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Kofoid and Crouch going sprint car racing, Tulsa Shootout done, no Davenport at Wild West Shootout | Daily 1-3-2022

Coming up on this first Daily of the new year we are talking Tulsa Shootout, sprint car news for Buddy Kofoid and Brenham Crouch, the Xtreme Outlaw schedule, and more. Let's go!

Today is Monday, January 3rd, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

The Tulsa Shootout is complete and we were left with six different winners in the six divisions on Saturday night. There was some great racing, some drama, and some incredible performances from Emerson Axsom. Let's dive into the results. Axsom, who is joining Clauson Marshall for a full USAC sprint car run in 2022, kicked off the night by winning the stock non-wing feature from the pole. He held off Alex Bright on two late restarts to earn his second career golden driller. Axsom was an Outlaw winner in 2020 at the Shootout as well. Mitchel Moles completed the podium in stock non-wing. In the night's junior sprint main event, young Lucas Mauldin picked up the victory for back-to-back wins in the division at the Shootout. One of the main topics of conversation on the night surrounding the junior sprints involved Kyle Busch's son Brexton. He won the C-Main, then went 13th to 4th in the B, but missed out on the transfer. He was offered a promoter's provisional to start the feature at the tail, but the family declined. It was a move you don't often see, but one that was met positively on social media. I wouldn't have blamed them though if Brexton raced. If the promoter wants to let me race the feature, I'm certainly not turning them down. In outlaw non-wing, the action picked up significantly and we saw a wild finish and some bitter disappointment. Jeffrey Newell and Blake Hahn started together on the front row and the two swapped the lead early on. Past half way, with Hahn leading, and Newell back to fourth, Jonathan Beason made his presence felt. He took the lead from Hahn with 12 to go, and then disaster struck. In turn three he bounced off the cushion, and nearly wrecked it. While he was saving it, Hahn had no where to go and was collected. The caution was thrown and Hahn was sent to the back. And then on the restart, contact between Austin Lambert and Beason allowed Newell to slip past both and resume the lead. In the closing laps, Emerson Axsom tried to run Newell down, but to no avail. Newell beat Axsom to the line for the win, but the action wasn't done. Axsom rode the wall at the line trying to make the pass and ended up going for a big tumble after the checkered. He was okay, but the car was damaged. He later needed a new ride to run the winged outlaw feature. In restricted A class, it was a battle of the Jetts, with Jett Nunley topping Jett Barnes for the driller. In winged A class, Jake Hagopian grabbed the lead at half way and drove away to the victory over Christopher Bell and Tyler Courtney, who had a spirited battle in the closing laps for that second position. It was a nice win for Hagopian, who had previously won in 2019 because of a DQ. And in the night's finale, it was all Craig Ronk. He started on the winged outlaw pole and led all 55 laps to take the win in dominating fashion over Thomas Kunsman and Jonathan Beason. After the fireworks in the early non-wing features, Axsom went 17th to 7th in winged a-class, and 16th to 8th in winged outlaw. Not a bad recovery after the crash. The Tulsa Expo center goes quiet this week, but it won't be long until things get going for Chili Bowl. Move-in for the event starts on Saturday, with the first prelim night a week from today, next Monday, January 10th.

And since we are talking about Chili Bowl, now would be a good time to mention that the event has officially broken the pre-entry record. As of today there are 380 cars on the entry list with a week to go. And also today you can peruse the inital lineups for each of the five prelim nights over at chilibowl.com. We'll go through everything later in the week, especially once the pool groups have been announced, but for now all of that info is available.

Two drivers we will see racing during the Chili Bowl, in Buddy Kofoid and Brenham Crouch, had a little news drop about them this morning. Crouch's father Leighton and Bernie Stuebgen of Indy Race Parts are partnering up to put together a two car sprint car operation for 2022. Kofoid will drive one car, maybe as many as 50 times next season, between the Outlaws, All Stars, and regional stuff in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. And Crouch will pilot the other, in 30 to 50 races, mostly in 360 competition. Both drivers will fit in the sprint car starts between their full time USAC midget committments. Jeremy Elliott at sprintcarunlimited.com broke the story, and there are a ton of tidbits in the piece about the deal and Kofoid. Buddy is still in the Toyota pipeline, and will also make some more pavement starts in 2022. As for the team and Leighton Crouch, they've moved all the equipment to Bernie's in Indiana from Texas, and they are hoping to go full time Outlaw racing in 2023. Both Bernie and Leighton would like to have Kofoid full time when they make that move to full time Outlaw competition, but it will depend on what Buddy's situation is with Toyota. To help lighten the load, Bernie has hired Brad Alexander from Tony Stewart Racing and Blade Kearns from Rudeen, with Alexander set to be the crew chief. Alexander had been at TSR since 2019, and was the car chief on Donny Schatz's 15. If you want to see more on the story, including quotes, hit up sprintcarunlimited.com.

We've been waiting on the schedule for World Racing Group's new non-wing sprint car and midget series, the Xtreme Outlaw Series, and back on Thursday it was released. The midgets have 12 races on the schedule, while the sprint cars have 14 for this first year. The midgets will race at Farmer City, Millbridge, Jacksonville, Pevely, Davenport, Port City, and I-44. The sprint cars will hit up Volusia, US-36, Lake Ozark, Pevely, Jacksonville, Spoon River, Atomic, and there are two TBAs in October. The midget shows will all pay at least $4000 to win, while the sprint car shows are all at least $5000 to win, with two $10k to wins mixed in there as well. The sprint car champion will take home $20 grand, while the midget champ gets $10 grand. To keep things simple, both series rules will mirror those of USAC and POWRi. Everything in the announcement is about what I expected, but I do wish the schedules were a little heavier. I understand why they are light this first season, but I thought we'd have more joint races with the World of Outlaws series. One benefit though, is it might draw some more drivers and teams with the lighter schedule. Guys can compete for a title without a huge committment. And alongside the schedule announcement, we found out that Shane Cockrum and Zach Daum will join Landon Simon, Jason McDougal, and Chase Stockon as full time with the sprint cars. Cockrum will run for Shane Wade, and Daum is driving for Matt McGarry. At this moment, I don't believe we have any full time midget commitments yet. To see more on the series, visit xtremeoutlawseries.com.

If you're a late model fan, the 2022 season gets rolling in a big way this weekend with the opening of the Wild West Shootout at Vado Speedway Park in New Mexico. One driver you won't see though, is Jonathan Davenport. Davenport won three of the features last year at the Wild West Shootout, including the finale and the points fund, but he tweeted last night that his 49 team will not be in attendance this season. The entry list should still be stout, but it's definitely a hit to lose a driver like Davenport from this event. The Wild West Shootout kicks off a busy start to the year for late model teams, with the Outlaws at Volusia coming right after Vado, and then Lucas opening later in the month at Golden Isles. We'll dive into the Wild West Shootout later in the week.

There are two shows on the streaming schedule for this Monday, both of them on FloRacing. There is midgets and saloons from Western Springs in New Zealand, 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 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 tomorrow for more DIRTRACKR Daily!