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Buddy Kofoid outduels Kyle Larson on Chili Bowl night 2, Wild West Shootout back in action tonight | Daily 1-12-2022
Coming up we talk Chili Bowl night two, including that epic Larson vs. Kofoid battle. We also preview night three of the Wild West Shootout, there are new podcast episodes, and more. Let's go!
Today is Wednesday, January 12th, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Coming into the week, everyone talked about how tough of a night Tuesday at the Chili Bowl was going to be with Kyle Larson, Buddy Kofoid, Chris Windom, TMez, Zach Daum, and so many others in the field. And with so much talent out there, we were treated to a whale of a night. Larson has dominated his prelim night going back to 2018, but his win streak would not be extended to five straight. He ran up against the baby-faced kid from California in Buddy Kofoid, and got outdueled. Monday at the Chili Bowl didn't go so hot for Kofoid, who tangled with Sammy Swindell and ended up on his lid in the VIROC. Overnight and into Tuesday morning though, Kofoid's Keith Kunz Motorsports team stripped the car down, got it repaired, and put it back together. They did not want to go to a backup for Buddy. And the hard work paid off. Buddy went fourth to the win in his heat, and sixth to second in his qualifier to earn a front row starting position for the feature. As for Yung Money, he went sixth to second in heat three, then sixth to the win in his qualifier to grab the pole. With those two starting up front together, we hoped we were in for a battle and and the two absolutely delivered. We've see these two go at it before, and Kofoid has come out on top, so you knew he wouldn't be fazed by Larson. I'm thinking of Bakersfield in 2020 in the USAC midget show late in the year. At the start, Larson was quickly out to the lead, but he wasn't able to gap the 67. On a few occasions he had to use the big screen to block a move from Kofoid into turn one. Once they reached lap traffic, Larson was able to sneak away a bit, not because his car was better, but because he's just so good making moves through the backmarkers. Inside ten laps to go, a series of cautions reracked the field, and took the leaders out of traffic. That allowed guys like Jake Swanson and Chris Windom to stay in the mix for the front. On a restart with six to go, Buddy made his move on the high side in one and two. He hit the cushion perfectly with Larson on the bottom and was able to drive by down the backstretch. He then blocked low into three to keep Larson from throwing the slider. But the 01 was nowhere near ready to just let Kofoid win. He threw bombs the next three laps into turn one, with the first two failing to clear. On the third try, he was able to slip past the 67, but he couldn't stick the landing. Larson bounced off the curb and Buddy was able to drive back by on corner exit. On that same lap, Larson then made a mistake in three and four which let Chris Windom by for second, and that all important feature lock in spot. On the white flag lap, a slider in turn one got Larson back to second, but Kofoid was already gone. The victory for Buddy busted Larson's prelim night streak and showed the world that Larson can be beat inside the expo this year. Windom ended up third, Jake Swanson was fourth from 11th, and TMez went 13th to fifth. So Buddy and Larson are locked in. Windom, Swanson, TMez, Kaylee Bryson, Jake Bubak, and Jonathan Beason are all headed for a B-Main. Sidenote here for Kaylee Bryson, she's now the highest finishing female every on a prelim night with the sixth place run. She'll have a great chance on Saturday to try and become the first to ever make a Chili Bowl feature. Back to the front, the battle between Larson and Kofoid is exactly the type of thing you tune into the Chili Bowl for. Two ultra talented racers just flat going to war. No contact, no dirty moves, just good, hard racing.
Logan Seavey was in the FloRacing booth last night, and again, like Clinton Boyles, it's so nice to have a driver on the call. When Larson made that third slider move into one, Seavey called that the 01 was going to clear Kofoid when Larson was at the start finish line. Great information and insight from these guys really elevates the broadcast.
Elsewhere last night, there was plenty of other stuff to talk about. We had a sizeable delay during the first B-Main for Carson Sousa getting hung in the turn one fence. He launched off a wheel and they needed the forks on the skidsteer and a lot of coordination to get it clear of the cables and chainlink. In that same race, we had Steven Snyder Jr. get DQ'd for rough driving. Snyder, if you might remember, was the winner of the KKM Giveback Classic, and is running for Kunz this week. He got a middle finger earlier in that B-Main from Jeb Sessums after right rear to left front contact sent Sessums tumbling in three and four. Just a little bit later, a very similar situation left Brayton Lynch on his lid after right rear to left front contact from Snyder. Snyder was subsequently black flagged, and we had some fireworks at the top of the ramp afterwards. It was obviously a big topic on social media, and Snyder later tweeted quote "I want to apologize for everything tonight, I made a big mistake and there’s no way around it, I learned a big lesson tonight. I can’t thank everyone enough for this opportunity." unquote. I definitely don't think Snyder intentionally wrecked either guy, but he made some overly aggressive moves, which isn't surprising. He was trying to recover from a tough qualifier and impress people for the future. A bad combination that led to some not great decision making.
Looking ahead to tonight, the Wednesday field includes Rico Abreu, Brad Sweet, Blake Hahn, Sammy Swindell, Kevin Thomas Jr., Damion Gardner, and standout young guns Corey Day and Ryan Timms. Unless he has terrible luck, I don't see any reason why Rico shouldn't be the easy favorite for today. The building is already open, and the schedule is the same as yesterday. Draw at 2PM central, hot laps at 4 and heat races at 5. You can watch live again on FloRacing.
As for my Chili Bowl pool picks, it's not been a super great start to the week. We got our first full field update last night and I'm sitting right smack in the middle of the 1100 entries at number 557. 333 points on night one, with 310 last night. I had four feature starters both nights, and have one Saturday lock in and one prelim night winner. I had Kofoid, Daum, Swanson, and Danner in last night's feature, but whiffed on Mike Hess and Tanner Allen. Chance Morton was looking good to get a feature transfer in the first B-Main, but got wiped out by Roger Crockett and finished ninth. I need to get into the top 72, which right now I'm 122 points shy of, so work to do. Tonight's picks are Rico in group one, Colby Copeland in group two, Ryan Timms in group three, RJ Johnson in group four, Chance Crum in group five, Daniel Adler in group six, and Billy VanInwegen in group seven. Hopefully the rest of the week goes better.
Before we move on, a quick note about Logan Seavey. He made 30 USAC National Sprint Car appearances in 2021, and picked up four wins driving the Baldwin five. He mentioned on the FloRacing broadcast he will be back in the seat of that car in 2022. No mention of a schedule, but I'd assume something similar to 2021.
If you don't give a damn about midgets in Tulsa, don't worry, the Wild West Shootout is back tonight at Vado Speedway Park in New Mexico. Brandon Sheppard kicked off the event last weekend by winning on both Saturday and Sunday nights in his family B5 Rocket. He topped Bobby Pierce on night one and Tyler Erb on night two. Competitors will once again race for $5000 to win, and we should be in the low to mid 30s for car count tonight. Sheppard's two wins so far keeps him alive for one of the Penske Shocks bonuses, were he to win at least two more races on the week. Four wins is $25k, five wins is $100k, and all six wins is $300k. Outside of BShepp, we've seen Pierce and Erb be fast, same with Mike Marlar and Garrett Alberson. Ricky Weiss has two top tens as does Kyle Beard. Donny Schatz should also be back in the mix after spending Monday and Tuesday at the Chili Bowl. He had finishes of 10th and 11th last weekend, and I'm guessing will race tonight and Friday, before heading back to Tulsa on Saturday. He'll be in a D-Main on Saturday night after finishing 15th in the feature last night. Tonight we should also see names like Mason Oberkramer, Jason Papich, Jake Timm, the Scott brothers, and Rusty Schlenk in that really cool CJ Rayburn tribute car. After tonight, the event will again go quiet on Thursday, before finishing out over the weekend with full programs on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. You can watch live on FloRacing, and if you need more event info visit wildwestshootout.net. Dustin Jarrett and Ben Shelton are calling the action at Vado, and are two good Twitter follows this week for updates.
The Xtreme DIRTcar Series was supposed to be back racing this weekend with stops at Lake View Motor Speedway and Cherokee Speedway in South Carolina, but forecasted rain and snow have forced officials to postpone the races. No makeup dates have yet been announced. The next race scheduled is February 25th and 26th at Lavonia Speedway in Georgia. Ross Bailes leads Carson Ferguson in the points standings following three rounds of racing.
If you're looking for some other dirt racing podcasts this week, Winged Nation has Brad Sweet, LoudPedal has Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott, Ohio Dirt has Tyler Burnett and Brandon Wimmer, Passing Points is ripping out interviews from the Chili Bowl including Donny Schatz, TMez, and a lot more. There are also new episodes of the Dirt Reporters and the Dirt Nerds. To see the full list of shows and episodes, hit up dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
There are five items on the streaming schedule for today. DIRTVision has DIRTcar eSports from Eldora, FloRacing has night three of the Chili Bowl, night three of the Wild West Shootout, and Flo 24/7. And Speed Sport TV has another night of the IMCA Winter Nationals from Cocopah Speedway. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
And speaking of streaming, DIRTVision has worked out a deal to stream the Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic from Premier Speedway in Australia coming up. If you don't know, this is sort of like the Aussie Knoxville Nationals. The reigning World of Outlaws rookie of the year, James McFadden, has won the event twice, and guys like Donny Schatz, Danny Lasoski, Shane Stewart, and Jac Haudenschild have won the event as well. You can watch it live January 21st through the 23rd.
That's it for the show today, hope you have a good Wednesday. 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!