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Tanner Thorson wins first Chili Bowl, Mike Marlar takes Wild West Shootout, news from XR | Daily 1-17-2022

Coming up we dive into Chili Bowl Saturday, talk Wild West Shootout, and more news from the XR group. Let's go!

Today is Monday, January 17th, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

The 2022 Chili Bowl has come and gone now, and we have a first time winner to add to the record books. On Saturday night, despite not having won his prelim night, Tanner Thorson roared his way through the pole shuffle, started on the front row, and outdueled Christopher Bell late to snag the golden driller over an insanely talented field. It was the first time since 2014 that someone not named Rico Abreu, Christopher Bell, or Kyle Larson won the Chili Bowl main event. Thorson and his Reinbold-Underwood team were fast all week, and they put it all together on Saturday night for a big win. Bell finished second after leading 36 laps, Rico was third, Buddy Kofoid fourth, and Tanner Carrick finished fifth. It would have been interesting to see how things played out had the race stayed green over that final stretch. The Brady Bacon flip took the leaders out of traffic and I think allowed Thorson the chance to get away. Bell was making a move for the lead when that crash happened, and he was definitely a little better in traffic than Thorson. Either way though, Thorson was good and earned that win. Behind the front runners, Kyle Larson was never a factor for the win after starting seventh. He challenged up into the top five for a bit, but faded to sixth at the end. I just don't think he and Paul Silva have their arms completely around that new Eagle chassis just yet, and they showed that vulnerability through the week. We also saw history made with Kaylee Bryson becoming the first female to ever make the Saturday night feature. She finished 6th on her prelim night, which put her in a B-Main on Saturday. She then made a crazy 10th to the win run in that B to transfer, and did it against some of the best in the business like Blake Hahn, CJ Leary, Shane Golobic, and many others. It was a great moment and something we hopefully see a lot more of. She ended the main event in 18th, with other drivers like Maria Cofer, Mariah Ede, and Taylor Reimer having strong Saturdays. I was also impressed with Corey Day, who made the feature in his first ever Chili Bowl. He topped a talented field of rookies that included names like Ryan Timms, Brent Crews, and Gavan Boschele. Early in the day we had a few drivers go some rounds in the soup, including Jack Routson who went N to J, Tucker Klaasmeyer who also went N to J, and Sammy Swindell tied the record for the most races at six with an N to I run. His day ended in that I-Main with mechanical issues. Overall though, it was a disappointing weekend for the Swindell squad, with Sammy out early, and Logan Seavey's day ending in an E-Main. This was essentially Sammy's worst Chili Bowl Saturday ever, and Seavey finished top ten in the feature in 2021. Very uncharacteristic for the 1 and 39 cars.

The other thing everyone was talking about Saturday was the switchover from FloRacing to MAVTV. This has been a topic of discussion for the last several years and the noise on social media was deafening. The live TV aspect of Saturday really seems to hurt the program as a whole, and it grinds the action to a halt for the fans in the building. We talked about this on the livestream I did on Saturday night and the preview show last week with the Passing Points guys. MAVTV wants to fill a certain time slot, which is understandable but problematic. They also have a group of reporters and commentators who don't normally work with these drivers, so mistakes are going to happen. And it's just exacerbated by the fact that you have a tight Flo show all week leading into that broadcast. From the event's perspective, the live TV show is hard to walk away from, but I think something has to change for the future. Either from a production or event run standpoint. You can't have the last five races of the event take four or five hours to complete. I understand track work needs to happen, but there has to be a better way. Hopefully this is something that will be addressed going forward. Drop me a comment, let me know your thoughts on this and the event as a whole. If you didn't tune in or don't care about the Chili Bowl, I'd be curious as to why as well. It seems like a lot of eyes are on this event, but maybe not all of you care. Curious to hear from you also.

As for the Chili Bowl pool, I ended up missing out on the money. I was in a decent position headed into Saturday and not far out of 72nd place. But I faded into the feature. I had 10 cars between the two B-Mains and only had three transfer. So when some had 10 or 11 cars in the main event, I only had seven. In the end, we brought it home in 102nd place out of 1100 total entries. Not bad considering the field, and I think it shows real value from the dirtrackr.com analytics section. The last two years my picks were either completely based on the data, or very heavily influenced and it paid off. We'll try again next year.

If you weren't neck deep in the Chili Bowl for the last week, maybe you instead were locked into the Wild West Shootout out at Vado Speedway Park in New Mexico. The week of racing finished out with full programs on Friday, Saturday, and the $25,000-to-win finale on Sunday. I said late last week that two guys to watch for the weekend were Earl Pearson Jr. and Tyler Erb, and those two were the story on Friday. EPJ led early and again looked fast behind the wheel of that Jason Papich owned car. A lap 11 caution though for a flat right rear on Brandon Sheppard's B5 closed things up and brought Erb into the mix. On the restart, Terbo made a bid for the lead and he and EPJ battled for several laps, with the 1 machine on the bottom and the 46 up top. With lap traffic a factor, Erb was able to clear EPJ and get to the bottom with 13 to go. He pulled away from there for his first victory of 2022. EPJ finished second, Bobby Pierce was third, Johnny Scott fourth, and Mike Marlar completed the top five. Erb tried to keep that momentum going on Saturday, but was outgunned by Mike Marlar. The two battled through lap traffic in the early stages of the feature, but Marlar was able to get clear and drive away in a caution free affair. If the race had been maybe five or ten laps longer, Garrett Alberson may have been the winner, but he ran out of time. Marlar grabbed the win over Alberson, Pearson, Ricky Weiss, and Erb, who faded to fifth at the end after leading laps.

Entering Sunday, the race for the $25,000 finale was wide open, and so was the weeklong points championship. Brandon Sheppard led the standings for much of the week on the strength of those two opening weekend wins, but he faded through the final three nights which left an opening for others to capitalize. Friday it was the flat for Sheppard and Saturday it was an 18th place starting spot that he couldn't quite recover from. And then Sunday, his race would end early. In last night's feature, Jake Timm led early from the pole after the initial start was called back when Mike Marlar got an early jump. The race went caution free through 40 laps with Timm in control, but things got interesting late. While trying to run down Timm, Marlar tangled with the lap car of Kent Rosevear who ended up in the fence with significant damage. The incident collected Johnny Scott and top five runner Garrett Alberson. On the restart, Marlar and Timm battled for the lead, but it wasn't green for long. Ricky Weiss and Tyler Erb got together down the backstretch, and they collected Rusty Schlenk and BShep. Erb was on the high side exiting turn two, with Weiss on the bottom. Weiss drifted up towards the wall as they got to turn three, and maybe didn't realize Erb was outside. Weiss got right reared and it sent both cars spinning. Schlenk and Sheppard just had no where to go. All four were basically done for the night. Following the caution, Marlar was able to stretch away from the field and he drove away to the $25,000 win and clinch the weeklong championship. Earl Pearson Jr. finished second, Timm third, Bobby Pierce fourth, and Stormy Scott was fifth. Nobody was able to take advantage of those Penske bonuses on the week. In the end, we got to see some really great racing at Vado, and hopefully this isn't the last time we'll get big time racing at the track. Going forward, I'm curious to see how some of these guys are able to use these opening laps to their advantage heading to Florida and Georgia. Some of these drivers will head to Volusia this weekend for the Outlaw opener, and then quite a few will be at Golden Isles in 10 days for the Lucas opener. I definitely think EPJ will be one to watch going forward, and Erb showed plenty of speed. The question with Erb though is always his decision making. Can he keep a cool head and stack up some consistent performances. He definitely has the talent and equipment to compete for a title if he can do that. I think a lot of people were impressed with Garrett Alberson, and Jake Timm definitely opened some eyes last night. I know it wasn't a super deep field of cars, but a nice preview to the season none the less.

In other late model news, the XR Super Series has made a few more announcements about payouts and a loyalty program for drivers with perfect attendance. Over 25 events, the series will pay out $3 million in purse money, with most events paying $2500 just to start. 10 races will pay $50,000 to win and have a total purse of $150,000. And there are 13 $25,000 to win shows. The loyalty program will offer free entries and passes, plus VIP parking and free merch space. If drivers miss a single race though, they are out of the program. There is also a ton of money available at Bristol, and an extra bonus setup for Charlotte, Texas, and Vegas. XR also announced streaming deals with the Dirt Kings late models and High Plains late models. They also acquired the Southern Touring Late Model Series and just this morning announced the acquisition of the Southern All Stars late model series. So news and announcements have been coming quick for the XR group. They have come very quickly into the super late model space and in a big way. This will be something to pay attention to going forward, how this all works together with the existing late model establishment. This isn't a group that likes to see the boat rocked and you know folks are talking behind the scenes about these moves. There is also a ton of money being thrown around, which isn't common in dirt racing. For more on the XR series and events, visit racexr.com.

There are two shows on today's streaming schedule. DIRTVision has the iRacing World of Outlaws World Championship from Fairbury, and Flo has 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 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!