DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Brady Bacon USAC Sprint Car Champion; Daison Pursley injured; Chris Madden, Bobby Pierce cash in | Daily 11-15-2021
Coming up on this Monday we are talking USAC at the Western World, late models in Georgia and Vegas, other weekend winners and more.
Today is Monday, November 15th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Both the USAC National Sprint Cars and Midgets were at Arizona Speedway over the weekend for the Western World. This was one of the final weekends of racing ever at Arizona Speedway as the track is being forced to shut down by the Arizona State Land Department because of noise and future development plans for the area. The track was originally scheduled to close in April, but was given an extension by the state and allowed to complete their season. This was the final two race nights of 2021 for the sprint car series and we talked on Friday's show about the points battle entering the weekend between Brady Bacon and Kevin Thomas Jr. Bacon had a 52 point advantage entering the weekend, and KTJ probably needed the 69 team to have issues to really have a shot, but unfortunately for them, it never came to that. On Friday night, Logan Seavey dominated much of the 30 lap feature, while Bacon and KTJ battled each other inside the top five. Late in the going though, any hope KTJ had for running down Bacon came to an end when the lap car of Jake Helsel spun in front of him and the nine car had no where to go. Thomas returned to the race after a stop in the work area, but only managed to drive back to 13th by the end. Out front, Bacon got the bottom rolling in the closing laps and was able to work past leader Seavey with five laps remaining. He then held off a massive slider attempt from Seavey coming to the checkered to bag the win. Seavey finished second, Tanner Thorson third, CJ Leary was fourth, and Charles Davis Jr. finished fifth. The win for Bacon along with the tough night for Thomas secured the 2021 USAC National Sprint Car Championship for the Macho Man with Saturday's racing still to go. In the season finale on Saturday night, Logan Seavey made sure he wouldn't lose the win like he did the night before. He started on the front row, quickly cleared pole sitter Austin Williams on the opening circuit and then led every lap en route the win. He stretched away to a massive lead at the finish earning his fourth series victory of the season in the Baldwin five. CJ Leary finished second after really only making one serious bid for the lead, Jake Swanswon was third, Thomas Meseraull fourth, and Brady Bacon hard charged from 15th to finish fifth. For Bacon, the 2021 title was the fourth of his career and second in a row. He ended the season with five wins, 36 top fives and 41 top tens in 43 starts. His only finishes outside the top ten were a 12th at Path Valley in April, and a 22nd at Lincoln Park in July. Bacon also ended the season on a streak of 18 straight top ten finishes. And that insane consistency has really been the name of the game for Bacon these past two seasons. Yes, he does have the second most wins of any driver back through last year, but he's just rarely stumbled. In his past 70 USAC national sprint car starts, he's finished in the top ten in 65 of them. His average feature finish in 2021 was an incredible 4.25. And you might think with an average finish that high, that Bacon was starting up front most of the time, and that's not necessarily true. Leary, Justin Grant, and KTJ all had better average feature start positions, but when the green flag flew, Bacon was on the move a lot. He led the series in hard charger awards with seven, had 32 races with a positive plus/minus, and had the best feature plus minus of any driver by far at plus 132. Congrats to Bacon and his Hoffman team on the championship, and topping a stout group of competitors that featured a resurgent KTJ, Grant with seven wins, and Thorson who was strong in his first full campaign.
In the midget ranks, the championship battle is far from over with Chris Windom and Buddy Kofoid trading blows over the two nights. On Friday, even though he's not known for his midget exploits, Cory Eliason looked good in one of the Rudeen midgets. He led 23 of the 30 laps, but made a mistake late that let Justin Grant slip by for the win. It was Grant's second midget win of the season. Kofoid made some late moves to get into second, which allowed him to pull even with Windom for the championship lead following the race. Kevin Thomas Jr., Eliason, and Thorson completed the top five. Windom ended up sixth after starting fourth. On Saturday night though, Windom came roaring right back at Kofoid. He started second, fended off a mid race challenge from Zach Daum, and led every lap to take the victory. Cannon McIntosh finish second, TMez was third, Tanner Carrick fourth, and Kofoid drove up from 11th to finish fifth. Daum ended up 21st and out of the race after his motor let go with 10 laps remaining. It was a shame, because I think Daum was the only one that had anything for Windom. With still seven race nights left, Windom has pushed the points lead back to 13 over Kofoid. Headed to California now, starting with Bakersfield tomorrow night, things might be looking good for Buddy. These tracks are where he grew up, and he closed out 2020 with a win at Bakersfield and a second at Merced. This fight feels like it's going all the way to the end.
In something not so great from the midget weekend, Daison Pursley was involved in a heat race crash on Saturday night that has left him in the hospital currently. He went for a wild ride, and landed hard, but was awake and alert when he was taken from the car. Since then, we've learned that he has a spinal cord injury and last night he underwent surgery to fuse several of his vertebrae. We are all certainly hoping for the best for Daison going forward. He had been having a really great season to date, with two wins and 25 top tens in 32 starts. We'll keep you posted as we know more about Daison's recovery.
If you are a late model fan, you probably had one eye on Las Vegas this weekend and one eye on Georgia. There were dueling $50,000 to win races this week between the Dirt Track at Las Vegas and Senoia Raceway. At Senoia, a very stout field of 63 cars was on hand for the inuagural Peach State Classic. On Friday night, Kyle Bronson started second and ended up leading all 25 laps to score the opening night $10,000 win. Chris Madden, Mike Marlar, Spencer Hughes, and Ashton Winger completed the top five. The field also included guys like Ross Bailes, Ricky Weiss, Max Blair, and Dennis Erb Jr. On Saturday night for the big show, Bronson was scheduled to start fourth, but had trouble during the pace laps and ended up out. A crappy end to the weekend for the Florida driver. Out front, Ashton Winger led the opening laps, before Mike Marlar took over from the sixth starting position. Marlar was seeking another $50,000 win this season to add to his Late Model Knoxville Nationals victory. It wasn't to be though, as Chris Madden grabbed the top spot from the 157 on lap 32 and never looked back, eventually winning by nearly two seconds. The winner's check was officially $52,052 which ended up being the richest pay day for Madden in his career. Marlar finished second, Winger third, Tyler Erb was fourth, and Ryan Gustin fifth. If you're a late model fan in the south, keep an eye on Lancaster and Cherokee this weekend. The Xtreme DIRTcar Series season gets underway Saturday for the Palmetto State 50, with the Blue Gray 100 on tap for Sunday. Having won the two previous championships, I'd assume Chris Madden will be looking to defend.
Out in Vegas for the Duel in the Desert it looked like we might end up with a Jonathan Davenport sweep of the weekend. He led all 40 laps on Friday night to take down the $25,000 prelim night win over Brandon Overton, Tim McCreadie, Bobby Pierce, and Josh Richards. And then Saturday in the 77 lap finale that paid $50,000 to the winner, Davenport took the lead on lap two and was out front until disaster struck on lap 55. He jumped the cushion in turn three and ended up out of the race after contact with Ricky Thornton Jr. His car had shown smoke before the incident. On the ensuing restart, Bobby Pierce slipped by Thornton and it was all Smooth Operator from there. For the win, Pierce nabbed $50,000, plus an additional $50 grand from Karl Chevrolet to make it a nice $100 grand night. Richards finished second, RTJ was third, Billy Moyer fourth, and Johnny Scott completed the top five. Richards was in attendance driving a second car for Boom Briggs, not his usual Bowyer Racing 14.
In other weekend late model action, Clay Fisher and Logan Martin took down Comp Cams Super Dirt wins at Greenville, with Martin claiming the 2021 series title.
The Short Track Super Series Cajun Swing is complete, and Ryan Godown was a winner twice, Erick Rudolph found victory lane, and Stewart Friesen and Matt Sheppard split wins at Super Bee Speedway over the weekend.
In other weekend open wheel racing, Brent Marks capped his season with a 410 sprint car win at BAPS Motor Speedway, topping Danny Dietrich and Logan Schuchart. Carson Macedo was a 360 winner at Tulare driving the Tarlton 21, and Mark Smith and Matt Howard picked up USCS victories in Florida.
Before we close out today, we are still waiting on several big schedules to be released for next season, including the All Star Circuit of Champions, but we do know they will kick off their 2022 season at Senoia Raceway in Georgia on February 4th and 5th. That was mentioned over the weekend on the FloRacing broadcast. The All Stars will hit Senoia before they head south for their portion of DIRTcar Nationals at Volusia on February 8th and 9th. We should get the full All Star schedule in the coming weeks.
There are three shows on the streaming schedule today. DIRTVision has the opening round of the iRacing World of Outlaws World Championship from Volusia, there is FloRacing 24/7, and Speed Sport has sprint cars and midgets from Kern County. 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 next week for more DIRTRACKR Daily!