DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Roger Slack stepping away from Eldora Speedway; American Racer stops dirt tire production | Daily 4-19-2022

Coming up we are talking about the new general manager at Eldora, Sheldon Haudenschild diving into YouTube, a sad letter from American Racer and more. Let's go.

Today is Tuesday, April 19th, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

Thanks to a rainout a week ago, the season at Eldora Speedway hasn't started just yet, but while we wait for the opener, big changes came to the track yesterday. The Tony Stewart-owned facility announced that long-time general manager Roger Slack is taking a sabbatical, and that Jerry Gappens will take over the role of running the facility. Gappens has been promoting Gas City I-69 Speedway since 2018, and previously managed New Hampshire Motor Speedway for Speedway Motorsports, and was an executive at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Smoke bough Eldora for Earl Baltes in 2004, and Slack had been there for the past 12 years, overseeing improvements, growing their big events like the Kings Royal and Dream and World, and helping to bring the NASCAR truck series there. The season is already set at Eldora with some big things happening, including the return of the Eldora Million, and Gappens should have no problem jumping right into the fray there. Longtime promoter and Eldora Speedway employee Larry Boos will fill the void at Gas City now left by the departing Jerry Gappens. It seems like Eldora is in capable hands going forward, and I want to wish Roger Slack luck as he moves forward in his own journey. Roger was someone we enjoyed having on Open Red several years ago, and he has a crazy story if you don't know it. Roger is episode 97 of Open Red if you want to go find it and listen. I've crossed paths a few times with him in my own racing career, and have great respect for what he's done. I'm sure we'll see him again in a big time role down the road. The season at Eldora starts a week from today, April 26th, with the rescheduled FloRacing Night in America late model show. For more on the track and the announcement, head over to eldoraspeedway.com.

If you're a consumer of YouTube, which I'm guessing there is a reasonable chance you are, being as how most of my audience consumes this show on YouTube, I've got a recommendation for you today. Sheldon Haudenschild has had a channel since 2011, but hadn't posted anything since 2016. That was until this week. Yesterday they dropped a nearly 10 minute behind the scenes video of the team on the west coast World of Outlaws swing that is absolutely worth your time today. The video was produced by DIRT Co Media House and creator Jesse Douglas, and it is a really fun watch. It is shot very much like a documentary, and is exactly the kind of content we need to be getting more of across dirt racing. According to Sheldon's Twitter account, they are planning to release nine more episodes, which I'm assuming will come at regular intervals through the season. I've added Sheldon's channel to the videos page at dirtrackr.com, and if you are on the DIRTRACKR channel, click "Channels" in the upper nav to see a list of other dirt racing creators, along with Sheldon. Give the video a watch and let me know what you think. I'm sure that NOS probably had a large hand in making this happen, and it's a no-brainer fit to get into the Ricky Stenhouse, Richard Marshall owned team like this. We literally talked about Sheldon on the show yesterday and his exciting driving style, and this is a great way to connect with fans and help grow his fanbase. If you're a regular here, you've heard me harp about this stuff before, and it feels like the industry is starting to listen. We've seen some really fun short form pieces from Tony LaPorta working for World Racing Group this year. David Gravel has really embraced his vlog series, I just talked about Sprint Car Hub here recently, and this all goes along with established creators like Hunt the Front, Tanner Holmes, Swindell SpeedLab, and Mandy Pauch Mahaney. It's a significant investment in time and resources to create content like this, but especially where there is a lack of coverage from more traditional media outlets, we've got to make our own way here. I think there are real opportunities for the drivers and teams to make something big if they really wanted to, and my channel is a good example. We've grown this audience really nicely over the last two plus years, and I'm just a talking head. I don't have the amazing visuals that are possible for the teams to capture. So kudos to Sheldon and his group for going this direction. Hopefully this will lead to others really embracing what's possible going forward.

In the ongoing issues around parts and tire shortages, there was a not-so-great letter put out by American Racer yesterday. According to the company, a nylon shortage is leading to them having to suspend the production of dirt modified, dirt sprint, and dirt late model tires. They also anticipate interruptions to their asphalt racing line of tires as well. The letter says quote "we will get more fabric at some point, but we cannot be certain of the exact date, or how much of it. We also expect that these production delays will push lead times further into the future, which could affect the remaining racing season" unquote. So that's not exactly the news we were hoping for, with some races already lost to the tire shortages. I am not super familiar with tire rules around the country, but I do know that the USMTS runs on American Racers, and does the Short Track Super Series. So right off the bat, you'd think those two series will be affected by this news. And yesterday there was a piece at Dirt Track Digest about Grandview Speedway making changes to their weekly tire rules in response to the letter from American Racer. They are easing the limits on which tires can be used, and they are pushing back start times so that racing happens under the lights, in hopes that tire wear will be less. I also saw that Jeremy Elliott at Sprintcarunlimited.com is working on a story about this as well, so he might be providing some new details that we'll keep an eye out for. Either way though, this isn't good news, and things could continue to get worse before they get better. I'm guessing we probably aren't done with races being lost to these tire shortages, and I'd also bet that this could lead to more panic buying, and even more problems trying to get rubber. This could also very much put more pressure on Hoosier, if some of these American Racer tracks and series decide to open things up and allow Hoosiers when they haven't in the past. There is a probably solid chance that Hoosier couldn't handle the additional demand. Let's hope that American Racer is able to find some nylon hidden somewhere and get their production lines rolling again.

Before we close out today, I've got a few numbers for you to ponder on this Tuesday. First, we talked about the USAC sprint car field at Atomic being only 20 cars, and I looked back through the last 74 series races, which takes us through the 2020 season, and it's the smallest car count I can find over that stretch. With the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series, Brad Sweet has finished top ten in 13 straight races. It's the longest active top ten streak in the country, among the eight dirt racing series I track in the analytics section. Garrett Alberson, in his rookie season, currently leads the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series in feature plus/minus, at plus 62. Not far back from him is Tyler Erb, who is plus 58. Erb is actually starting features more than a position further back than he did last season on average, but he's finishing a position better because of all those moves he's making once the green flag drops. And with the ASCS National Tour, Wayne Johnson has decided to return to the series full time after several years following the World of Outlaws. Johnson is the only driver to finish top ten through the first four race nights in 2022, and he's the current points leader. The ASCS is headed to Salina and US36 this weekend.

There are two shows on the streaming schedule for today. DIRTVision has outlaw karts from Millbridge Speedway here in North Carolina, and there is FloRacing 24/7. If you want to check out the daily streaming schedule that includes links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.

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