DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Kyle Busch going dirt racing again, dirt late model full timers with Lucas and the Outlaws | Daily 12-28-2021

Coming up we are talking late model national tour full timers, the Tulsa Shootout, an update on Trail-Way Speedway and more. Let's go!

Today is Tuesday, December 28th, two thousand and twenty one. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

I got asked recently about full timers for the national touring late model series and who will be racing where, and I thought this morning we could just talk through the possibilities for both series as we approach the start of the year. We are about two weeks from the start of the Wild West Shootout at Vado in New Mexico. Then the Outlaws are at Volusia for the Sunshine Nationals starting on January 20th, before Lucas gets started at Golden Isles in Georgia on January 27th. There isn't a lot of time before we'll be neck deep in the dirt late model season, and I'm honestly surprised we haven't heard more about series commitments. I do think it's possible that more teams and drivers will run a schedule like Brandon Overton has in recent years, and I've talked about that here recently. I also think with the addition of the XR stuff for 2022, it might be a while before we have a clear picture about who will race where. It's not uncommon for guys to get through the opening speedweeks before they make a decision. We saw that with Chris Madden in 2021, but unfortunately that late move probably cost him a real shot at the Outlaw title. With the Outlaws we know for sure they have signed Tanner English, Gary Dillon, Max Blair, Kyle Hammer, Josh Richards, Boom Briggs, and Gordy Gundaker. We still aren't 100% certain on Brandon Sheppard plus drivers like Madden, Tyler Bruening, Dennis Erb jr., and Ryan Gustin. We do know that Ricky Weiss won't be full time with the Outlaws and is going pick and choose for 2022. On the Lucas side, the only driver and team that I can find who have declared explicitly in a public place they are racing with the series is PCC and Spencer Hughes. Outside of that, I don't see why Tim McCreadie, Hudson O'Neal, Jonathan Davenport, Jimmy Owens, and Tyler Erb won't be back full time. They have been Lucas mainstays in recent years. Along with that, Kyle Bronson ran every Lucas race in both 2021 and 2020 and should be in the mix. I think it's also very likely that Earl Pearson Jr. is full time with the Jason Papich owned car. I don't know about names like Ricky Thornton Jr., Shane Clanton, Mike Marlar, and Stormy Scott, who were all full time this season or ran a significant amount of races. Clanton has been back and forth in his career, RTJ was the rookie of the year, and I'd hope that SSI wouldn't bail on him just yet. Marlar and Stormy didn't run all the races in 2021, and I'd assume that will be the case again next year. Besides the two national series, it's possible that the XR Super Series could draw some guys away with all the money on the line in those races this season. Plus the Flo series is back in 2022, but guys should be able to run both tours with no conflicts and still run for Flo points. I do think the Summer Nationals fields could take a hit, especially amongst those that race for the championship. With all the money available elsewhere, the appeal might be too great. In talking through all of this, I wish I had more clarity for you, but it feels like some of the teams don't have clarity for themselves yet. Drop a comment with your thoughts and what rumors you've heard about who might be racing where.

Load-in continues this morning at the Tulsa Expo Center for the Tulsa Shootout, with practice on the schedule for this afternoon. According to a tweet last night from Lonnie Wheatley, 1,465 entries had draw in already, and there were still another almost 250 paid entries that could still possibly draw. So that takes the total car count up over 1700 for the event. That's just an absolutely insane amount of cars for the six divisions of racing. Among the entries is a surprise addition this morning. NASCAR Cup champion Kyle Busch is in the building and will run in four classes, winged and non-wing Outlaw, winged A-Class and stock non-wing. He's racing in cars prepared by Joe B. Miller. Kyle's son Brexton will race in the junior sprint category. Other NASCAR drivers in the building include the aforementioned Christopher Bell, and past truck series champions Brett Moffitt and Sheldon Creed. Both of those guys have been regularly competing in micros at Millbridge this season. Practice for all divisions starts at 1PM local time, with racing set to start tomorrow morning.

We talked a while back about Trail-Way Speedway in Pennsylvania being up for sale, and we got confirmation yesterday that the track and surrounding land has officially been sold. And unfortunately for fans and competitors at the track, the new owners do not plan on continuing racing at the facility. It ends 49 years of racing at the track that featured 358 winged sprint cars among it's other weekly divisions. A lot of Pennsylvania racers have made their way through Trail-Way, including names like Danny Dietrich, Logan Schuchart, Chase Dietz, and others. Tough end for such a staple of weekly Central Pennsylvania racing. The Hostetter's other winter racing programs will continue even without the race track.

Last night was round number six of the iRacing World of Outlaws World Championship. The series took to the virtual Knoxville Raceway to begin the downhill half of the season towards the championship. Cameron Merriman entered the night as the points leader, after both James Edens and Alex Bergeron had connection issues during the previous two rounds and gave up their spots atop the standings. Anything can still happen though with the top five or six drivers still close together. The other battle in the standings is for the final guaranteed spot in next year's championship. Only the top 15 drivers will be set to return for the next season, while everyone else must battle their way back in. Tyler Ducharme held the spot before last night's race, with five drivers very closely in tow, led by Aiden Bierlein. In the night's feature, Bergeron sat on the pole, and he was comfortable out front until very late in the race. Hayden Cardwell ran him down from second and the two were side by side coming to the white. Unfortunately for Cardwell though, Bergeron drifted up the track and the two tangled, sending Cardwell crashing out of the event. It was definitely a tough break for Cardwell who was very clearly faster. On the restart, Bergeron held off Braden Eyler and grabbed his first win of the season. Eyler finished second, Tyler Schell third, Blake Matjoulis fourth, and Aiden Bierlein was fifth. We'll have to see how the points shake out, but the win may have been enough for Bergeron to take back over the championship lead with Cameron Merriman starting 20th and racing back up to sixth at the end. The series goes quiet this coming Monday night, January 3rd, and returns to racing on Monday, January 10th with a stop at Cedar Lake Speedway.

The only thing left on the streaming schedule today is FloRacing 24/7. There was sprint cars from Perth Motorplex earlier this morning, but that show has ended. You will be able to roll back and watch the replay over on DIRTVision though. 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 tomorrow for more DIRTRACKR Daily!