DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Is strategy possible in dirt racing, new ride for Campbell in Central PA, Eyler tops iRacing show | Daily 12-14-2021

Coming up we've got some Central PA driver news, some dirt racing esports updates, and we jump into a big question about dirt racing strategy. Let's go!

Today is Tuesday, December 14th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

It was just a matter of days ago that we were talking about Matt Campbell and Pennsylvania sprint car team Premier Motorsports splitting, but Campbell already has a new seat for 2022. Area restaurant owner Ron Rutherford is starting his own sprint car team and Campbell is set to drive the new 19R machine. With his Mamma's Pizza restaurant, Rutherford has been a sponsor of Campbell's in the past, but has been looking to get into team ownership for a while. Two names you probably know in Danny Dietrich and Brent Marks are helping Rutherford and Campbell get things going this offseason. Marks is even helping building cars right now, with the team utilizing Maxim Chassis and Rider engines. According to Speed Sport's Kyle McFadden, the new team hopes to run 40 races next season between Lincoln, BAPS, and the Grove.

The iRacing World of Outlaws World Championship has reached the half way point in the season with last night's race at Williams Grove completed. And so far, it feels like nobody wants to take control of this championship. After back to back wins in the previous weeks, Swindell Speedlab driver James Edens entered last night as the points leader and had a top five starting spot for the feature, but like Alex Bergeron the week before, Edens suffered connection problems and missed the start. He was able to rejoin, but finished the race a lap down in 18th. That blew the standings open again, but two drivers in the top five couldn't capitalize, because third in points Blake Matjoulis and fifth in points Evan Seay missed the feature. Once green, we were treated to a nice battle for the lead, with pole sitter Braden Eyler and second in points Cameron Merriman duking it out. Inside ten to go, Eyler's car came alive in the slick and he was able to get past Merriman and drive away to his second career pro series win with the World of Outlaws. Merriman settled for secod with Logan Rumsey third, Alex Bergeron fourth, and Kendal Tucker in fifth. The trouble for Edens and the second for Merriman should see Merriman jump up into the lead of the standings. There will be plenty of shuffling again in the top ten with Knoxville up next. The series goes quiet next week for Christmas, and returns to action on December 27th.

On the DIRTcar eSports side, the tour follows the World of Outlaws series into Williams Grove on Wednesday this week with 360 winged sprint cars. With three full points nights complete in this most recent season, you'll find a lot of similar names on top, with Alex Bergeron the current points leader by one over Evan Seay. Logan Rumsey, Blake Matjoulis, and Nick Cooper complete the top five. Tyler Jackson tops the street stock points. If you are unaware, the DIRTcar eSports events run on Wednesday nights well into January and can be watched live on DIRTVision.

As I build out the analytics section of dirtrackr.com, one of the things I've been thinking about lately is what exactly teams and drivers can do with the data provided there. Is any of that information actionable for the competitors. For example, we've seen advanced analytics across stick and ball sports transform game plans. In the NBA, teams have shifted heavily into three point shooting in recent years and moved away from longer two point shots because of simple value. Even at a lower shooting percentage, a three point shot makes way more sense than a long two over time. That's an insight discovered through data analysis. And I don't know about you, but I've become enthralled with Formula 1 in recent seasons, to the point where I even watch all the practice and qualifying sessions. Data and simulations play a very important role in car setups and race strategy calls, and it's those strategy calls that often provide a lot of drama, including late in the championship finale last weekend in Abu Dhabi. But the structure of dirt racing is different. For one the races are a lot shorter, and two, once the car is setup and rolled away from the trailer, there isn't a whole lot the crew can do to help a driver. Outside of maybe some signaling about where to be on the track, the crew has very little input on the race's outcome once the green flag flies. I think the closest we ever come to any real strategy in dirt racing is those rare occasions where you might have a heat race inversion, and guys try and sandbag through qualifying to get a better heat race start. Think like the Knoxville Nationals or Kings Royal. But there seems to be some question about whether or not that is actually possible to pull off, and whether the risk of falling too far behind is too great to even take the chance in the first place. To give you an idea of what I thinking about with dirt racing specifically, let's talk about start position with the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series. In 2018 and 2019, the most wins from any starting position with the Outlaws came from the pole. And that would seem to make sense. Start first, get the jump coming to the green and have the advantage for the race. But something has changed in the past two seasons, and that pole position advantage isn't quite what it was. In both 2020 and 2021, more wins came from the outside front row, than from the pole. It's a curious shift, and something on it's own to be explored, but in terms of strategy, is there something actionable there for the teams. The front of Outlaw fields is set by the dash, and the dash lineup itself is set by a random draw. That alone removes some of the possibility of utilizing strategy, but hear me out. If you are near the front of the dash, and you know that statistically you have a better chance at some race tracks of getting the early lead from the outside, do you find a way to second, instead of battling for the lead. Or if you are third, take some bigger risks to get to second. On any given night, this type of move and the possible gains in advantage are basically negligible, but over the course of 80 nights, those very small differences add up to much bigger effects at the end of the season. The difference in the championship this year between Brad Sweet and David Gravel was 80 points. At two points per position, that's 40 spots. 40 spots over 77 races is just a tick more than half a position per night. With that small of a gap between the 49 and the 2, I think it might be possible to employ some small measure of strategy like this to make gains. And through the course of a race night, there are other places where moves like this could be made. In this current age of dirt racing, especially with open wheel divisions, everyone has effectively the same stuff, so teams have to get creative to find advantages. And I know when I talk about this stuff, there is a certain percentage of my audience that either glazes over, or turns me off completely because the stats just don't mean anything to them. And that's fine. Get in the car and drive the wheels off of it. I get it. But the numbers tell a story, and I think add some context to what are long seasons. Drop me a comment on this. Is strategy possible in dirt racing? Could a game like this be played to an advantage? Let me hear your thoughts.

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.

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!