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Tyler Courtney in a late model, World of Outlaws preview, USAC Midgets indoors | Daily 3-11-2022

On this Friday we are talking Sunshine in a late model, Outlaws at Tulare, USAC indoors, ASCS full timers and more. Let's go!

Today is Friday, March 11th, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

When Eldora announced several months ago that they were going to run another million dollar dirt late model race, there were a bunch of drivers in other forms of dirt racing that talked about wanting to run that event. One driver that we saw express interest was Tyler Courtney. And apparently Sunshine wasn't just blowing smoke. In a video posted to his social media channels yesterday, we got to see the reigning All Star champion testing a super late model down at Cherokee Speedway in Gaffney, South Carolina. The Eldora Million takes place June 8th and 9th, with those dates not conflicting with the All Star schedule. The All Stars do race the next two nights, June 10th and 11th, but those races are Attica, which isn't far from Eldora. Sunshine hopping into a car for this event is very doable. The car that Courtney was in for the test is owned by NASCAR Cup Series crew chief Jeremy Bullins, who leads Austin Cindric's team at Team Penske. He is coming off that Daytona 500 win. The car itself is a Longhorn Chassis with an Andy Durham powerplant that we've seen Devin Moran drive in the past. In fact, Moran finished third in the Blue-Gray 100 in that car in 2021. In the video, Sunshine looks pretty sporty behind the wheel, and apparently was putting down some respectable lap times. Chris Ferguson, who lives here in the Charlotte area, was on hand at the test to help guide Courtney. I don't know if this means that Courtney is going to drive this specific car for the Million, but it's clearly a good piece if that's the case. Courtney is the next in line in this high profile group of drivers that we've seen crossover in recent years. Kyle Larson is the obvious example, but we've also seen Donny Schatz, Brandon Overton, and others do the same thing. If you want to see the full video, it's available on Courtney's Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Jumping over to the World of Outlaws, they begin the spring west coast swing tonight at Thunderbowl Raceway in Tulare, California. I mentioned yesterday that we'll see Kyle Larson and Tyler Courtney in the field, but that is just the beginning of a stout group that will be in action. On top of the Outlaw regulars, we are also getting Rico Abreu, Gio Scelzi, and Cory Eliason, with all three drivers being from California, but racing on the national stage. Throw in Kerry Madsen in the Toyota powered Roth car, Austin McCarl in the Country Builders 88, and then a whole host of locals like Justin Sanders, Dominic Scelzi, Mitchell Faccinto, DJ Netto and others, and I think we are in for a really entertaining weekend. There are a ton of stories to watch, including the very early championship battle with David Gravel currently out front. Brad Sweet is still looking for his first win of 2022. Carson Macedo is back home looking for win number two on the year. Jacob Allen has looked very strong. And can any of the local guys jump up and steal a victory from the Outlaws. Locals were shut out of the top ten in the Outlaws last trip to Thunderbowl, with Bud Kaeding the highest finisher in 11th. I'm also really curious to see how Corey Day fares in his first ever Outlaw appearances. The 16 year old driver is already a USAC national midget winner, and picked off two NARC 410 wins a year ago. He's backed by two-time Outlaw champion Jason Meyers, and his future is bright. This will be the series first appearance at Tulare since 2019. Recent winners at the track include Ian Madsen, Aaron Reutzel, Donny Schatz, and David Gravel. In the past four races there, Brad Sweet leads all drivers in average finish at 4.25, even though he is winless. Winners at Tulare have started features on average from the third position. You can see all these track specific stats for yourself with a DIRTRACKR Plus subscription. The dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula just slightly favors Brad Sweet tonight over Donny Schatz, and that's not surprising with Sweet's average finish at Thunderbowl, and he leads the series in average finish on 1/3 mile race tracks over the past five seasons. I'm gonna go with Kyle Larson tonight. He wasn't super fast at Volusia, with just the one top five finish, but Tulare is a track that's in his wheelhouse. Even if he starts a little further back, he could definitely hustle his car to the front. Drop me a comment, let me know who you are picking this weekend. Do you think an outsider or local can grab a win? Let me know. Both nights are $10,000 to win, and hot laps get started at 5PM pacific time, 8PM eastern. DIRTVision will have the livestream.

We haven't seen the USAC national midgets since they started their season in Florida last month, but they are back in action this weekend for the Shamrock Classic indoors at the Southern Illinois Center. These two nights of racing are not for national points, as they are listed as special events, but there is still plenty of money to be won and a solid field of cars will be in attendance. Tonight's program will feature heats lined up by a draw and passing points on the line to set the B-Mains and feature lineup. The winner will take down $2000. For Saturday, the points from Friday's racing will set lineups for a round of qualifiers, which will then get us into a C-Main, B-Main and the feature. The winner of Saturday night's 50 lap finale will get a very nice $10,000 check. The field right now of entries includes 42 drivers, which is damn nice for a midget show. Two past winners of the event will be in attendance in Justin Grant and Cannon McIntosh. You will also see drivers like Ryan Timms, Jerry Coons Jr, Jake Neuman, TMez, Brady Bacon, Chance Crum, Joe B., Shane Cottle, Mitchel Moles, Zach Daum, and many others. I would normally make win picks for the USAC midgets, but because this isn't a full field event and not for points, we'll skip it and just enjoy the racing. Following this weekend, the series has another special event on March 26th on the pavement at IRP, with the next points paying event coming on April 8th at Kokomo. If you can't be at DuQuoin this weekend, you can watch live on FloRacing.

I talked earlier in the week about full timers for the ASCS National Tour, and Bryan Hulbert's ears must have been burning, because on Wednesday he tweeted out a full list of drivers that intend on competing for that championship. We've already talked about Garet Williamson, Brandon Anderson, Blake Hahn, Dylan Westbrook, Kyler Johnson, Matt Covington, and Jason Martin. You can add to that list Chase Porter, Landon Britt, Dylan Postier, Ryan Bickett, Seth Bergman, and Preston Perlmutter. So that puts us at 13 series regulars to start the season. That's a pretty solid group with one week remaining until the 2022 season opener at Devil's Bowl Speedway. Like I said earlier, I think Blake Hahn is definitely the favorite here, with Covington and Westbrook his biggest competition. We'll see if anyone else in that group can emerge. We've seen Seth Bergman be fast, Jason Martin is a past series winner, and I think there is definitely potential there with Garet Williamson. One driver we won't see full time with the series in 2022 though, is Scott Bogucki. Bogucki has been an ASCS regular for several seasons, and picked up four wins in 2021 along with a seventh place finish in the standings, even though he missed multiple races with a back injury. The Australian driver was in the field last weekend at Cotton Bowl with the Outlaws, and Johnny Gibson mentioned more 410 racing for him this season. In a release yesterday from Shawn Miller, we found out that Bogucki is teaming up with Clayton Snow to run the full All Star Circuit of Champions schedule this year. He will still campaign his own car periodically, and that could include some 360 stuff with the ASCS. Bogucki will be a teammate to Kevin Thomas Jr., who is also making his first run at the All Stars in a winged car. Both teams will run out of the Snow shop in Indy. Bogucki has 29 Outlaw starts back through 2017 with a best finish of 14th, which actually came last weekend. He was a top five finisher on Friday night at the Knoxville Nationals as well. He's only made three appearances with the All Stars recently, with all of those starts coming in 2020. He did finish 3rd at Devil's Bowl in June that season. We're still about a month away from the All Star points opener at Attica, but that field of full timers keeps getting deeper.

After having solid weather a week ago, both Lincoln and Port Royal in Pennsylvania have cancelled their weekly shows for tomorrow. Cold temperatures, precipitation, and maybe some snow are possible. Both tracks will try again next week with their 410 programs. Williams Grove is supposed to open their season on Sunday, so we'll have to wait and see if they are able to get it in. If they do and you can't be at the Grove, don't forget that the track is part of the streaming package at DIRTVision.

If you haven't seen it yet today, I dropped a new conversations episode last night. I hopped on with Alex Nieten, who writes for Speed Sport and Sprint Car and Midget to talk all things sprint car racing in California. We covered the Outlaws' west coast swing, talked a bunch of driver and team stuff, plus NARC and the Sprint Car Challenge Tour. You can find that episode in the podcast feed and on the YouTube channel.

Even with all the weekend cancellations, the streaming schedule is still solid for today and the weekend. There isn't really any late model racing to be found, but there is plenty of open wheel racing. Today you'll find the Outlaws on DIRTVision from Tulare, the USAC midgets indoors on FloRacing, with other weekly shows, and racing out west on Speed Sport. To see the full daily streaming schedule through the weekend, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.

That's it for the show today, have a good Friday. 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!