DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

Dirt racing news, results, discussion, analytics. Sprint cars, late models, modifieds, you name it. From national series, to top local shows. Brought to you five days a week. Email the show at info@dirtrackr.com.

Dirt late model championships still don't matter; Super DIRTcar, PA Speedweek schedules released | Daily 12-7-2021

Coming up we are talking late model drivers of the year, plus a bunch of schedule news and more. Let's do this!

Today is Tuesday, December 7th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

I'm not usually super interested in things like driver polls and power rankings that you'll see from a lot of sites and media outlets. I think they're sort of meaningless and often just a way to fill space through the season. Outside of just trying to start fights about who should be where, I believe they don't provide a whole lot of value. But yesterday I saw that Dirt on Dirt released their list of Drivers of the Year and I think it illustrates something we've talked about in the past on this show. Brandon Overton was named as driver of the year by the DoD folks, and in this context I think that's probably true. He had more than 30 wins and nearly a million dollars in prize money accumulated through 2021. That's tough to argue with. Also on the list of national drivers of the year were Jonathan Davenport, Tim McCreadie, Hudson O'Neal, and Brandon Sheppard. As you read through the blurbs for each driver, they are very much focused on individual race wins and don't talk as much about overall performances and the series they competed with. As someone who's spent their entire life focused on championships, both in motorsports and in stick and ball sports, I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that it seems as though championships in the late model world just don't matter that much. Overton and Davenport get more praise for their marquee wins than McCreadie and Sheppard do for being wildly consistent and winning their championships. TMac had 37 top tens in 45 Lucas shows with an average finish of about 6th, while Sheppard was going 30 straight races finishing in the top ten to close out the year and his Outlaw title. But the literal first sentence for each driver in the DoD piece is focused on them not winning any crown jewels. That is crazy to me. And with the way it seems late model racing is going, championships could continue to be de-emphasized. It's clear that Overton's season has shown drivers and teams you don't need to focus on a series to make good money and I think it's possible more big names go that direction in the future. Stay closer to your home base, run the big money shows, and avoid the grueling series. I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I like that. I think there is greatness in finding a way to beat the competition over an entire year and a tough 50 race schedule. You can see DoD's full list of drivers of the year right now at dirtondirt.com.

In advance of the PRI Show in Indy this week, the Super DIRTcar Series announced their 2022 schedule yesterday. The slate features nearly 30 races, and things will kick off with non-points events at Volusia for DIRTcar Nationals in February as has become tradition. On tap for this season is the 50th Super DIRT Week at Oswego, and the season will close out in early November at Charlotte for World Finals. In between are all your favorite stops, plus some new events and some new tracks. For the first time ever, the big blocks are headed to Atomic Speedway in Ohio, and Bloomsburg Fair Raceway in Pennsylvania. They'll also be back at Big Diamond for the first time since 2009. There is good money on the line all year, with most shows paying at least $7500 to win. One notable absence from the schedule are the usual stops at the Canadian race tracks, but I think on some level that's to be expected. With covid, the regulations for getting back and forth across the border are still complicated, which just adds to what was already not an easy border crossing for the series and teams. Hopefully as things get better, those restrictions will ease and we can get back to tracks in Canada. You can find the full schedule for the big blocks at superdirtcarseries.com.

Another schedule that got dropped yesterday was the 2022 Pennsylvania Speedweek set of races. Running June 24th through July 3rd, PA Speedweek features 10 races at seven tracks, including Williams Grove, BAPS, Grandview, Hagerstown, Port Royal, Lincoln, and Selinsgrove. Danny Dietrich is the reigning PA Speedweek champion, and you can see more about the races at paspeedweeks.com.

And since we're talking schedules, we haven't seen the full USAC set of races for 2022 just yet, but we do know that Port Royal is getting some USAC flavor next season. On June 18th, the USAC Eastern Blast will feature local 410 sprint cars along with the USAC National Sprint Cars and Silver Crown Series. It will be the first time ever that Silver Crown will race at Port Royal. That should be a really fun race with those cars. I'd imagine we'll have a nice mix of guns way down on the bottom, with some banging the cushion all the way around. Definitely can't wait for that one. I don't know when we'll get to see the full USAC schedules, but as I said, PRI is happening this week and I think there is a solid chance it gets released in the coming days.

We missed getting a chance to talk about the iRacing World of Outlaws World Championship last week because of a short week of shows, but last night at Eldora we had a chance to have four different winners through the first four races. Blake Matjoulis and Evan Seay were winners in the first two rounds, with James Edens grabbing the victory last week at Bristol. Even without a win so far this season though, Alex Bergeron entered the night as the series points leader. Hayden Cardwell and Kendal Tucker led the field to green last night at Eldora, and it was Cardwell who took control at the start. From there, it was all Cardwell out front with some wild racing behind him down through the top ten. On iRacing you don't really get mechanical failures to your race car like you do in real life, but when can happen is technical issues with your computer or internet connection, and last night points leader Bergeron got bit. With ten to go under caution he lost his connection to the server and gave up the ninth position. He ended up 17th, which could be a serious setback for his bid at the championship. Out front, things got wild in the closing laps with the top four of Cardwell, Edens, Tucker, and Seay. On the white flag lap, Edens threw a big slider at Cardwell into turn three, and somehow beat him back to the line in a drag race to take the win by just three one hundredths of a second. Edens now has two straight wins and robbed us of that chance for four winners in four events. Cardwell finished second, Seay third, Tucker fourth, and Blake Matjoulis battled his way into the top five. I haven't seen updated points standings, but there is a good chance that Edens has taken the top spot from Bergeron. Next Monday night the series heads to the virtual Williams Grove Speedway. Don't forget you can watch these events for free, and they start at 9PM ET on Monday nights.

The only thing on the streaming schedule today is FloRacing 24/7. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.

Just a quick side bar about the analytics section, I'm using this down time to start adding in more past races into the database. I'm working through some World of Outlaws stuff right now, and I am going to work towards getting more Chili Bowl results in as well. Currently the site has everything back through 2013, and I'd like to get more in before the event in January, and maybe help you some more with those pool picks. So keep your eye on the dirtrackr.com/analytics and the premium plus section, as things are going to continue to improve through the next few months.

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 in a few days for more DIRTRACKR Daily!