DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Rocket drops a bomb! Brandon Sheppard switching from the World of Outlaws to Lucas for 2022 | Daily 4-26-2022

On the show today we are previewing tonight's Flo show at Eldora, I've got an update from American Racer, and Rocket drops a bomb. Let's go!

Today is Tuesday, April 26th, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

We had to wait a few extra days, but the first FloRacing Night in America late model series race is tonight at Eldora, and you won't have to wait long for race two, as it happens tomorrow night at Brownstown. Tonight is just one of two possible late model race nights for teams to hit Eldora before the Million and the Dream coming up in June, so tonight's show will be packed with cars looking to get some track time. The other possibility is the Johnny Appleseed Classic on May 29th, and it isn't scheduled against either late model national tour, so that could be a very busy night as well. Tonight's race is $22,000 to win and $1000 to start, so a nice payday for a midweek show. This is the season opener, so the championship is wide open, and as a reset, the 12 race series will pay $75k to the champion if they have perfect attendance. If someone wins the title and doesn't have perfect attendance, they'll get $30k. The point fund pays all the way down to 10th place, and a driver's ten best finishes will count at the end of the season. Jonathan Davenport topped Kyle Larson one year ago for the inuagural championship. Tonight's card also includes modifieds and stock cars, with the pit gate opening at noon eastern, grandstands at four, and hot laps at six. And as you probably guessed, the racing will be shown live on Flo. Now, back to that packed field of drivers... In a post at floracing.com yesterday, the initial pre-entry list is north of 50 cars, and it could swell even more than that tonight. It includes Tyler Erb, Josh Richards, Brandon Sheppard, the Scott brothers, Brian Shirley, Kyle Larson, Ricky Weiss, Shannon Babb, Ricky Thornton Jr., Darrell Lanigan, Bobby Pierce, Kyle Bronson, Jonathan Davenport, Ashton Winger, Max Blair, Mike Marlar, and more. We will also see the debut of Tyler Courtney in a super late model as he prepares to run the Million in June with car owner and NASCAR crew chief Jeremy Bullins. If you want to hear more about that, go find my Conversations episode with Bullins from a few weeks ago. A couple of drivers who aren't on that list include Brandon Overton and Devin Moran. With all the success that Overton had at Eldora last year, I'm a bit surprised he isn't pre entered, but that doesn't mean he won't be there. We'll just have to wait and see if that Wells team pulls in tonight. I believe that Moran had this race on his schedule originally, but it seems as though things have changed. He's also removed the Bristol shows from his schedule, and will instead be at Tri City and Macon this weekend with Lucas. We'll talk more about that in a bit. But at Eldora tonight, there will be no shortage of story lines, including that nice payday, guys getting seat time, Sunshine making his debut, and whether Kyle Larson and Kevin Rumley can get things ironed out and jump up and win a late model show this season. It should be a fun night, and we'll talk about the results on tomorrow's show, plus preview Brownstown. If you don't have a Flo subscription, and would like to get one to watch tonight, click the link below in the video description, or one of the Flo links at dirtrackr.com. That's an easy way to support what I'm doing at no extra cost to you.

A quick tire situation update for you today about American Racer. In a post to outsidegroove.com from a few days ago, the tire manufacturer said they were set to resume tire production after receiving a fresh shipment of nylon. They had previously shut down making a sizeable portion of their dirt tires because of a worldwide nylon shortage. They did expect to be back at full production for their racing tires. It's unclear how this will affect racing over the next few weeks, as tires begin shipping again to distributors around the country. We know that several northeast tracks had already made tire rules changes in response to the American Racer shutdown. We also know that supply continues to be an issue for Hoosier, although their problems seem to stem from labor issues, and not so much about raw material supply. The All Stars postponed their Thursday show at Bedford because of shortages around the H15 sprint car tire. We'll continue to keep you updated as the situation evolves.

Now, over to what is probably my main topic for today's show. I had a DM yesterday about a video posted by Don Radebaugh on YouTube from the weekend Outlaw show at Atomic. The History Mystery Man channel, owned by Don, did a bunch of short interviews from Atomic, and in it he asked Brandon Sheppard about running the World of Outlaws full time this season, and in the video Sheppard said he thought they were going to chase the Lucas series this season. This was the first I'd heard of that being a possibility. That team has had several instances in the past where they were leading the Lucas standings early in the year, but always ended up going Outlaws. But apparently this year is different. Sheppard currently has a 15 point advantage over Devin Moran for that championship, but is 66 points back in third with the Outlaws. As of last night, this weekend's Outlaw shows at Bristol were still on the Rocket schedule, but this morning that has changed, with Tri City and Macon now replacing those dates. And literally as I was beginning to write this exact paragraph, there is a release from Rocket announcing their switch from the Outlaws to Lucas for the season. This is huge news for the Mark Richards' owned team that has been a cornerstone of the Outlaw field for many years. I am a little surprised by the move, just because of how deeply involved with the Outlaws this team has been, and I feel like even with Sheppard being third right now in the standings, they could easily battle back and still win the title. But on the Lucas side, things were ripe for the taking this year. No Davenport and no Owens opened things up signficantly, and with Tim McCreadie a little slow out of the gates, this is as good a chance as any for Sheppard and Rocket to slide over and try and win that championship. But wait, there's more. As I just talked about a minute ago, Devin Moran's weekend schedule has changed. He told Michael Rigsby and the Dirt on Dirt guys back in February that his schedule would diverge with Lucas come Bristol, but apparently that plan has changed. Bristol has been swapped for the Lucas weekend, and with how good Moran has been with that side this year, I'm wondering if maybe they too aren't considering sticking around full time. So whereas we thought we'd leave this coming weekend with Tyler Erb and Tim McCreadie atop the Lucas points, now they could be second and third behind Sheppard, and possibly third and fourth if Moran is indeed staying around for longer. In a matter of a few short days, suddenly Lucas is looking insanely tough this season with the addition of Sheppard and maybe Moran. And the Outlaws are wide open with Sheppard gone, and Dennis Erb and Max Blair at the top. On the flip side, you now have to wonder if any of the Lucas guys a little further down the order might switch to the Outlaws, with the biggest candidate there maybe being Hudson O'Neal. He's currently fifth in the Outlaw standings, but ninth in the Lucas points. As of this moment, Tri City and Macon are on his schedule, but that could easily change. Nothing like a little series swapping to really make a Tuesday in the dirt world exciting. The story for the early part of this season on the late model side has really been all these guys just chasing money, and it felt like the championships had fallen to the wayside. But now we have a little more intrigue going forward. I love it. So we could potentially, and very probably have new champions on both sides in 2022. Bring it on. Drop me a comment, let me know your reactions to all of this today.

There are two shows on the streaming schedule today, both on FloRacing. They have the opening night for the Flo Night in America Late Models at Eldora, and there is 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 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!