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Justin Grant takes Hangtown 100, Brandon Overton gets 30th win, Chili Bowl eases age requirement | Daily 11-22-2021

Coming up we dive into the Hangtown 100 weekend, plus we've got late model results, and several news items from the weekend to talk about. Let's go!

Today is Monday, November 22nd, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

The USAC Midget season continues to draw closer to a conclusion, and we saw more shuffling for the championship over the weekend at Placerville for the final two nights of the Hangtown 100. The lead in the standings has been bouncing back and forth between Chris Windom and Buddy Kofoid, and following Thursday's action, Windom was back on top. On Friday night in the feature, it looked like he might be on his way to extending that lead, but on lap six we saw a very rare Windom mistake while he was out front. Into turn one the car got sideways on him and when he tried to correct the engine died and Windom was left stranded at the top of the race track. He was able to get refired and rejoin the field at the tail, but that left the door wide open for someone else to win the race, and for Kofoid to come back at him in the standings. Out front after a brief stint in the lead for Bryant Wiedeman, Emerson Axsom took over and he looked good. The problem though, was Kyle Larson was lurking. He started seventh and rolled the highside to perfection all the way to the front. With nine to go, Larson snatched the lead from Axsom and drove away to the $5000 victory. Axsom settled for second, Wiedeman was third, Jason McDougal fourth, and Buddy Kofoid completed the top five. With Windom only getting back to 15th, Kofoid jumped back out front in the championship headed to Saturday's $20,000 finale. That Saturday program used a combination of event points and four more heat races to set the lineups for the night's mains. Michael Faccinto, Tanner Carrick, Thomas Meseraull, and Kaylee Bryson grabbed the final four feature transfer spots in the B main, with Cory Eliason and Carson Sousa taking provisionals, and Chase Elliott and Jade Avedisian getting in by way of a promoter's option. Some good drivers were left on the outside looking in, including Ryan Bernal, Ryan Robinson, Chance Crum, Mitchel Moles, Chase Randall and others. In the 100 lapper, Taylor Reimer sat on the pole, but Zeb Wise was quickly to the lead at the start and he set the pace through the early laps. He stayed atop the field until Buddy Kofoid took over on lap 21 following a restart, and from there the 67 settled in out front. Buddy survived multiple restarts and led through the fuel stop just past half way. Late in the going, things started to get interesting with Kofoid and Justin Grant. A caution for a slowing Michael Faccinto with 17 to go closed the field up and Grant was after the 67 for the lead. Into turn three coming to 13 to go, Grant made his move, throwing a slider and winning the drag race out of four. From there, it was all JG out front. He drove away to the $20,000 victory. Kofoid settled for second, Logan Seavey was third, Chris Windom fourth, and Carson Macedo completed the top five. The third place finish for Seavey secured him the $12,000 bonus for topping the event points. Even though he didn't get the victory, Kofoid was able to pad that season long points lead headed to Merced on Tuesday. He now tops Windom by 18 markers. Behind the leaders, it was an eventful night for Kyle Larson. He started 12th thanks to the invert, was involved in an incident on lap 11. Then went to the work area. He came back out, drove up to sixth, then got upside down with 34 to go. It looked like he was all by himself. He was then towed to the work area again, got repairs, rejoined, then later spun off the track with 13 to go. He finally finished 18th. It was Larson's worst finish over his previous 13 USAC midget appearances. As for Elliott, he ended up Friday night 11th in a B main, and finished 20th in the Saturday feature after getting the promoters option. So now two nights at Merced are on tap. This championship battle will continue, and we'll get to see Larson and Chase Elliott not only in midgets, but also in 360 sprint cars. We'll have more on that tomorrow.

In some California track news from the weekend, it was announced that Larson, Brad Sweet, and Colby Copeland have partnered up to take over promotion of the Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico from current operator Dennis Gage. The three will obviously continue their racing careers, but according to the release, Sweet will oversee day-to-day operation of the track. They plan on improving the track's facilities and midway, and they also want to build the Gold Cup Race of Champions back into a premiere event. The weekly divisions will also stay apart of the track going forward. It's hard to be anything but excited about this announcement. Silver Dollar has such a great history in California, and it's great to see racers giving back to the community like this. Sweet has already promoted Outlaw races in his career, most notably at Placerville, and Copeland has put together some outlaw kart shows. So there is no lack of experience amongst the group. For more on the announcement, visit silverdollarspeedway.com.

In the late model ranks over the weekend we had a decent amount of money on the line at a few tracks, including Southern Raceway in Florida and with the Xtreme DIRTcar Series in South Carolina. At Southern, Ashton Winger picked up a $5000 win on Friday night, leading all 30 laps and topping GR Smith, Max Blair, Brandon Overton, and Josh Putnam. On Saturday, Overton came through for his 30th win of the season, pocketing $20 grand for his efforts in the King of the Sandbox finale. Max Blair, Bo Slay, Joseph Joiner, and Ryan Crane were the rest of the top five. They didn't have a ton of cars in attendance, and only six were running at the end of Saturday's feature. According to Dirt on Dirt though, Overton has now won a race in each month in 2021.

Up in South Carolina on Saturday, Ross Bailes kicked off the Xtreme DIRTcar Series season with a flag-to-flag victory at Lancaster Speedway, banking $10,000 in the Palmetto State 50. Ben Watkins, Brett Hamm, Carson Ferguson, and Michael Brown were the rest of the top five. On Sunday, racing moved over to Cherokee Speedway for the Blue-Gray 100, and the feature turned into a battle of attrition. Ross Bailes led all the way to lap 79, when a flat right rear sent him to the work area for some fresh rubber. Several other drivers also pitted for new tires, but Chris Madden took advantage of the trouble for Bailes, saved his stuff, and ended up going the distance to earn his seventh career Blue-Gray 100 victory. Brandon Overton finished second after challenging Madden late, Devin Moran was third, Carson Ferguson fourth, and Michael Brown finished fifth. The fifth place finish for Brown clinched him the 2021 Carolina Clash championship. The Xtreme DIRTcar Series goes quiet now for a few weeks, but returns to action on December 4th at Volunteer Speedway for the Grinch 40.

In weekend modified action, Nick Hoffman won the eighth annual Reutimann Memorial at Volusia down in Florida. He topped Victor Lee, Kenny Wallace, Chris Arnold, and Todd Nieheiser for the $7000 win.

Before we close out today, I wanted to touch on a news item from Friday night. For 2022, the Chili Bowl Nationals is basically dropping it's requirement that drivers be 16 to enter the event. Going forward, any drivers under the age of 16 will be put before an advisory committee to gain approval to race at the event. It's been a very good year for several young, very talented drivers, and this move feels like it's very much in response to that. We've seen drivers like Corey Day, Ryan Timms, Brent Crews, Bryant Wiedeman and others win, and win a lot. I know there are going to be some that won't like this move, but I don't know how you look at a driver like Ryan Timms, or someone like Corey Day and say they aren't allowed to race somewhere. Both have midget and sprint car wins this year, with Day getting a 410 win with the King of the West Series back in September. A lot of these kids are incredibly capable behind the wheel, and I have no problem with them being allowed to race Chili Bowl. Drop me a comment, let me know where you stand on this issue.

There are two shows on the streaming schedule today. DIRTVision has round two of the iRacing World of Outlaws World Championship from the virtual Kokomo Speedway, and FloRacing has 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 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!