DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Emotional victory for Ryan Gustin at Volusia, Thomas Meseraull catches a gator | Daily 2-16-2022
Coming up we dive into Tuesday night's racing, including dominating wins for Cory Eliason and TMez, plus an emotional victory for Ryan Gustin. Let's go!
Today is Wednesday, February 16th, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Last night at East Bay Raceway Park near Tampa, the All Stars closed out their early season southern swing with another 30 lap main event. The feature turned into a very nice bounceback win for Cory Eliason and that Rudeen Racing team. On Monday, Eliason caught the wall wrong late and ended up flipping that 26 machine. The team was able to get it repaired, and Eliason had a banner night, leading all 30 laps en route to the victory. Nobody in the field ever really had anything for him. Behind the 26, Dylan Westbrook had a career night with series, finishing second and grabbing his best ever finish. Westbrook is set to run the full ASCS schedule for the third time this year, but looked very strong with the 410 in last night. Monday's winner Tyler Courtney finished third, Parker Price-Miller was good in fourth, and Anthony Macri completed the top five. Nice to see PPM have some good runs in between his cancer treatments. Definitely hope he can get a little healther over the next month before the All Stars get going again. Tanner Thorson picked up the night's hard charger award going 23rd to ninth. Aaron Reutzel and his Ridge team had more mechanical issues, and ended up out of the event. I definitely think if that 8 car had been right, he would have been right in the mix both nights. I realized after I posted yesterday's show, that I forgot to mention win picks for the All Stars. The formula had Reutzel again, and I went with Sunshine. So both went 0-fer last night. I'm actually a little bummed that we won't see the All Stars again until April. We had great car counts both nights at East Bay, and I think we're set for a really fun year with this group. I do think Sunshine is the guy to beat again, but guys like Eliason and Justin Peck and Zeb Wise will definitely keep him honest. The series kicks off their points paying season on April 8th and 9th at Attica. We'll do a full season preview, and full timers update later on as we get closer.
Over at Volusia, it was a very long night last night, with the program affected by multiple rain delays. They didn't compete the night's action until after 2AM ET. We had three really good divisions in action, but it sucks with the weather, because it just means things take that much longer. With the Xtreme Outlaw Series, we lost Brady Bacon's team from the event after that Monday night crash, but not Bacon the driver. When Dennis Gile slowed in front of Bacon the night before, which led to the flip, the driveline came apart on Gile's car, and unfortunately broke his foot. In the aftermath, Gile apologized to Bacon for the incident, and then offered him his ride for Tuesday night. So during the day yesterday, Bacon got his seat fitted into the Gile 13, and didn't end up missing a beat. The night's 30 lap feature was absolutely dominated by Thomas Meseraull in the Dyson 20. He started second and was completely untouchable out front. Behind though, we had some really good racing through the top ten. At the end it was Bacon finishing second in that 13, Chase Stockon went 10th to third, Robert Ballou was fourth, and CJ Leary completed the top five after winning on Monday. TMez got himself a gator and $10,000 for the win. Leary got himself a big gator for being the top finisher both nights. Jake Swanson ran in the top five all night, but had mechanical trouble late and ended up out of the event. Very good first two night for this series. Hopefully this is just a preview of what's to come this season with the Xtreme Outlaws. Hat tip to Casey Shuman and everyone at WRG for putting this deal together. I'm definitely looking forward to some more high level non-wing racing being featured this year. I will be adding the two Xtreme Series to the dirtrackr.com analytics database soon. Once I get some more ASCS stuff entered, I'll go ahead and get these first two sprint car nights added, and we'll track these guys as well. We'll see the sprint cars again in April at US36 Raceway. The midgets debut at Farmer City on April 1st. The sprint car competitors will get today off down in Florida, and then the USAC sprint car season starts on Thursday over at Bubba Raceway Park. We'll have more on the USAC weekend on tomorrow's show.
Before we move on to the other racing from Volusia last night, I'm curious where you stand on non-wing racing. My show got posted to YouTube a little late yesterday, but with CJ Leary and the Xtreme Series as the sort of headline, yesteday's show has done the fewest views of any daily in quite a while. I'm assuming that means fewer of my watchers are interested in the non-wing stuff than the other racing I talk about. And I'm wondering why that is. As a dirt racing fan, especially if you're an open wheel fan, what will it take to get you invested in that side? We've got some good characters, the racing is fun, they go to some good race tracks, so what is missing for you? Is it a lack of big marquee events? Do we need more star power? Drop me a comment and let me know your thoughts.
In the night's Super DIRTcar Series feature for the big block modifieds, we got a really entertaining battle late in the going between Stewart Friesen and Peter Britten. The two swapped the lead multiple times, with Britten out front with five to go. Over the final laps though, Friesen just made a few less mistakes in lap traffic, and was able to seize control with two to go. Britten wasn't able to make a late challenge, and it was Friesen earning his 10th career win at Volusia. Britten was second at the line after holding off Max McLaughlin. Jimmy Phelps was fourth, and Rich Scagliotta was fifth. I feel like through these opening nights for the big blocks down south, we've been treated to some fun racing. If you haven't checked these cars out yet, I'd recommend doing so.
And then early this morning, the DIRTcar late models went green for their second and final feature of the week. Brandon Sheppard and Tyler Millwood were on the front row together with Sheppard out to the early lead. Behind the Rocket one, Ryan Gustin went sixth to second on the opening lap, and was looking for more. A caution near half way gave Gustin the opening he needed, and on the restart, he was past BShepp for the top spot. Later, with just a few laps left, Gustin held off Devin Moran to grab himself a gator trophy, $7000, and his first win at Volusia. Afterwards, the Reaper was emotional in victory lane, having just lost friend and sponsor Leon Ramirez. The Ramirez family is big in dirt late model racing, also owning Jimmy Owens number 20 car. Certainly a tough time for all involved. Moran ended up second and kept his string of good finishes rolling. Tanner English was third, Ashton Winger fourth, and Tim McCreadie completed the top five. Under that half way caution where Gustin eventually took the lead, we lost Brandon Overton, Ricky Thornton Jr., Frank Heckenast Jr. and Kyle Strickler. Some heavy hitters with unfortunate finishes. Looking forward, this might be just what Gustin needed to really become a contender with the Outlaws. He still hasn't gotten that first series win yet, but last night was effectively an Outlaw show. I picked him to get a win in 2021, and I think that first Outlaw victory is very close. And he'll have his first chance tonight, as DIRTcar Nationals now switches over to Outlaw nights for the rest of the event.
We had 47 late models on Monday, 55 last night, and we could jump up a little more tonight. The Outlaw season started a few weeks ago at Volusia, with Dale McDowell getting the opening victory. Now that the series off and rolling again, the question will remain if anyone can slow that Rocket house car for the Outlaw championship. I think the answer right now is definitely no, especially with what we saw from Sheppard through those opening Lucas nights. But we'll see what plays out, anything can always happen. The dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula likes Sheppard tonight, and that's not a bad pick. He was fast last night early before fading to 8th. I'm gonna go with Moran as my pick. He's been so strong through this opening month, and he won the big gator at Volusia last season. He should continue to be fast tonight and through the rest of the week. The program tonight at Volusia should move along a little quicker. No sprint cars, and hopefully no weather should mean a much earlier finish time. It's been nice to see the track really come around and no longer be a topic of conversation. If you want to watch live tonight, DIRTVision has you covered.
Elsewhere in the dirt racing podcast world, Winged Nation has Dave Blaney, the Dirt Nerds have Greg Watson, Forward Bite has Adam Logan, Passing Points has JJ Hickle, and there is a new episode of the Dirt Reporters. To see the full list of shows and episodes, hit up dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
There are two shows on the streaming schedule today. DIRTVision has the World of Outlaws Late Models and Super DIRTcar Series from Volusia, 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 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!