DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Jimmy Owens strikes at All-Tech; new paint, sponsor for Carson Macedo; Kaylee Bryson update | Daily 2-7-2022

On this Monday we are talking Lucas late models, DIRTcar Nationals opening at Volusia, several news items and other weekend winners. Let's go.

Today is Monday, February 7th, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

Before we get into it, today's episode is brought to you by DIRTRACKR Plus. If you're a stat nerd like me, are a member of the media, work for a series or track, or play in the pools or fantasy racing, Plus is for you. For $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year, get access to added stat tools, a full dashboard, and exclusive stats in the analytics section at dirtrackr.com. Understand and see dirt racing like never before. Outlaws, All Stars, Lucas, Chili Bowl, and USAC. I actually use Plus every day putting these shows together. To grab yourself a subscription, click plus in the nav bar at dirtrackr.com, or visit the link below in the description.

Instead of three nights at All-Tech for the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series, we only got two over the weekend. Brandon Sheppard was the Thursday winner last week, but the Friday program was lost to rain. The series was back on Saturday night though to continue Speedweeks. On the Friday show, I thought we could see a different winner on the season, so I picked Ricky Thornton Jr. for the night's win. With no racing happening though, those picks carried over to Saturday, and I was correct about a different winner. I just picked the wrong guy. In a race that featured five lead changes among four drivers, it was 2020 series champion Jimmy Owens coming through for the victory. Owens got by both Devin Moran and Tim McCreadie in lap traffic in the late stages of the race and led the final eight laps to earn his first win of the season. McCreadie finished second, Jonathan Davenport was third, Devin Moran's top two and podium streak was busted with a fourth place run, and Brandon Sheppard completed the top five. Owens, TMac, Moran, and Tyler Erb all led laps. It was really entertaining watching those three guys battle through traffic over the second half of the race. Through the first six nights, Owens had been basically a non-factor. He had 10th place finishes at Golden Isles and Bubba, but that was really it. I heard James Essex mention on the broadcast that Owens and his Ramirez Motorsports team had switched back to their Rocket Chassis in recent days. That squad had been a pretty staunch Rocket team for quite a few years, but late in 2021 made the move to Longhorns. I guess they decided that was not the direction they wanted to head, and it seems to have paid off pretty quickly with the victory. With seven race nights now complete, Moran still tops the series points standings and will carry the orange spoiler to East Bay. There was no racing on Sunday, but teams did have a chance to practice at East Bay with six nights of racing set to come this week. East Bay is always a different animal for the late models, and we saw some wild stuff at the track in 2021. We saw five different winners in six nights last year, and anything could happen between now and Saturday. I think three guys to watch for wins will be Brandon Sheppard, Brandon Overton, and Tyler Erb. Those guys have the best average finish at East Bay over the past two years, with Sheppard and Overton tied with three wins each, and Erb with two. I don't see any reason to believe that Moran won't continue to be fast as well. The dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula likes Sheppard for tonight and I think I agree. He's got top tens in every Lucas race so far, including that win on Thursday, plus four straight top five runs. Both me and the formula are 2 for 8 on the season. As for car count for this week, if Michael Rigsby is correct, we might be near 70 cars in attendance. Sounds like a lot of guys are headed to Tampa this week that haven't raced thus far. One driver we won't see though is Jonathan Davenport. Team engineer Vinny Guliani tweeted that Speedweeks is over for the 49 team, and Davenport's website shows the March weekend for the Outlaws at Revolution Park as the next race for Superman. So no East Bay and no Volusia. You can continue to watch the Lucas late models all week long live on MAVTV Plus.

Across the state at Volusia today, DIRTcar Nationals gets going with a full program for the UMP modifieds and sprint car practice. This week has traditionally started on Tuesday, but was moved up to Monday this year to allow Sunday to be an off day in between the two weeks at Volusia. So mods and sprint car practice tonight, mods and All Stars Tuesday and Wednesday, with mods and the Outlaw opening weekend Thursday through Saturday on tap. Volusia always draws a big field of modifieds, so there is no reason to expect anything different with that this year. For the sprint cars, I'm guessing we'll be in the low 30s for car count. Over the past 16 Outlaw races at Volusia, we've averaged 33.5 cars, with 36 being the max. With the All Stars, their last six races have averaged 34.8 cars, with 39 being the max, back in 2019. Teams will get a couple of chances to be on track tonight, before racing gets going with the All Star opener tomorrow. Over the weekend we got to see new paint schemes for Kraig Kinser and Carson Macedo. Kinser will run a black, white and red scheme with Mesilla Valley Transportation on the wing side panel. Carson Macedo's JJR 41 has a completely new look for 2022, with new sponsor Albaugh coming on board. The crop protection chemical company is the primary on the mostly white car, with green and black accents. Sharp looking ride, and great to see some new companies getting involved with the World of Outlaws. Another sprint car team with some news over the weekend was the McGhee Motorsports 11. Parker Price-Miller was set to run that car this season, but his fight against Non-Hodgkins lymphoma will keep him out of the car this week. He had originally planned on racing, but he's got another round of chemo coming up, and decided to step aside. In his place, Kerry Madsen will pilot the machine in the upcoming races between Volusia and East Bay. Madsen is driving for Roth Motorsports this season, helping to develop that Toyota 410 engine, but his year in that car won't start until the spring west coast Outlaw swing. PPM hopes to be back in time to start the All Star season later in the spring. Night one of DIRTcar Nationals can be watched live on DIRTVision if you can't attend. We'll continue talking DCN all week.

Thanks to some help from my friends over at USAC, I do have a Kaylee Bryson update. I missed the tweet from last week, but according to the series she is set to race full time in 2022 with the national midgets for Keith Kunz. There has not yet been a release put together, which is why I couldn't find it with a Google search, but it was mentioned in a tweet on the official series account. Thanks to USAC for the information, and good to hear she'll be back. She joins Buddy Kofoid, Brenham Crouch, Taylor Reimer, and Bryant Wiedeman as full timers announced so far for KKM. Bryson ran most of the races in 2020, and a little more than half the schedule in 2021. So for all intents and purposes this will be her first full time season. Over her last 49 appearances, she's got two top fives, eight top tens, and an average feature finish of 15th. She ended 2021 with a top five run at Ventura for Turkey Night, and then in January became the first woman to ever make a Chili Bowl Saturday feature. Bryson ended the night in 18th. Along with the full USAC National Midget schedule, Bryson plans on doing some more pavement late model racing, like she did in 2021, and she told Speed Sport a few weeks ago that she's trying to go sprint car racing this year. In the piece from Adam Fenwick, she mentioned the possibility and that she was looking towards some 410 stuff. I certainly like that she's interested in a dirt future, especially at a time when it seems like so many want to go pavement racing. I would like to see her continue making strides though this season in the midget. Continue to get some top ten runs and get some consistency going, as she has yet to put together back-to-back top ten finishes in her career. The midget season gets going on Friday at Bubba Raceway Park in Ocala, Florida.

In other USAC news, Robert Ballou is set to attempt the full USAC sprint car schedule starting in a few weeks. He ran most of the races in 2021, but had to miss some shows, including the final west coast trip, because he needed to work. Ballou spends his week driving trucks to make a living, and drives sprint cars on the weekend, so that took precedent. He's going to continue driving for himself, and if he could replicate his early season success from 2021, he could be a factor. Last season he had two wins, nine top fives, and 22 top tens, with a lot of those coming before July. If he could find that speed again out of the gate, a top five championship run isn't out of the question, especially with no KTJ and Windom in the field this year. He's got decent efficiency and value numbers, we know he can win, and he was second to only Brady Bacon in plus/minus last season, at plus 67. And that was with missing several races. We are about two weeks away from the opening USAC sprint car weekend down in Florida.

In other weekend racing, Zach Sobotka was a $3000 winner in sportsman modified action at Lake View Motor Speedway, Tyler Nicely took down a UMP mod win at North Florida Speedway, Sam Seawright won the Iron Man show at Boyd's Speedway, Ross Bailes was the Southern All Stars winner at Screven, and Mark Smith and Davie Franek were USCS sprint car winners at Hendry County.

There are four shows on the streaming schedule today. DIRTVision has the first night of DIRTcar Nationals from Volusia, MAVTV Plus has the Lucas Late Models from East Bay, Speed Sport was action from Putnam County, and there 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, 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!