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Devin Moran snags Lucas opener; Overton, Pearson victims of droop rule; Reimer full time with USAC | Daily 1-28-2022
Coming up on this Friday edition of the Daily, we'll get into last night's Lucas opener including a little drama in qualifying. We've also got news from Taylor Reimer, Cole Bodine, and the Xtreme DIRTcar Series. Let's go!
Today is Friday, January 28th, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series is off and running for 2022, and we had some drama on night one, multiple leaders, and some good racing at Golden Isles. It didn't take long for the new droop rule with Lucas to bite some teams on Thursday night. If you might remember, they had that big late model meeting at the PRI Show to streamline the late model rulebook situation, and in that meeting, Lucas agreed to enact the droop rule which limits left rear travel. In the first qualifying group of the night, Brandon Overton set fast time, but immediately had his time thrown out when tech official Steve Francis found his car to be outside the limit on that droop. And then in the second group, Earl Pearson Jr. went third quick I believe, and had his time chucked for the same offense. That put both drivers in a massive hole for the night with 47 cars entered, and neither really recovered. Overton went eighth to sixth in his heat, and EPJ went eighth to fifth. Both moved forward in their B-Mains, but both missed the transfer by one spot. Overton was done for the night, while EPJ took a provisional and went 25th to 13th. Both clearly had fast cars on the night, and will be looking to rebound tonight. Another driver who didn't have a great start to the weekend was Jimmy Owens. He crashed in qualifying and his guys had to thrash to get the car repaired for heat races, which unfortunately they missed. He then also needed a provisional to make the feature, and was able to drive through the field for a 10th place finish.
Kudos to Kyle Bronson and his team that now runs Golden Isles. The track was in great shape last night and we had some really good racing. It's wild to see that place on the broadcast, because it looks huge. You can easily go three wide through the corners, maybe four wide, and it definitely looks bigger than the 4/10s it's listed at. In the night's feature, Ricky Thornton Jr. and Kyle Larson led the field to green, and it was Yung Money out to the early lead. His time out front was short lived though, as would be the case for the next two cars to lead after Larson. Erb used a high side move to take the top spot from the six car on lap eight, but then lost the lead to Brandon Sheppard on lap 14. Sheppard then was only out front for four laps before Devin Moran used lap traffic to sneak by to lead lap 18. From that point, Moran was untouchable out front. He led the final 23 circuits en route to the victory and $10,000. Sheppard, Larson, Erb, and Tim McCreadie completed the top five. It was a little strange to see that we had no Lucas regulars on the podium. Looking ahead to the weekend, it looks like the rain is going to hold off tonight, and we should be fine for Saturday, but it's not going to be warm. Pack those blankets if you're headed out there.
A few notes from last night from various places and sources. The Lucas rookie class right now includes Garrett Alberson in the Black Diamond house car, Spencer Hughes and PCC Motorsports, Ashton Winger, and Ross Robinson announced yesterday they are going to tackle the full schedule. And on Dirt on Dirt's Drive Home last night, it was mentioned that Daulton Wilson could join that group depending on how Speedweeks plays out. Michael Rigsby also said that both Jimmy Owens and Jonathand Davenport confirmed to him that they are not running a series full time in 2022, instead choosing to chase the cash. As for the racing coming up, Rigsby mentioned that he and Steve Francis think they'll have 40ish cars at Ocala Monday and Tuesday, 40ish cars at All-Tech Thursday and Friday next week, but that East Bay could see something over 70 cars. That would be incredible.
As for win picks last night, both me and the dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula are now 0-2. The formula had McCreadie who finished fifth, and I had Overton who ran up against that droop rule. For tonight, the formula likes Larson to win, while I'm going to stick with Overton. I think he was fast and will be back tonight on a mission. Drop me a comment, let me know who you're taking for wins this weekend at Golden Isles. The next two nights can be watched online at MAVTV Plus.
The USAC National Midget season gets going at Bubba Raceway Park on February 11th, and announcements are starting to come out about who will race the series full time. We already know that Buddy Kofoid will be back with Keith Kunz to defend his series championship, and Brenham Crouch will be back as well with the team. Joining those two at KKM will be a new full timer. After running a partial midget schedule in 2021, Taylor Reimer will return to KKM to take on the full slate of USAC national events. She appeared 23 times last season, with a best finish of eighth, which she did twice, at Action Track USA and at Ventura. She had four total top tens, and an average finish of 14th. Along the way she also picked up two heat race wins and two quick times. A few weeks ago at the Chili Bowl, Reimer made her prelim night feature, and finished 11th in a Saturday D-Main. In between her racing commitments this season, Reimer is also finishing up her degree at the University of Oklahoma.
Joining Reimer as a full timer with a USAC series in 2022 will be Cole Bodine. With his family owned DCT Racing team, Bodine will take on the full sprint car schedule, and the team will run a second car with select drivers making starts for driver development. DCT is owned by Kevin Bodine and Lynn Crow. In the past two seasons, Bodine has appeared 22 times with the USAC sprint cars, with a best finish of eighth at Lawrenceburg in October of 2020. He had been racing with Clauson Marshall, but they parted ways part way through the 2021 season. Bodine has two total top ten finishes in that span, and an average feature finish of 15th. The team will open the year at Bubba Raceway Park coming up in a few weeks, and the second car will be driven by 16 year old Jack Hoyer. It will be Hoyer's first USAC national event.
The Xtreme DIRTcar Series announced a couple of date changes yesterday for events that were previously postponed because of weather. Lake View Motor Speedway has been added to the schedule on Thursday, March 24th, and the series will now co-sanction the Rock Gault Memorial at Cherokee Speedway with the World of Outlaws Late Models March 25th and 26th. These three races will now be the final of the season for the Xtreme DIRTcar Series and they will help decide the championship. Two other races are still to come, Feburary 25th at Lavonia and February 26th at Modoc, which is now Little River Speedway. So with five races still to run, Ross Bailes leads Carson Ferguson and Ben Watkins for the championship. These are all races you can watch live on DIRTVision. For more series info, visit xtremedirtcar.com. Xtreme with an X.
Out in Arizona last night at Cocopah Speedway, nine time USAC CRA champion Damion Gardner got the 2022 season off to a good start setting a new track record in qualifying, and then leading the final 24 laps of a 30 lap main event to snag his 90th career series victory. Austin Williams, Ricky Lewis, Brody Roa, and Charles Davis Jr. completed the top five. The non-wing sprint car series is back tonight and tomorrow night at Cocopah for two more full shows, and they've got a solid group racing that includes Stevie Sussex and JJ Yeley.
At East Bay last night during WinterNationals action, Victor Lee picked up the win over Lucas Lee and Allen Weisser. Weisser drove up from 21st to finish on the podium with a completely white race car. The UMP Mods are back again tonight at East Bay for another round of racing, with $1500 on the line. Last night's field grew to 63, so there are plenty of race cars on the property.
There are five shows on the streaming schedule today, with plenty of dirt racing happening on the services through the weekend. Today we've got WinterNationals and Flo 24/7 over at FloRacing, MAVTV Plus has more Lucas late model action from Golden Isles, and Speed Sport has the USAC CRA Sprint Cars and IMCA racing from Arizona. 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 Friday and a good weekend. 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!