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.
Brad Sweet gets 75th World of Outlaws win, Kyle Larson back in a late model at Bristol | Daily 3-30-2022
On the show today we are talking Brad Sweet's Vado win from last night, plus news from Kyle Larson, USAC, the Summer Nationals, the ASCS and more. Let's go!
Today is Wednesday, March 30th, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
It's nice to have a little bit of racing to talk about on a Wednesday show. I know things went pretty late last night, but I always enjoy some midweek racing when we get it from the big series. Last night it was the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series at Vado Speedway Park in New Mexico. We did get north of 20 cars, so we didn't have to get into the two heat program. Since this was the first time for the series to Vado, James McFadden's quick time of 12.215 set the track record for the future. I said on yesterday's show that none of these full time Outlaw drivers had experience at the track in the past, but Blake Anderson, who is the announcer for the All Stars shot me a text to correct me. It wasn't in a sprint car, but Donny Schatz did race at Vado back in January in the late model during the Wild West Shootout. My bad. I doubt he was using any setup notes from that night though to get his TSR 15 right. Brad Sweet sat on the pole of the feature, and except for a brief moment or two, was out front for the entire 30 lap duration. Both me and the dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula picked Sweet to win last night, and we were both correct. The win busted Sweet's streak of 26 races without an Outlaw victory, and it was his 75th career series win. Nice note there from series PR guy Brian Walker in the post race release. Sweet is now just nine wins shy of Stevie Smith for 10th all time in Outlaw victories. Behind Sweet, Sheldon Haudenschild finished second, Donny Schatz third, James McFadden fourth, and David Gravel fifth. Sheldon was able to stay with Sweet through half way, including throwing a pretty wild slider a few laps in to try and get the lead. Sweet got stuck in behind the lap car of Logan Calderwood, and Sheldon went full send mode clearing Sweet briefly, but nearly wiping out Calderwood. As Sheldon was gathering it back in, Sweet was able to drive back by. And then near half way, Sheldon made a mistake on the cushion that let Sweet pull away a bit, and that was effectively the race. The NOS 17 was faster than the 49 late, but was just too far back to be able to make a move. The win for Sweet sees him extend the points lead to 32, with David Gravel back to second. Carson Macedo is third, 34 points back, Sheldon is fourth, and Schatz is in a tie for fifth with McFadden. The 49 now has 10 straight top ten finishes, he's the hottest driver over the last five races with an average finish of 2.4, and the hottest over the last 10 with an average finish of 3.5. Right back into the form we've come to expect from that KKR team. One of the big topics of yesterday's show was Logan Schuchart's struggles to start the season, and while he's really struggled in qualifying, his teammate Jacob Allen continues to be fast in time trials. Allen was fourth last night, and leads the series in qualifying position average. Gravel is the only driver with more dash appearances than Allen at this point. The series will spend today and tomorrow traveling and getting in some maintenance, and they will be back to racing on Friday at Lawton Speedway in Oklahoma.
Jumping into some news items from the last 24 hours...
Coming up this weekend at Bristol, another $100,000 in winners' payouts is on the line for the super late models, and the field will have a notable addition for both nights. Longhorn Chassis posted to social media yesterday that Kyle Larson will join the field in the Rumley 6. It will be Yung Money's first late model appearance since the January 29th Lucas show at Golden Isles. Larson did compete in this event last year, finishing second both nights; the first to Chris Ferguson, and the second to Jonathan Davenport. Just like he did a few weeks ago between the NASCAR show at Phoenix, and the Outlaw races at Tulare, Larson will be traveling back and forth. The Cup cars are at Richmond on Sunday, with practice and qualifying happening earlier in the day on Saturday. Larson should be done at Richmond by 12:30 or 1 pm, and then off to Bristol for the Saturday finale. Chris Madden and Chris Ferguson were the $50,000 winners from the first weekend, but I wouldn't count Larson out this weekend. He should have plenty of speed to be in the mix. We'll have more on the late models at Bristol on Friday's show.
We assumed this would be the case, but USAC and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway confirmed yesterday that the BC39 will be back at Indy this season. The two nights of national midget racing on the dirt track inside turn three at Indy will take place on August 3rd and 4th. That is the week following the big NASCAR/IndyCar double header on the road course at IMS. Past winners of the BC39 include Brady Bacon, Zeb Wise, and Kyle Larson last season in a thriller. To grab tickets for the event, find your way to IMS.com/BC39. To see the full USAC schedule, go to usacracing.com.
The Summer Nationals don't begin for about another two and a half months, but that hasn't stopped World Racing Group from adding more money to the mix. Announced yesterday, the progressive championship payouts will remain for this season. For every race beyond 25 that gets completed on the year, an additional $2000 will be added to the champions check, and more money will be added to the rest of the top ten spots in the standings. So the champion will earn at least $25,000, and could earn as much as $39,000 if all the races are run. In addition, teams who commit to the full schedule will be eligible for the tow money program, which will pay teams $500 for every 500 miles they travel, a benefit that could be worth as much as $5500 by the time the summer is over. These are definitely nice additions for those teams that are looking to run the Hell Tour this year, and should make some guys reconsider their summer plans. The money flying around the dirt late model world has been a constant topic of 2022, and each series has realized they need to continue to up the ante to draw in cars and teams, and this move from the Summer Nationals is most definitely in response to all this added cash. There are so many options at this point, the incentives have to keep getting bumped if they want cars to show up this year. Bobby Pierce is the defending Summer Nationals champion, and that schedule gets underway on June 14th at Kankakee.
Down in Mississippi this weekend we were supposed to get the ASCS National Tour at Jackson Motor Speedway, but as of yesterday that event has been called off because of severe storms and a flood warning in affect in advance of those races. The series is also concerned about the ongoing tire shortages with Hoosier, and hopefully this event being pushed back to July will allow for those tire woes to be eased a bit. I talked about tires and the ASCS a few weeks ago, as I had started hearing there could be problems, and the series is trying to address the shortages this season by adopting a different tire plan for each race night then they've had in the past. The 360 series isn't scheduled to be back racing again until April 22nd and 23rd at Salina and US36, so Hoosier has a few weeks to get caught back up and have teams supplied with rubber before the next events. For more info on the series and their upcoming schedule, hit up ascsracing.com. Also, don't forget I've added the ASCS to the analytics section this year. Every 2021 race and the four shows we've had in 2022 are in the database along with all the regular stats and analysis you've come to expect. You can find those numbers at dirtrackr.com/analytics/ascs.
I'm not the only one who does a dirt racing show, and on Wednesdays I like to point out other audio you can find each week. Winged Nation has Indy Race Parts' Bernie Stuebgen, LoudPedal has Johnny Parsons, Forward Bite has Hot Rod LaMance, Ohio Dirt has TJ Slideways, Passing Points has John Carney II, and there are new episodes of the Dirt Reporters and the Dirt Nerds. To see the full list of shows and episodes, head over to dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
There are three shows on today's streaming schedule. The Bristol Dirt Nationals continue over on XR+, DIRTVision has micros from Millbridge, 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!