DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Kyle Larson back in a late model, Davenport and Owens' status, the Michael Page saga | Daily 1-18-2022

On the show today we've got a bunch of late model topics, including news from the Wild West Shootout, where we'll see Kyle Larson next, the Michael Page saga, plus rumblings about Jonathan Davenport and Jimmy Owens. Let's go.

Today is Tuesday, January 18th, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

Fresh off of Sunday night's finale, the Wild West Shootout is already prepping for 2023. It was announced yesterday that the week long mini series will contine at Vado Speedway Park next year, and it will feature more than $70,000 added to the late model purses. Each night will now pay $10,000 to win, up from $5000, to go along with the $25,000-to-win finale. With as light as the crowds and car count were, I'm a little surprised it's coming back, but hopefully next year folks and teams will turn out after the great shows we saw in 2022. The release did say that the event will likely be on the move for 2024, back to a track in the Phoenix, Arizona area. Jonah Trussel, who was the promoter at the recently shut down Arizona Speedway, is apparently working on building a new track near Phoenix and hopes to have that facility ready for 2024, and when it's complete, the Wild West Shootout will be there. I'm glad to see this event continue, and hopefully be secure into the future. And things must not have been that bad this year, if Chris Kearns and his group are able to push the purses for next year. For more details on the event and the news, check out wildwestshootout.net.

The 2022 World of Outlaws Late Model season gets underway this weekend at Volusia, and the field for the weekend just keeps getting better. The series tweeted out very early this morning that Kyle Larson will be in attendance. No other details were given, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that he'll be back behind the wheel of the Rumley six car. Larson has six Outlaw appearances back through 2020, with two wins. One of those was the Prairie Dirt Classic at Fairbury last year, and the other was a $10,000 to win show at Sharon. Larson's last Outlaw race came at Cherokee Speedway in September. He picked up a top five finish that night. With the NASCAR season still a few weeks away, and Georgia-Florida Speedweeks looming, I wonder if this means we'll see Larson for a decent stretch of these late model shows. Him showing up to some of these races would definitely add a little excitement to the mix. Either way though, we'll get to see him at Volusia, which I believe will be the first time he's raced there with the fenders on. We'll have more on the Sunshine Nationals on Thursday's show.

Another storyline we've been trying to keep an eye on is who is going to run full time with the national touring series. We have a decent amount of clarity about the Outlaws, but not so much about Lucas. Lucas doesn't seem to be interested in making driver announcements as a series, so we're left to our own devices when trying to figure it out. That's usually not great, because we end up on terrible forums and scouring websites and social media for information. Yesterday, Jonathan Davenport showed off his new paint scheme for 2022, and he's one of the drivers in question. There are rumblings about him and Jimmy Owens not chasing the Lucas title, and the schedules on their websites certainly don't help in that department. Davenport's schedule just has the three nights at Golden Isles on it, and nothing else. And Owens' schedule has Golden Isles, All-Tech, East Bay, and Volusia on it, but no Bubba Raceway Park. If you're going to race full time, why would Owens miss the two nights at Ocala. I know we're a bit out on the edges right now with stuff like this, but this might be the indication that more of these guys than we expected are going to forego a series full time and just chase big money races. The Brandon Overton influence might just be too strong with some of these guys, especially with so many opportunities to race, between the Outlaws and Lucas and XR and Flo and the crown jewels like the World and Dream at Eldora. We could be down to like seven or eight cars come the end of the year battling for these championships, and I don't know about you, but I think that kinda sucks.

Being so locked into the Chili Bowl last week, I completely missed out on the drama happening with Michael Page in the late model world. You might remember that just about 10 days ago he picked up his sixth straight Ice Bowl win at the Talladega Short Track. But that was apparently just the beginning of the story. Four days after the win, on Wednesday the 12th, the Iron-Man Series announced that Page had been suspended from the series for an entire year because of an altercation between a series official and one of Page's crew members. There was also language in the release that referred to Page's quote unquote aggressive driving, and a mention of Page taking advantage of the series start rules. The whole release is a bit of a strange read, and it was odd to mention that stuff if he was being suspended for his crew member's actions. I don't know the full story, but it's not uncommon for a driver to be penalized for actions by his crew. But wait, there's more! Two days later, on Friday the 14th, in another release from the series on their Facebook page it was announced that Page had been DQ'd from the race because of a failed tire sample. According to officials, Page was legal on his right rear, but illegal on his right front. Page was docked to 24th place in the rundown, and Christian Hanger has been promoted to the win. I wonder if that means that Hanger gets the $1500 bounty? No mention of that in the Facebook release. Definitely a wild stretch of six days for the series and Michael Page. I do find it interesting in this day and age though that guys are still cheating by soaking tires. You'd think with so much technology out there that we'd have moved on to something different. But I guess not.

This is the part of the Tuesday show where some of you turn me off because I'm going to talk about cartoon race cars. But for those that stick around, last night was round number eight of the iRacing World of Outlaws World Championship. With so few races left and the championship battle still super tight, you know the intensity is going to continue to ramp up, especially with tracks like Fairbury and Weedsport on the schedule. Alex Bergeron took an eight point lead into last night's show at Fairbury over Cameron Merriman, with James Edens, Hayden Cardwell, and Braden Eyler all within striking distance. Bergeron is chasing his fourth series championship, with everyone behind him looking for their first. In last night's feature, Evan Seay led the field to green from the pole, and from there, all hell broke loose. Last week's winner and top five driver in the standings, Hayden Cardwell ended up crashed out after he was collected in someone else's mess. Then shortly after that, points leader Bergeron had yet another tech issue while running in the top five. He was able to rejoin the race, but finished 16th, 15 laps down. That left the door wide open for Cameron Merriman to take the points lead, and he was set to take full advantage as he grabbed the lead late in the race and was driving away. But coming to the white, we had absolute disaster for Merriman, who caught the wall in three and four and ended up on his lid, all by himself. That handed the lead back to pole sitter Seay who closed out on the final restart to take the win. Tyler Ducharme, Logan Rumsey, Brayden Shute, and Braden Eyler completed the top five. Merriman ended up 14th in the final rundown, and while he will still gain some ground in the standings, his opportunity to seize control of the championship fight with only two races remaining went away with a simple mistake coming to the white. Eyler and Edens both picked up top six finishes, so they will close on the front two as well. Only two races remain in the season, with Weedsport on tap for next week, and Charlotte coming up after that. Don't forget you can watch these races for free on Monday nights at 9PM ET on DIRTVision and YouTube.

I know some of you don't like that I talk about iRacing, but keep in mind these guys are racing for $300 to win every week, and the champion wins $10,000. That's some serious cash throughout a 10 race season, and more than some actual dirt tracks pay for certain divisions. These guys are real racers who dedicate a lot of time to their craft, and you won't convince me otherwise.

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 tomorrow for more DIRTRACKR Daily!