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.
Kyle Larson, Kevin Rumley handle rough track at Eldora for $22k FloRacing score; Brownstown tonight | Daily 4-27-2022
Coming up we are talking Larson's dominant win at Eldora, updates on Tyler Erb and Devin Moran, and more. Let's go!
Today is Wednesday, April 27th, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
As some have pointed out, it's been a pretty quiet 2022 so far for Kyle Larson, with only a few wins through the first few months of this year. But last night at Eldora, a rough track and a field that included 49 cars with names like Davenport and Overton couldn't slow Yung Money down. Larson was quick time in qualifying and won the first heat race to grab the pole for the feature. At the start of the main event though, Jonathan Davenport jumped to the lead with Larson falling back to third pretty quickly. By lap eight though, Larson was by JD for the lead and setting sail on the field. At one point, his lead was north of five seconds over Davenport, and he was running lap times just a tick off the track record. A late caution for a flat on Kyle Strickler's eight machine closed the field back up for a final two lap dash to the finish, which Larson handled with ease. He bagged the $22,000 FloRacing Night in America opener over Davenport, Brandon Overton, Brandon Sheppard, and Ricky Thornton Jr. The track conditions were a problem all night for the field, and we ended up with only 11 cars running at the finish of the feature that was shortened from 50 laps to 30. Several pulled off early to save their equipment, and others were victims of the rough surface. The track put down 250 loads of dirt over the offseason, and that move combined with recent rains is what led to the issues. I don't know that I've seen Eldora be this rough in recent years, and the drivers made sure to talk about it at every opportunity they had last night, with some interesting and colorful descriptions along the way. The surface definitely played into Larson's hands though, as we know he isn't afraid of a cowboy up race track, and he ended up lapping the field up to seventh place. The victory was the second in the series for Larson, his first late model score of the year, and it was the sixth different car type he's won in at Eldora. The others are the Silver Crown car, midget, non-wing sprint car, winged sprint car, and NASCAR truck. If you watch or listen to this show regularly, you already knew that Larson won't compete at the Eldora Million because of a wedding he's attending for a friend, but he did reiterate that last night in victory lane. So the late model drivers can breathe a little easier that weekend, especially after what we witnessed last night.
The other open wheel racer in the field last night was Tyler Courtney, who was making his super late model debut driving for Jeremy Bullins. He was getting some track time in advance of the Eldora Million that will happen in June. He was impressive last night, winning the first B-Main by taking advantage of trouble for Kyle Bronson and just flat driving by Shannon Babb. Sunshine then went 17th to ninth in the feature to score a top ten in his first night out. His knowledge and experience around Eldora definitely seemed to help offset his lack of experience in the late model, but we already knew that he's incredibly talented as a driver. We've watched that play out over the past few seasons as he's transitioned into winged racing. When the Million comes around, there is no doubt that Courtney will be a respectable competitor that weekend.
Looking ahead to tonight, the FloRacing Night in America Series will keep the party going with another $22,000 to win, $1000 to start race at Brownstown Speedway in Indiana. Kyle Larson won this event a year ago after having never been to the track before. We'll see if he can go back to back. A lot of the guys we saw last night will also make the trip, so we should see Davenport, Overton, Hudson O'Neal, Tyler Erb, RTJ, Ashton Winger, Brandon Sheppard, and a lot more tonight. There will probably be a few additions as well, with one we know of being Chase Briscoe. I talked to him last week for an episode of DIRTRACKR Conversations, and we got into his limited late model experience. He's running a Longhorn Chassis in partnership with Ross Robinson, but did get some laps yesterday. He's a talented dirt racer as well, so he shouldn't have any problem getting up to speed tonight. He'll be in that Mahindra sponsored 14. If getting to Brownstown tonight isn't an option, you can watch the action live on Flo.
Before we move on, I've got a few other late model updates for you. First, Tyler Erb showed up to Eldora last night with a new Longhorn Chassis, replacing the Rockets they've been using. The Best Performance Motorsports team has been on the Rocket squad for a long time, so the move caught some folks off guard. Erb has also been fast this season, winning with the Outlaws over the weekend at Atomic and currently sitting third in the Lucas points. We'll see if this chassis swap pays off for the team going forward, but last night was a tough start. Erb tore the nose off the car early in the night, had contact again in his heat race, and ended up 10th in the feature. Longhorn was definitely good last night though, with those cars taking the top three positions in the feature.
Also, we didn't see Devin Moran at Eldora last night, and we won't see them at Brownstown today. He posted to his Instagram and Facebook accounts that they hurt their car at West Virginia over the weekend, and that they were taking the piece to Longhorn here in North Carolina to get it fixed. They already had another chassis there as well from a crash at Bristol. The team's plan is to get the car fixed and be ready to head to Tri-City and Macon this weekend with Lucas, instead of going to Bristol with the Outlaws. That will keep Moran's Lucas attendance perfect, so we'll see if they try and stick it out with the series going forward. If they do indeed stay, it could be really fun watching Moran and Sheppard go head to head for the Lucas title here through the summer.
In the YouTube comments on the Sheppard and Rocket video from yesterday, Tyler asked about the fields coming up this weekend for the Outlaws at Bristol and what we should expect. At this moment, MyRacePass shows 22 pre entries for both Outlaw series, but there isn't an actual list yet to look through. I'd say you're probably looking at low to mid 20s for both this weekend. I do think the late models have a better chance at attracting more cars than the sprint cars do. A year ago, the sprint cars had 28 and 27, and the late models had 29 both days at Bristol. This weekend will be tough though, with Lucas up against the Outlaws, and lots of 410 shows on tap around the country, including regular racing in Pennsylvania and Ohio, plus the All Stars in action. And KCP Racing tweeted yesterday they won't be bringing Gio Scelzi to the Tennessee track as he's been dealing with some shoulder issues. World Racing Group did bump the payouts for the weekend, but racing at Bristol, especially with parts and tire shortages hanging over the sport, is a big ask right now.
If you're looking for other racing tonight, the Short Track Super Series is in action at Delaware International Speedway. The South Region heads to the track for the eighth time in series history and $5000 will go to the winner. Ryan Godown leads the south region standings after winning the opener at Port Royal back in March. Stewart Friesen is the defending race winner, and has won this race actually twice in a row and three times overall in his career. He'll be up against it to win again tonight though, as names like Matt Sheppard and Mike Maresca will be there to slow him down. It hasn't been a great start to the year for Friesen in the modified, but he did win over the weekend at Fonda, so maybe his luck is turning around. Joining the modifieds tonight on the card are 602 sportsman, with hot laps scheduled for 6:30 PM ET. The race can be watched live with a subscription to FloRacing.
On the dirt racing podcast front, there are plenty of new episodes to check out this week. Winged Nation had Justin Henderson and Anthony Macri, Passing Points has Sean Rayhall, and there are new episodes of Open Red Credentials Denied, the Dirt Reporters, the Dirt Nerds, Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks, and the Dirt from Knoxville has their first show of the season. To see the list of shows and episodes, head over to dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
There are three shows on the streaming schedule today, with all three happening on Flo. They've got the Flo Night in America Late Models from Brownstown, Short Track Super Series from Delaware, and 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!