DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Wing/Non-Wing Outlaw double in Missouri; Devin Moran leads Lucas to Hagerstown, Port Royal | Daily 4-7-2022
Coming up we'll get you ready for the dirt racing weekend including the Lucas late models back in action, the Outlaws in Missouri and more. Let's go!
Today is Thursday, April 7th, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
A quick show note, this is my last episode for the week as I'll be busy tomorrow with the day job. So because of that, we'll look ahead to the weekend and all the races that will and won't happen. So let's jump into it.
Since February 12th at East Bay, we've only seen the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series in action once, that was March 20th at Atomic. They've lost multiple shows to weather, and this coming weekend continues that trend. What was three race nights is now two, with the loss of Friday's Hillbilly Hundred at Tyler County. The race was originally scheduled to run in September of 2021, then pushed to Friday, and now it's been cancelled completely. Fans with tickets already bought will be able to use those in September this year when the Lucas late models return to Tyler County. So with the Hundred gone, Lucas will be at Hagerstown on Saturday and Port Royal in Pennsylvania on Sunday. A quick reset for you, with 13 race nights complete, Devin Moran leads Brandon Sheppard and Tyler Erb in the Lucas standings. BShepp has the most wins with four, Moran has three, Jimmy Owens and Brandon Overton have two, and Tim McCreadie and Dennis Erb Jr. each have one. With the Outlaws off, Bristol done, and not a big slate of late model racing elsewhere, the fields this weekend should be pretty strong. And don't expect that top five in points to shift towards the full timers just yet. Moran and Sheppy will be in attendance this weekend, and with their sizeable lead, they should leave the weekend still 1-2 in some combination. Eventually though, the battle for the Lucas title will be on between Erb, McCreadie, O'Neal, Ricky Thornton Jr., Ashton Winger, and Earl Pearson Jr. McCreadie is the defending series champion, and while the start to 2022 hasn't been bad by any stretch, it hasn't been super strong either. He's off his pace from 2021, but these shows at Hagerstown and Port Royal could be good places for him to get things going in a better direction. He won at Hagerstown a year ago, and has taken two of the last five victories at Port Royal going back to 2020. Other drivers with wins at the Port include Kyle Larson, Jonathan Davenport, and Hudson O'Neal. As for Moran, he's bringing a 13 race top ten streak into the weekend, but neither Hagerstown or Port Royal have been particularly good to him recently. No top tens at either track the last two seasons. Don't expect to see Jonathan Davenport this weekend. He had Tyler County on his schedule, but not the other two. We should see Jimmy Owens, but I'm not sure about Brandon Overton. The schedule on his website is empty from April 3rd through July 6th. I have a really hard time believing we won't see Overton again until July. In the win picks department, the dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula likes McCreadie at Hagerstown. I'm going Ricky Thornton Jr. RTJ is winless this year, but did finish second here last year. At Port Royal, the formula likes Sheppard, but I'll go McCreadie there. Both nights of Lucas racing will be available to watch over on MAVTV Plus.
I mentioned that the Outlaws are off, but we did have a schedule change announced for them yesterday. The late models were originally scheduled to be at Thunder Mountain Speedway on May 20th, but that race has been moved over to Marion Center Raceway after the promoters of Thunder Mountain announced they will not be operating the track this season. That weekend remains a three race Pennsylvania swing for the Outlaw late models, with Bloomsburg Fair on May 19th and Port Royal on May 21st.
The World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series is headed to Missouri this weekend for two shows and will be joined by the Xtreme Outlaw sprint cars. So a nice wing, non-wing combo weekend is on tap. Tomorrow night they head to US36 Raceway and Saturday is off to Lake Ozark Speedway. The Xtreme portion of the weekend is a co-sanction with the POWRi WAR Sprint Car Series as well. This will be the World of Outlaws' first trip to US36 since 2020. Sheldon Haudenschild led the final lap and topped Brad Sweet and Logan Schuchart that night. Lake Ozark has become a pretty regular stop for the series, with seven complete races since the 2018 season. Brad Sweet, James McFadden, Donny Schatz, Logan Schuchart, and David Gravel have all picked up recent wins there. As we talked about earlier in the week, Sweet enters the weekend with a 32 point advantage over Carson Macedo, with David Gravel, Sheldon Haudenschild, and Donny Schatz the rest of the top five. The prediction formula likes Sweet at US36, but I'm gonna roll with Haudenschild to repeat. He's done really well on 3/8 tracks in his career, with that size track leading to nine of his 24 wins since 2017. As for Lake Ozark on Saturday, the formula likes Sweet and so do I. Brad has been hot, and 1/3 mile tracks have been good to the Big Cat. Only James McFadden has a better average finish at Lake Ozark then Sweet, but JMac only has two starts.
On the non-wing side with the Xtreme Outlaw Series, these will be races three and four after the opening two nights back at Volusia. CJ Leary leads Robert Ballou and Carson Short in the standings. The tire drama with USAC feels like it's shifted things a bit on the sprint car side, and the Xtreme Series could benefit. Keith Kunz is bringing his sprint car this weekend with Jason McDougal behind the wheel. And Team AZ with driver Jake Swanson will be in attendance this weekend, after they announced they wouldn't be at Lawrenceburg a week ago. On top of that we'll get WAR guys like Mario Clouser and Riley Kriesel, and one driver who will do double duty with both series. Brady Bacon has loaded up both a non-wing and a winged car and will run with both Outlaw series each night. So with the All Stars rained out and USAC off, these two nights should draw a lot of attention and for good reason. I'm definitely looking forward to these shows. If you can't be at either Missouri stop, watch live on DIRTVision.
Speaking of USAC, the midgets were headed to Kokomo this weekend for two nights of racing, but that show has been cancelled because of forecasted snow and cold weather. The event will not be made up. Next on the schedule for the national midgets is two nights at Shane Stewart's Port City Raceway in Oklahoma for the T-Town Midget Showdown, which is promoted by Brady Bacon. To see the full USAC schedule, visit usacracing.com.
Out in California the NARC 410 season continues with a nice $10,000 to win show at Keller Auto Speedway in Hanford. The Anthony Simone Classic is the second race of 2022, and Colby Copeland leads the series into Hanford after winning the opener a week ago at Stockton. Shane Golobic is the defending race winner, but I'd keep my eye on Dominic Scelzi. According to the series release, six of Scelzi's 22 wins last season came at Hanford. You'll also see Mitchel and Michael Faccinto, Tim Kaeding, Bud Kaeding, Justin Sanders, Joel Myers Jr., DJ Netto, Billy Aton, Logan Forler, Tanner and Blake Carrick, and Tanner Holmes. Don't forget the full NARC schedule is available to watch on FloRacing.
If you're looking for other late model racing this weekend, there's a $10,000 to win crate show at Greenville Speedway. The MLRA is at 81 Speedway for two nights, one $5k to win, the other $7k. There is also Ultimate late models at Carolina and Lake View, and more. If you want to see a pretty good look at the schedule, head over to dirtondirt.com.
Before we close out today, I wanted to mention last night's non-wing micro show at Millbridge here in North Carolina. 20 cars in the feature and the field included Kyle Larson, Toyota driver Jesse Love, Caden Kvapil, Brent Crews, Sheldon Creed, Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, and Gavan Boschele. We also saw NASCAR driver Brandon Jones and Noah Gragson. The battle out front in the feature turned into a slider fest between Larson, Love, Bell and Crews. Yung Money ended up with the win, with Bell second, Crews third, Love fourth, and Creed in fifth. If you're looking for something to distract you at your desk today, go find that replay over on DIRTVision.
It's a quiet day on the streaming services with only FloRacing 24/7 happening. But there is a bunch of stuff coming this weekend, so stay locked to the streaming schedule at dirtrackr.com for all your options. To see those daily options, hit up dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
That's it for the show today, have a good Thursday and a good weekend. 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!