DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Chase Briscoe adds 25 dirt races, Christopher Bell headed to Bridgeport tonight with Swindell | Daily 4-20-2022

On the show today we are talking about another NASCAR driver running a bunch of dirt races, an update on the future of Bristol, I've got more tire shortage news, and we'll look at who's going to Bridgeport tonight for the 410 show. Let's go!

Today is Wednesday, April 20th, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

Following in the footsteps of his dirt racing brethren, NASCAR Cup driver Chase Briscoe announced yesterday that he is partnering with his Cup sponsor Mahindra to run quite a few dirt races this year. They are calling it the "Chase'n Dirt Tour" and Briscoe will make appearances in wing and non-wing sprint cars, midgets, micros, and a super late model. We've seen Briscoe run in the midget plenty in the past, including at a lot of the indoor stuff like the Chili Bowl. He's also made scattered starts elsewhere, including in that IRA show at Plymouth last year in advance of the NASCAR weekend at Road America. This deal seems to be a little more formal though, and Briscoe also shared several of the potential 25 times he'll race, which includes the USCS sprint car shows this weekend at the Talladega Short Track. He's also got the FloRacing Night in America Series race at Brownstown next week, the May XR races at Charlotte, the Xtreme Outlaw midget opener at Millbridge, the Flo Night in America show at Tri City in June followed by a MOWA sprint car and World of Outlaws late model doubleheader at Tri City on June 3rd, two 410 sprint car shows in early July, and the BC39 USAC midget race at Indy. But this is probably around half of the schedule he's planned for the year. Cool to see another driver focusing on crossing over, and the fact that he's already guaranteed into the NASCAR playoffs has probably helped his cause in making this all happen. The tie ins with Mahindra Tractor will work well with the dirt racing audience also. I believe the sprint car and midget stuff will be Briscoe's own equipment, as we've seen him field those cars before. The late model he'll run is a Longhorn Chassis in partnership with Indiana driver Kent Robinson. As for how he'll do in these events, we know Briscoe is fast in the open wheel stuff, we've seen that plenty of times before. On the late model side though, I have no idea how much experience he has, so that could be interesting. To keep up with Chase, go find him on his various social media accounts and chasebriscoe.com.

In other news from yesterday, we found out that the Bristol dirt race for NASCAR will again be back on the schedule in 2023, so you'd have to assume that means potentially another round of more traditional dirt races at the track. This year that included the two weeks of XR events, plus the upcoming World of Outlaws weekend. There aren't concrete details about plans for next year, but it would make sense for the track to try and maximize the racing for the cost and effort of putting down the dirt surface. I think some were hoping this was the final time this would happen at Bristol, but the TV ratings were good and NASCAR will keep going if that is the case. According to Sports Business Journal's Adam Stern, the race earned just north of 4 million viewers on Sunday, which was the highest Bristol viewership since 2016. It's tough to argue with those numbers, regardless of what you think of the racing.

The first All Star weekend of the season is complete, and now that series will head to Pennsylvania this weekend for several shows. Before they do though, a lot of those teams and quite a few of the PA drivers will be at Bridgeport in New Jersey tonight for the Invasion of the Posse 410 show. It looks like the weather is going to cooperate, and the field should be pretty solid. We know Christopher Bell is coming with the Swindell SpeedLab 39, we'll see All Star regulars Justin Peck and Kyle Reinhardt, plus guys like Danny Dietrich, Freddie Rahmer, Anthony Macri, Brent Marks, and Lucas Wolfe. I'm guessing we'll be right around 30 cars for the night. The race is $7500 to win and not part of any series or sanction, so guys will just be flat out for the victory tonight. Kerry Madsen won this race a year ago, driving the Mike Barshinger ride. It wasn't too long after that, that Madsen was out and headed to TSR. Bridgeport has had a lot of work done to it in recent years, and the show last year was solid, so don't sleep on this race tonight. Plus, who doesn't love a little midweek sprint car action. I believe this will be the first time we'll see Bell in a sprint car this year. He was supposed to run DIRTcar Nationals with Kevin and Jordan Swindell, but those plans were dashed. We have seen CBell in the midget a few times, and he's been running his micro at Millbridge on Wednesday nights here near Charlotte. Joining the 410 sprint cars tonight at Bridgeport will be 602 sportsman, and if you can't get to the track, FloRacing has live coverage.

Buckle up folks, because I think the next few weeks and months could be dominated by talk of who has tires and who doesn't to run races. After the American Racer stuff from the last day or so, there seems to have been a ramp up in updates regarding the situation around dirt racing tires. Yesterday afternoon, the USAC East Coast Sprint Car Series, which is a non-wing 360 series, announced the cancellation of this Friday's race at Bedford Speedway citing fuel prices, toll fees, and the lack of available sprint car tires. The Saturday show at Port Royal is still on, but the series has also axed the upcoming May 5th race at Bloomsburg Fair Speedway. So two lost shows for the USAC east coast racers. Jamie Weaknecht, who covers northeast modified racing, tweeted that Big Diamond is cutting their Friday 358 mod feature back to 35 laps, Fonda and Utica Rome are opening up their tracks to using Hoosiers, and Delaware has cancelled their April 30th modified show due to the tire shortage. And I mentioned on the show yesterday that Jeremy Elliott was working on a tire story, and he posted that yesterday. His piece was very much focused on Central Pennsylvania and the upcoming All Star shows, but there wasn't really a whole lot of new information in it. As is the case around the country now, tire dealers are starting to ration tires to teams, and things could get tight in PA and elsewhere in the coming weeks as distributors run low on the H15 sprint car right rear tire. I think we are coming to a critical point for the 2022 season with these tire issues, especially as most tracks around the country are either open now, or will be very shortly. I would think with the high profile nature of the racing, and their weight in the industry, that the big series will be less affected by tire problems, as the manufacturers won't want to be blamed for losing World of Outlaws or Lucas shows. The rubber that is being produced will be funneled that direction, and the smaller local and regional shows will be the ones to bear the brunt of the shortages. If this is something you want me to continue talking about, let me know in the comments, or via social media. This feels like it could turn into the covid stuff again, where I'm on here talking about race cancellations daily, and that could get old really quick. But if you think it's valuable for me to keep following this for you, let me know.

On the dirt racing podcast front, it's another week, and another round of new episodes from the various shows. Winged Nation has Tony Bokhoven, LoudPedal has Danny Dietrich and they previewed the All Star season ahead, Passing Points has Tim Crawley, Ohio Dirt has Dan McCarron, and there are new episodes of Open Red, the Dirt Reporters, the Dirt Nerds, and a new show has debuted on the podcasts page. Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks covers a lot of Indiana and midwest racing. To see the full list of shows and episodes, head over to dirtrackr.com/podcasts.

There are three shows on today's streaming schedule. DIRTVision has micros from Millbridge, and FloRacing has 410 sprint cars and 602 sportsman from Bridgeport, and Flo 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!