturday. As for 2022, with the Outlaw late models, the full time field could be wide open. Ricky Weiss isn't returning to the series after three years as a full timer. 2021 wasn't what they were hoping for in their first season campaigning their own chassis, and they will run a pick and choose schedule in 2022. Back through 2019, Weiss had 130 Outlaw starts, with two wins, 43 top fives, and 86 top tens. He has the talent to compete for a championship, but dialing in that chassis was just too much to overcome this year. Also, in a piece for dirtondirt.com, Rocket Racing owner Mark Richards told Kevin Kovac that their plans for 2022 are not set yet either. That team has been a staple of the World of Outlaws Late Model Series, but rising costs and uneven purse payouts have Richards questioning the future. He told Kovac that he'd like to see purses pay more down through the field and that tow money for the series needs to be bumped to help teams with travel expenses. That would be a sizeable loss for the series if the Rocket house car is gone next year. It seems as though we are seeing more and more splintering in the late model ranks right now, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Costs obviously continue to rise, and there are more options than maybe ever for races and series to compete with. Drivers and teams in certain parts of the country can stay within a smaller radius of their home base and still earn enough money to stay afloat. That's good for them, but not great for the two national tours. This is definitely something to pay attention to through the offseason as teams start to make 2022 plans.
On the sprint car side of things, we got to see late model star Brandon Overton make his World of Outlaws debut. On Friday night he raced a second Sides Motorsports entry, ending up 23rd in his qualifying group, last in his heat race, and 12th in the C-Main. He certainly didn't set the world on fire, and he didn't even race on Saturday, but it was cool to see him make a big leap and try something pretty far out of his comfort zone. I'm not sure we'll see him do it a lot in the future, but with his talent behind the wheel, I really feel like it wouldn't take much for him to get up to speed with a winged sprint car. The two nights of World of Outlaws racing were also the final two appearances in a sprint car for Jac Haudenschild. After a hall of fame career, the Wild Child hung up his helmet following Saturday night's program. It wasn't the best of endings, with a 17th place finish on Friday, and a crash on Saturday that ended the weekend. All in all though, what a run for the Ohio driver. 72 World of Outlaws victories, including several crown jewels, puts him just outside the top ten all time with the series. Kudos also to Rico Abreu for helping Jac make a bunch of starts in his final season including in that incredible Pennzoil machine. It was a brutal weekend for Logan Schuchart and his Shark Racing 1S team. They led laps both nights, and were maybe the fastest car, but had flat tires ruin their weekend. On Friday night they recovered to ninth, but finished 22nd on Saturday after a shredded right rear ended his race with just four laps to go. And even though he missed out on snagging that third place position in the points, Donny Schatz had one hell of a charge on Saturday night. He used his first provisional to start a feature with the Outlaws since August of 2020 and promptly went 25th to 3rd in the final results. I have 283 World of Outlaws races in the dirtrackr.com analytics database back through the 2018 season, and Schatz's 22 position charge is the most positions gained in a race over that span. If you have any thoughts about the 2021 season for the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars, Late Models, and Super DIRTcar Series, feel free to leave them in the comments. There were definitely no shortage of story lines all year and there is a lot to look forward to in 2022. The late models get going later in January at Volusia, with DIRTcar Nationals on tap for February. I don't want to gloss over the World of Outlaws Late Model schedule. It's out this week, and we will talk about it on a future Daily episode.
Looking ahead to the weekend, there is still plenty of dirt racing coming your way. The USAC western swing contines with two nights at Arizona Speedway for the Western World Championships. Both the USAC midgets and sprint cars will be racing. These are the final two nights for the sprint cars in 2021, and the championship is still not decided with Brady Bacon holding a 52 point lead over Kevin Thomas Jr. following last weekend's Oval Nationals at Perris. Jake Swanson, Bacon and KTJ all picked up feature victories, and things for Bacon and KTJ will be tight over the next two nights. The two contenders have been the two hottest drivers with the series as of late, with Bacon riding a top ten streak of 17 straight races, and KTJ sitting at 13 straight. Over the previous five features, KTJ's average finish is a series best 2.4, but Bacon is hot on his heels at 3.4. The drivers are tied in average finish over the previous ten races at 3.4. Thomas will probably need to have Bacon have trouble this weekend to have a real shot, but as we know, anything is always possible. The championship for the USAC CRA sprint cars is also on the line this weekend with Brody Roa sitting 56 points behind leader Damion Gardner. As for this event specifically, a driver not named Tyler Courtney hasn't won a race here since Justin Grant won in 2018. That streak will be busted though, as Courtney isn't expected to compete. The USAC midgets are back in action this weekend following over a month break since they last raced. Chris Windom is currently atop the standings by just 13 points over Buddy Kofoid, with still nine nights left to decide things. After this weekend at Arizona, the midgets have races left at Bakersfield, Placerville, Merced, and Ventura. Windom is trying to go back to back with his Chat Boat owned team, while Kofoid is looking for his first ever series championship. It should be a good battle to the finish, and we know the final weeks will have plenty of star power. We've already talked about Kyle Larson making appearances at Placerville and Merced, and we also now know that Chase Elliott will be in a midget at Placerville for the Hangtown 100. He'll drive a car owned by Larson, after having previously made starts for Chase Briscoe and Chad Boat earlier this year. If you can't be at Arizona Speedway, FloRacing has live coverage both nights.
In the late model world over the next few days, we've got dueling $50,000 to win shows at opposite ends of the country. At Senoia in Georgia, the inaugural Peach State Classic will pay $52 grand to the winner of the super late model show, with the field expected to include Tyler Erb, Ricky Weiss, Devin Moran, Joseph Joiner, Zack Dohm, Jimmy Owens, Dennis Erb Jr., Kyle Bronson, Chris Madden, Ross Bailes, and a whole lot more. The Pollard family has made a significant investment in Senoia, and they should be in a for a good weekend of racing down there. The track looks great and the weather should be a little chilly, but nice. Out in Las Vegas, the Duel in the Desert at Las Vegas Motor Speedway has been ongoing this week, with things culminating on Saturday night with a $50,000 to win show for super late models. A bunch of divisions are in action, but all eyes will be on the late models coming up. Some big names have towed out west, with Jonathan Davenport, Brandon Overton, Tim McCreadie, Scott Bloomquist, the Moyers, Bobby Pierce, Ricky Thornton Jr. and many others expected to race. Davenport is coming off that World Finals sweep, and I saw somewhere that Overton is trying for a million dollar season. If you'd like to tune in, the event can be watched with a $35 subscription to XR plus.
Before we close out, just a few thoughts on Kyle Larson's 2021 year. I honestly think we just witnessed the greatest single season by a driver in motorsports history. At Phoenix on Sunday a late pit stop catapulted Larson to the lead, and he held off Martin Truex Jr. in the closing laps to secure his first ever NASCAR Cup Championship. It was the cherry on top of a season that included 10 official NASCAR wins, plus an additional 19 dirt wins. He took the Chili Bowl, the Coke 600, the All Star race, a Kings Royal, the Prairie Dirt Classic, the Knoxville Nationals, and the BC39. It wasn't the sheer volume of wins that he had in 2020, but the list was way more diverse and I think much more impressive. Huge wins across multiple car and track types and the Cup championship. And he did it in an era of hyper competitive racing against some of the best in their respective areas. I honestly don't know how he or anyone else could top a season like this, and I wonder if anyone will ever really have opportunities like this again to run such a wide spectrum of races in a single season. Looking at his resume, there really isn't much left for Larson to do in motorsports. He has a Rolex from the Daytona 24. That leaves the Indy 500, the 24 hours of Le Mans, and if you want to go really off the rails, maybe a Formula 1 start? Other than that, he's basically done it all. And don't forget, he's only 29 years old.
There are nine shows on the streaming schedule for today, with more to come this weekend. That includes the Duel in the Desert out at Las Vegas on XR+, Western World at Arizona Speedway on FloRacing, the Peach State Classic at Senoia also on Flo, and a lot more. To see the full daily streaming schedule through the weekend, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
Don't forget I'm working on a future mailbag slash Q&A show, so if you want to submit a question, email it to info@dirtrackr.com or DM me on social media.
That's it for the show today, hope you have a good Friday and a good weekend. 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 next week for more DIRTRACKR Daily!