DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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World of Outlaws Late Models 2022 schedule, USAC Midgets head to Bakersfield, new ASCS format | Daily 11-16-2021

Coming up we are talking the World of Outlaws Late Model Series schedule, USAC midgets at Bakersfield tonight and more. Let's go!

Today is Tuesday, November 16th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

Right off the top today I wanted to mention that I launched DIRTRACKR Plus yesterday to the world. The full slate of advanced dirt racing analytics and tools is now available on the site with a subscription. For $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year, you get access to the Plus Dashboard which features several new tools including a side by side driver comparison, average finish by track, winner average start per track, and a lot more. You'll also get to see some key data points visualized. There are also a ton of new added stat categories in the analytics section like races with a positive plus minus, who's hot over the previous ten races, and a new one called streakers. It shows drivers who are potentially on top ten streaks. Plus stats in the analytics section are highlighted with the color blue. So if you're a serious race fan, member of the media, or work for a track or series, this will be a fantastic resource going forward. I use this same set of tools daily to put together these shows. For those of you who play fantasy or participate in some of the pools, things like the driver compare will help you set your lineups. And the beauty is you can cancel any time. To see more information about what's available, head over to dirtrackr.com and click Plus in the navigation bar. You can login and register at dirtrackr.com/plus.

The World of Outlaws Late Model Series dropped their 2022 schedule about a week ago, and I wanted to make sure we doubled back and talked about what's on tap. We already knew from back in October about the points fund increases and some of the crown jewel events. Last week's announcement just filled in the rest of the gaps. Returning next year are regular favorites like DIRTcar Nationals, World Finals, the Prairie Dirt Classic at Fairbury, and the USA Nationals at Cedar Lake. We'll also get the usual spring weekend at Farmer City, Bristol is back on the schedule, and Pevely returns for the first time since 2018. World Finals at Charlotte to close the season is an interesting one to highlight here, as it was announced at the event a few weeks ago that it will grow to a four day affair in 2022, with qualifying now taking place on Wednesday, followed by three nights of racing, instead of two. Other additions for 2022 include a two night show at Atomic Speedway in Ohio in April, another Pennsylvania date with a stop at Bloomsburg Fair on May 19th, Tri-City and the Dirt Oval at Route 66 kick off the June slate, plus a fall swing through Kansas that includes races at Humboldt and 81. We've documented on this show the switch of the Firecracker at Lernerville from Outlaw to Lucas sanction for 2022, and the Outlaws went ahead and scheduled on top of that event with a $20k to win weekend at Pevely with the Summer Nationals. So we know the championship payout, we know the crown jewels, and we know the full schedule. The next question is who will race full time for the title. Kyle Hammer and Max Blair have both announced intentions to run. We know Ricky Weiss is out. Brandon Sheppard and the Rocket team are undecided. There have also been rumblings of maybe Frank Heckenast Jr. coming back out full time. We'll have to wait and see over the coming weeks who goes where. To see the full World of Outlaws Late Model Series schedule, visit worldofoutlaws.com.

If you're in need of a dirt racing fix tonight, the USAC national midgets are headed to Bakersfield Speedway to continue their west coast swing. Justin Grant and Chris Windom split the wins at Western World over the weekend, and the championship battle between Windom and Buddy Kofoid remains super tight with just 13 points between the two. Kofoid is the defending winner at Bakersfield, having outdueled Kyle Larson their last season, leading the final four laps en route to the win. Following tonight, the midget competitors will then head to Placerville for the three night Hangtown 100 weekend. You'd think with 16 straight top ten finishes that Kofoid has been doing enough to stay atop the standings, but Windom has just been really good since the middle of June. During Indiana Midget Week, Windom had a three night stretch where he finished 12th at Circle City, 13th at Lincoln Park, and 20th at Gas City. In the 20 races since, Windom has six of his seven wins this year, 10 podium results, 16 top fives, and 19 top tens. His only stumble was a 21st place finish at the BC39 at Indy. He leads the series in average finish over both the last five races and last ten races. That's how he's climbed back into the championship fight and taken the lead. For the year, Windom's average finish is 5.18, while Kofoid's is 5.21. Just three hundredths of a position separate them, pretty wild. If you can't be at Bakersfield tonight, all of the USAC races can be watched live on FloRacing.

The ASCS National Tour for 360 sprint cars will have a new owner next season in Terry Mattox, they've got an increased points fund, up to $200,000 with the champion taking $50,000, and they will also have a new format for their regular shows. The new nightly format is kind of a mixture of new and old, with group qualifying leading into heat races with a four car invert, then heat races paying passing points. The top 16 in passing points will make the feature, with a draw for a feature invert of up to the top three rows. The rest of the field will split into B Mains with three cars transferring from each of two Bs, or six cars from one B. It's not a big surprise to see a bit of a format change for the ASCS, as they've toyed with some different setups recently. You can also understand Mattox wanting to put his stamp on this series right away. We are still waiting on the 2022 ASCS schedule, but I'm guessing will see it soon. For more info, visit ascsracing.com.

In this slot on the show, I had originally planned to give you results from last night's action at Kern County out in California, but outside of Chance Crum winning the midget feature and Cory Eliason finishing third (thanks to a PJ Petersen tweet), I can't find anything about the action. They had midgets and non-wing 410s running, but the track hasn't updated their website or social media and I can't find results anywhere else. Which is really lame. How are we nearly into 2022 and on a daily basis we can't find results for dirt races that are happening across the country. You want fans to spend money to come buy tickets, concessions, and your pay per view streams, but you can't provide timely updates on race results. Do better dirt racing.

If you're into dirt racing of the virtual kind, the iRacing World of Outlaws World Championship got underway last night at Volusia Speedway Park. iRacing hosts series for pro iRacers across a ton of different car types and series, and these races all pay money to win and there is big cash on the line for the championship. If I remember correctly, the defending champion Alex Bergeron won $10,000 last season. Bergeron is actually a three time series champion with the sprint cars and he's up against a fresh crop of challengers this season. 17 drivers are back from the previous season, with another 18 who raced their way into the field from the qualifying series. In last night's opener, Blake Matjoulis dominated the feature, leading every lap to take the victory over Bergeron. Matjoulis is actually a past champion of the late model pro series in iRacing. If you might remember for the last season, Hayden Cardwell was the serious challenger to Bergeron, and he's in the field this season, but failed to make last night's feature. If you'd like to tune in, the races are streamed live on DIRTVision and on YouTube every Monday night at 9PM ET. DIRTVision's Chase Raudman is part of the announcing team. The series heads to Kokomo Speedway next week.

There are two items on the streaming schedule today, both of which are happening on FloRacing. The USAC National Midgets are headed to Bakersfield and they have Flo 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 Tuesday. 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!