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DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Hangtown 100 starts tonight, Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott racing; Outlaw wishlist: Gio Scelzi | Daily 11-18-2021

Coming up we are previewing tonight's opener for the Hangtown 100 at Placerville, there is news from the United Rebel Sprint Series and POWRi, and we go wishful thinking about Gio Scelzi as a full time Outlaw driver. Let's go.

Today is Thursday, November 18th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

The USAC Midget west coast swing continues tonight at Placerville Speedway for the opening day of the Hangtown 100 weekend. There is a lot to watch for this weekend, including the ongoing championship battle, plus you'll have Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott in the field. Larson is the defending event winner from back in 2019 and he'll be looking to win again at Placerville, a place he calls his home track. The three day event will feature a format similar to Trophy Cup with prelim feature events Thursday and Friday, each of which will pay $5000 to win. That leads into Saturday's 100 lap main event that will pay $20,000 to the winner. The champion of the three day points total will win an additional $12,000. Larson has only made one official USAC appearance this season in a midget, at the BC39 at Indy, which was an event he won. Back to 2020, he has 10 total USAC midget starts with 10 top tens, 9 top fives, and five wins. His worst finish was a ninth at Merced last November. He's definitely going to be the favorite all weekend at Placerville. As for his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott, he's got four appearances in a midget with USAC this season, including both nights at Bubba to start 2021, the July race at Red Dirt, and the BC39. His best finish was a 14th at Bubba. Elliott has driven for Chad Boat and Chase Briscoe in past races, but will be in a second Kyle Larson owned midget this weekend. The NASCAR Next Gen car test is ongoing at the Charlotte Motor Speedway today, and Chase is participating, so I'm guessing he'll have to beat feet to Placerville later this afternoon for tonight's racing. Elsewhere in the field we'll have to keep an eye on Buddy Kofoid and Chris Windom as they continue the battle for the season championship. Kofoid enters tonight with a four point lead over Windom with six race nights left. I'm assuming all three nights at Placerville are full points, even with the differing format. Normally when an event doesn't pay points or is feature or show up points only, it's marked on the schedule page, and these three nights are not marked as so. Buddy is currently riding a streak of 17 straight top ten finishes, with Windom on a 10 race streak himself. Justin Grant has also been fast lately, winning at Arizona Speedway and having the third best average finish in the series over the previous five nights. Besides the usual cast of characters, you'll also see names like Tanner Carrick, Shane Golobic, Zeb Wise, Ryan Bernal, Mitchel Moles, Maria Cofer, Carson Macedo, Ryan Robinson, Cory Eliason and a lot more the next few nights. If you're an east coaster like me you'll probably have to stay up late tonight to watch on FloRacing, but the payoff should be worth it. Placerville is a cool little joint that provides great racing.

It's been a busy few weeks and months for Terry Mattox, but his future just got a little busier with the announcement yesterday that he and partner Kerry Gorby have purchased the United Rebel Sprint Series from founder Rick Salem. If you are unaware, the URSS is a 305 sprint car series that races in Kansas and Missouri at tracks like 81 Speedway, Dodge City, and Belleville Kansas. Mattox, who also owns the 305 Oil Capital Racing Series, will keep the two separate, but said there will be some overlapping events as they try and build 305 racing in the midwest up. On top of this news, it was previously announced that Mattox is taking over ownership of the ASCS from founder Emmett Hahn and he continues to operate the NOW600 Series for micro sprints.

And in the other midwest sprint car series news, POWRi announced yesterday their intention to start a winged 410 series for 2022. The release says the series will focus on the Missouri Valley area, with somewhere between 20 and 35 events next season, with racing centered around Lake Ozark Speedway. It sounds like there are still a lot of details to work out, but they will utilize a standard pill draw, into qualifying for heat races format. We don't yet know a schedule, points payout, purses, rules, or who might compete. POWRi currently sanctions national and west midgets, several sprint car divisions including WAR, plus micro sprint and other action. It will be interesting to see how this all fits together and plays out, as there is already a decent amount of 410 racing in this general area with MOWA, IRA coming south once in a while, plus all the weekly tracks. Knoxville is only really 250 miles from Lake Ozark for example. POWRi and Kenny Brown must feel pretty good about it, but you have to wonder on the surface if there are enough cars to support more 410 races. For more on POWRi, visit powri.com.

I saw somewhere recently where people were talking about their wishlist of full time drivers next season for the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series, and in going through some stats in the analytics section, one driver I'd love to see out full time as an Outlaw is Gio Scelzi. I don't think it will happen next year, as I think that KCP team will continue to run a pick and choose schedule, but hopefully it's something we'll get in the future. It's important to remember that Gio is only 20 years old at this point. But since 2018, Gio has 122 Outlaw starts and has gotten better every year. In limited starts in 2018, 2019, and 2020, his yearly average finishes were 12.33, 12.89, and 12 even. He picked up two wins along the way, and plenty of top five and top ten finishes. 2021 though was a sizeable leap forward, and it coincided with more starts for Gio than ever. He appeared 49 times out of a possible 78 which includes the Knoxville Nationals. And even in a year in which he had three different crew chiefs (they were Tyler Swank, Bernie Stuebgen, and Dylan Buswell), he picked up another win, and had 12 top fives and 29 top tens. It resulted in his best season long average finish to date at 9.71. If that average finish played out over the course of a full season, Gio would have finished seventh in the standings this year, right in front of James McFadden. JMac actually had a better average finish, but don't forget he missed six nights at the beginning of the season. Gio still has plenty of room to improve as well, as he only moved forward from his starting position in 39% of his starts and his feature plus minus was just barely positive at plus nine. At the end of the year though, things were going in the right direction with new crew chief Buswell. They finished top ten in four of the last five Outlaw races, including a win at Lakeside. They stumbled on night one at World Finals with a C Main appearance, but that is definitely an outlier for this team. If we are talking about a short list of possible future Outlaw drivers, Gio has to be near the top. Now let me pose this question to you. Who is a driver or two you think could compete next season on tour. Someone like Tyler Courtney comes to mind here as well. Drop me a comment and let me know your thoughts.

There are two shows on the streaming platforms today both happening on FloRacing. They have night one of the Hangtown 100 weekend from Placerville and 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 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 next week for more DIRTRACKR Daily!