DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
Dirt racing news, results, discussion, analytics. Sprint cars, late models, modifieds, you name it. From national series, to top local shows. Brought to you five days a week. Email the show at info@dirtrackr.com.
Kyle Larson flies in, wins at Thunderbowl; Kasey Kahne's Outlaw status in doubt | Daily 3-14-2022
Coming up we dive into the World of Outlaws Tulare weekend, talk Shamrock Classic, and another sprint car driver in a late model. Let's go!
Today is Monday, March 14th, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
With so much racing cancelled or postponed around the country this past weekend, the World of Outlaws sprint cars really were center stage out in California. And it didn't hurt that we had Kyle Larson in the field both nights, as he was able to travel back and forth between Tulare and Phoenix for the NASCAR weekend. On Friday night, Larson started ninth and was running down leader Gio Scelzi, but he made a mistake in the closing laps that allowed Gio to get away and David Gravel to slip by for second. The victory was the fourth career Outlaw win for Scelzi, and his first in California. Through the mid point in the race, we had a hellacious battle for the lead with Rico Abreu, Larson, and Gravel all briefly leading. But on the results sheet only Spencer Bayston and Gio officially led laps. Your top five was Scelzi, Gravel, Larson, Rico, and Brad Sweet. Shane Golobic was the only Cali regular to finish in the top ten. On Saturday night, Larson came back to Tulare after practicing and qualifying his Cup car, but didn't end up qualifying super great. It didn't matter though, because a sixth to second run in his heat put him in the dash. In the feature, Bayston again led early, but couldn't hold the top spot long. Dominic Scelzi took over on lap 10, which was a big rebound from his tough race the night before. Dom led through half way, but Larson was on the move from sixth. He slipped by the 41S on lap 19 and drove away to the victory. It was Larson's 25th career Outlaw win. Brad Sweet finished second, David Gravel third, Bayston fourth, and Rico completed the top five. According to Outlaw PR, Larson's chaotic back and forth weekend was possible because long time sponsor Finley Farms and Jason Finley allowed Larson use of their plane. His Cup team and crew chief Cliff Daniels also approved the busy plan. Things didn't quite work out for Yung Money on Sunday though, as a broken valve spring ended their Cup day.
Looking around the rest of the Outlaw weekend though, there is a lot of other topics to mention. First, Kasey Kahne was absent from the Thunderbowl weekend and that can't be a good sign for his rookie Outlaw season going forward. Kahne had that big crash at Volusia in February, and after running some laps on Friday night last week at Cotton Bowl, ended up out of the car on Saturday night as Daryn Pittman filled in. Kahne is still clearly dealing with the effects of that crash, so the most important thing is that he gets healthy. It sucks though that he's basically out of the running for rookie of the year, as I think a lot of us were looking forward to seeing him race all season. If he isn't able to keep racing down the road, I'm not sure what that means for the KKR 9. You'd hope they could fill the seat with another driver, but I think there is a decent chance they shut that team down again. We'll have to wait and see how it plays out.
It was an uncharacteristic weekend for Donny Schatz. His 18 race top ten streak was busted on Friday with a 12th place result, and on Saturday he ended up with a DNF because of a rare crash. It looked like he maybe caught the inside jersey barrier in turn two, and that sent him tumbling. The last time Schatz finished back-to-back nights out of the top ten was last June during the Jackson Nationals. He's slid to sixth in the points and will be looking to bounce back at Merced and Ocean this weekend.
With seven races now complete in 2022, David Gravel maintains the top spot in the points standings. He's the only driver to finish top ten every night so far, and has top fives in six of seven races. He now holds the longest active streak of top tens with 15 straight, and his average finish of 3.4 through this opening stretch is by far best in the series. Sweet trails by 36 points, with Sheldon Haudenschild 42 back. Carson Macedo and James McFadden complete the top five. Schatz and Schuchart are both outside looking in right now. I know it's easy to overreact at this point with Gravel out front, but there is still a lot of racing to come. 90ish nights on the total schedule usually means we'll complete somewhere in the 70s for the year. That means we are 10% or less complete right now. There will be swings, guys will go on runs, so a lot can and will change. But I will say that Gravel has had a very good start to 2022. He's doing exactly what he needs to in order to really compete for the championship. The big question will remain though, can he do it all year. We'll have to wait and see.
In the win picks department, the dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula was 0-2 on the weekend, picking Sweet both nights. I was 1-2 picking Larson both nights. The formula is just shy 21% for the year, while I'm a little less than 14% for the season. There are a lot more chances to get better this weekend. The Outlaws are at Merced Speedway on Friday and Ocean Speedway on Saturday.
The other bigger show we got over the weekend was the Shamrock Classic indoors for the USAC National Midgets. This was a non-points special event, so not every series regular was in attendance. On Friday night in the feature, it was all Thomas Meseraull. And when I say all, I mean all. He was in another zip code for basically the entire race. We did get a nice battle for second between Brady Bacon and Cannon McIntosh that wasn't exactly cordial. There were some questionable sliders and some contact in there. And things continued into Saturday. Bacon ended up second on Friday, with McIntosh third, Justin Grant fourth, and Jerry Coons Jr. fifth. On Saturday night, the RMS teammates of TMez and Grant started together on the front row, with TMez jumping out to the early lead. Unfortunately though, he wouldn't be able to repeat his Friday night success. 13 laps deep, Kyle Cummins lost it into turn one and Meseraull was collected. He initially fired his 7X machine off, but then pulled right into the infield and was done for the night. That handed the lead to Justin Grant on the restart. Once rolling again, Grant had to fend off a challenge before half way from Cannon McIntosh, but JG re-took the lead and officially led the final 30 laps. Behind him, McIntosh slipped back into the clutches of Brady Bacon and those two resumed their tustle from the night before. Things didn't end well this time though. Past half way, Bacon threw a slider in three and four that cleared, but McIntosh crossed him over into turn one. The two ended up banging wheels and both spun out of the top five. Neither looked super pleased with the other, but they were able to rejoin at the tail. Out front, Chance Crum tried to keep Grant honest, but JG drove off the to the $10,000 victory. Crum was second, Daniel Robinson third, Joe B. Miller fourth, and Brady Bacon battled all the way back to the top five. A nice weekend for sure for the RMS group, even with TMez's issues on Saturday. No points though, and because of that these races won't go into the dirtrackr database. The midgets are back on March 26th for another special event on the pavement at IRP, before returning to points racing on April 8th at Kokomo.
One of my favorite stories from the Shamrock Classic though, was the return of Grady Chandler. Grady was injured in a crash at Creek County in 2019 that left him paralyzed, but he was back at the track this weekend fielding a car for Ryan Timms. The team had some mechanical gremlins on Friday, but picked up an 8th place finish on Saturday. I know it's not how he wanted to be back at a midget race, but it's great to see Grady in a car owner/crew chief role. Hopefully this is just the start for him.
A couple of news items I wanted to mention before we close it down today. First, we will get to see yet another sprint car driver cross over into a late model coming up this summer. Lance Dewease will pilot a fendered car at Hagerstown Speedway on June 5th. He will honor Walt Dyer with a special brick paint scheme on the 461 machine. Very cool crossover and the car looks great. You can see more on Twitter @LDMotorsports.
In some other late model news, we've had some additions and changes to the upcoming Summer Nationals schedule. Red Hill Raceway in Illinois has been added on June 28th, Benton Speedway in Missouri will follow on June 29th, Montpelier Motor Speedway and Shadyhill Speedway in Indiana have also been tacked on on July 13th and 14th. In addition, Knox County Fair will move from July 12th to July 5th, and Fayette County moves back from July 4th to July 6th. So no more TBAs on the slate, and we now have 32 race nights from June 14th to July 30th. To see the full Summer Nationals schedule, check out dirtcarsummernationals.com.
The only thing on the streaming schedule today is FloRacing 24/7. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
If you're a winged sprint car fan, check out Winged Nation this week. I'm going to drop in and co-host with Ashley Stremme. We've got some good sprint car topics to cover and a great guest coming up. You can find that show over at WingedNation.com.
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!