DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Overton limps to DCN win, Winger gets 4th career victory; USAC Sprint Car season opens at Bubba | Daily 2-17-2022
Coming up we are talking late model wins for Brandon Overton and Ashton Winger, another good big block finish, plus we preview the weekend for the USAC National Sprint Cars. Let's go!
Today is Thursday, February 17th, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
It was an interesting night last night at Volusia, with the first World of Outlaws Late Model night taking place, plus the big block modifieds. I had forgotten that we were getting two features last night from the late models. We got the normal Wednesday night race, plus the Friday makeup feature from the Sunshine Nationals. As expected, the car count bumped up a little more last night, and we ended up with 58 in the field. And it was a tough night for several teams, including Tuesday's winner Ryan Gustin, and Brandon Sheppard. Both needed provisionals to get into the feature, and Gustin would be the first car out of a race filled with attrition. That first 40 lapper on the night was kind of a mess. We only had 18 of 30 starters running at the end, lots of broken pieces and some incidents, and some front runners who fell by the way side. Early leader Kyle Strickler was one victim. He bowed out with a broken driveline after leading the first 15 circuits. The track did develop some ruts, and it was a little heavy, so there was talk of several of guys running out of tearoffs. After Strickler pulled off, Dale McDowell led briefly on the restart, but Brandon Overton was quickly by him for the top spot. McDowell would later ended up 21st after contact with Chris Madden sent him around. Out front, it was all Overton to the end. His engine started laying down in the final laps, but it stayed together just long enough for him to beat Devin Moran to the checkered. BShepp hard charged from 25th to finish third, Hudson O'Neal was fourth, and Darrell Lanigan completed the top five. It's been a bit of a strange opening to 2022 for Overton and that Wells team. They've been fast, led laps, but just haven't been able to close out some of these nights. He gave some insight into their struggles so far in an interview with Dirt on Dirt. He said quote: "We've changed everything on this thing every single night, every feature we've ran. The new body rules and all that stuff just kind of got us, got us in a little box and we've just got to figure it out. I had a pretty good package (last season) with the way everything was, and it's kind of changed it a little bit, but we'll just keep working" unquote. Interesting to hear them admit the rule changes have thrown them a curve ball to start 2022.
The night's second 40 lap feature was a little cleaner, with Ashton Winger the top car by far. Following an early restart, Chris Madden briefly took the lead from Winger on lap six, but from there it was all the 89 out front. Winger drove away to his fourth career Outlaw win over McDowell, Madden, Moran, and O'Neal. Winger continues to improve following all of those Summer Nationals wins last season, and in 2022 is supposedly taking on the full Lucas schedule. On that side, he picked up seven top tens through the opening 12 nights, and this Outlaw win is a solid payoff to this early schedule down south. It's obviously still incredibly early, with only three nights complete for 2022, but Chris Madden is the Outlaw points leader over Hudson O'Neal and Brandon Sheppard. Dennis Erb Jr. and Dale McDowell complete the top five. The Outlaws are back at Volusia tonight and through Saturday for three more features. In the win picks department, both me and the formula missed last night for the first race, it had Sheppard, I had Moran. For tonight, the formula actually likes Hudson O'Neal. I'm sticking with Moran.
The two late model features at Volusia were split by a 30 lapper for the Super DIRTcar Series, and we were treated to another incredible finish. Jimmy Phelps was dominant, leading nearly every lap from the pole. Late in the race though, everyone was around the bottom, and Phelps couldn't get by the lap car of Marc Johnson. That brought Jack Lehner and Peter Britten into the mix for the lead. Phelps led at the white flag, but Britten decided to take the risk and jump to the high side to make something happen. Out of turn four, with Britten up top and Phelps way down on the bottom, we ended up with a drag race back to the checkered, and it was Britten stealing the win at the line by .025 thousandths of a second over Phelps. Lehner brought it home third, Kyle Coffey was fourth, and Larry Wight completed the top five. These early season races for the big blocks aren't for points, but you wouldn't know that with the racing we've seen. The Super DIRTcar Series joins the Outlaws at Volusia through Saturday.
Over at Bubba Raceway Park last night, the USAC National Sprint Cars got on track for a practice night in advance of their three race weekend to open 2022. Emerson Axsom, Buddy Kofoid, and Justin Grant topped the field of 43 cars that took time. It's definitely a healthy field for the opening weekend, and the racing should be good. Tonight and tomorrow are $5000 to win shows, with Saturday's finale being $10,000 to win. Brady Bacon is set to open his title defense, as he's looking for his third straight series championship and fifth overall of his career. He'll be challenged by names like Justin Grant, CJ Leary, Jake Swanson, Logan Seavey and Emerson Axsom. Kevin Thomas Jr., Chris Windom, and Tanner Thorson were all top ten runners with the series last year, but are pursuing much larger winged schedules, and probably won't be in the mix. If anyone is really going to take the fight to Bacon, they'll have to find a way to match his consistency. In the previous two years, Bacon has racked up an insane 65 top ten finishes in 70 races, with an average feature finish of 4.89. If that performance continues for that 69 team, they will be very difficult to beat this year. I'm intrigued by a few guys here though for 2022, including Seavey full time in the Baldwin five, a car he won a bunch of races in last year in a part time schedule. I also like the continued growth of Emerson Axsom and his move over to Clauson Marshall. That team will definitely win some races this season. And you can never count out the veterans like Leary and Grant. Looking at this weekend specifically, in the past two seasons Bacon, Grant, Seavey and Thorson have the best average finishes at Bubba. Grant, KTJ, and Bacon have all picked up victories. The dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula likes Bacon for tonight, but I'm going to go with Buddy Kofoid. Keith Kunz has brought out a non-wing car for the first time in a while, and after having to rebuild that car after a test crash earlier in the week, Kofoid was quick last night. In his previous five sprint car starts, Kofoid has four top fives and five top tens. This could be a good night for that first victory. If you aren't nearby and would like to watch tonight, FloRacing has the livestream from Ocala.
Elsewhere tonight, if you're a winged sprint car fan, don't forget that Flo has the first night of 360s from East Bay as part of Winter Nationals. This event always draws a very strong group of cars, and they race every night through Saturday.
In some news I forgot to mention in recent days, XR is expanding their winter schedule of races out west for 2022 and 2023. In addition to the Duel in the Desert at Las Vegas in November, two new weeks of super late model racing at Vegas have been added, which they are calling Silver State Super Speedweeks. The races feature progressive payouts, starting with an $11,000 to win show on January 17th, and ending with a $20,000 to win show on February 25th. The first speedweek runs January 17th through the 21st, which is the week after the Wild West Shootout. Teams could stay out west and run both weeks if they so choose. The second week is February 21st through the 25th. It will be interesting to see how this coincides with Speedweeks in Florida and Georgia for the Outlaws and Lucas, and how fractured the fields may become if guys are forced to choose. XR continues to build out their schedule with more big paying races, and they don't seem to be worried about mixing things up with the late model establishment. To see more on the new races out west, visit racexr.com.
The streaming schedule has four shows on it for today. They are the DIRTcar Nationals from Volusia on DIRTVision, the USAC sprint cars from Bubba Raceway Park and 360 sprint cars from East Bay, both of those on FloRacing, along with Flo 24/7. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch through the weekend, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
Today is my last show for the week. I'll be busy with the day job on Friday and over the weekend, so enjoy the dirt racing coming up and we'll be back on Monday to talk about all of it.
That's it for the show today, have a good Thursday. 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!