DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Okay, so maybe Donny Schatz isn't back | Daily 5-4-2022

On the show today we are talking last night's entertaining Super DIRTcar Series show at Bridgeport and what happened to Donny Schatz. Let's go!

Today is Wednesday, May 4th, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

If you're a nerd like me, happy Star Wars Day!

If you didn't watch last night, the Super DIRTcar Series put on a really fun Tuesday night show at Bridgeport Motorsports Park in New Jersey. With the cancellation in March of the two nights at Atomic Speedway, this was the first points paying event of the season for the big blocks. Those early year shows at DIRTcar Nationals are just for money and trophies. Alex Yankowski led early from the pole, but was out before lap 25 when his engine expired in a big way on the front stretch. The young Pennsylvania driver continues to be impressive, and is a name to watch in the northeast in the coming years. Don't forget he has already won one of these big Super DIRTcar Series races, taking the opening night victory at World Finals last November. The 17 year old is tackling the full schedule this season, while also still in high school. Out front last night, Ryan Godown took control of the lead I think on lap 10 or 11, and in the box score it will show him leading the rest of the way. But it wasn't that easy down the stretch. Billy Pauch Jr. tried several times to get by Godown, but with each slider attempt, Godown would just drive back by. And then in the final laps, a hard charging Stewart Friesen took his shots, but Godown turned those away as well. The win was Godown's first ever with the Super DIRTcar Series, which seems strange to say with all the times we've seen that black and white 26 in victory lanes. Friesen hard charged from 12th to second, Pauch ended up third, Mat Williamson was fourth, and Max McLaughlin was fifth. It was not a good night for defending series champion Matt Sheppard. He was out of the race during the same caution period where Yankowski blew up. I didn't hear on the broadcast what the issue eventually was, but they had the hood off that nine car, and Sheppard ended up 24th. So with just the one points race complete, Godown leads the standings. The next race on the calendar is two weeks away, Wednesday night May 18th at Can Am Speedway. To keep up with the series, head over to superdirtcarseries.com.

I've really enjoyed a lot of these races on this newer version of Bridgeport. The sprint car races they've had their have been entertaining, and we've seen some good modified races there too. That's definitely a track I'd recommend if you're in that area, or when you see it come up on the streaming schedule.

Now over to to Donny Schatz. Back on February 24th, I did a Daily about Donny's second half of the 2021 season and how he opened this year at Volusia. In that show, I declared Donny "back" and I thought he would be a serious contender for the World of Outlaws championship. He won the season opener, then had finishes of 6th and 7th at Volusia. He followed that up with results of 5th and 8th at Cotton Bowl in early March. Leaving Cotton Bowl, David Gravel was the points leader by 16, with Sheldon Haudenschild and Schatz tied for second. Fast forward two months, and Donny and the TSR 15 have slipped all the way to seventh in the standings, and they trail Brad Sweet by 142 points. At about 2 points per position, that's 71 feature spots they are behind right now. I don't want to go full flip flop here and say he's completely out of it with only 17 races in the books, but man it's tough to see him climbing out of this hole with as good as the guys in front of him have been. So how did Donny get here? Let's take a look. Following the Cotton Bowl weekend, the Outlaws headed west, and it was not a good California swing for the 10 time champion. He had crashes at Tulare and Merced which resulted in finishes of 24th and 22nd, and in five races had just two top tens; a sixth at Bakersfield and a 10th at Perris. On the eastward journey, it looked like they were maybe righted again with a third at Vado on March 29th, and a second at Devil's Bowl on April 2nd. But in the five races since then, it's been tough sledding, with only two top tens, a 9th at Pevely and an 8th at Bristol last Saturday night. He's led just 25 laps, which all came in that opening night win at Volusia, and the speed we saw later in 2021 and into the start of 2022 appears to have slipped away again. When you look at this stats for the year, we can begin to see some issues that we haven't seen from Donny before. The big glaring issue I see is qualifying. His average time trial position for the year is a not-so-great 11.4. Of the full time field, only Brock Zearfoss, Jason Sides, Noah Gass, and Bill Rose are qualifying worse than Donny. That 11.4 average is nearly a four position drop from 2021. That is absolutely massive. That has led to a feature starting position that is more than two positions worse than a year ago, and a feature finish that is more than three positions down. His efficiency numbers are good, with a 100% top five efficiency, and a he's 8 of 9 for top ten starts and finishes. So when he does start up front, he's able to protect and close out for good results. But when he starts further down the order, he hasn't been able to convert those outside top ten starts into good finishes as often as he has in the past. For the season, he's only 3 for 8, which is 37.5% percent. If you look at the last five plus years as a whole, Donny is north of 60% in this same category, converting 94 outside top ten starts into top ten finishes 59 times. When you combine all of this, it seems like when they unload fast, they are in line for good performances all night and good finishes. When they are off though, they aren't able to adjust quick enough to make Donny better by the end of the night. He's not able to climb out of the holes they put themselves in when they don't qualify well. That is also evidenced by Schatz's feature plus minus stat. Since 2017, Schatz leads all drivers in positions gained from the start of features to the end, but this season he's 10th. From this perspective, it's easy to just say hey guys, qualify better. But we all know it's just not that simple. The team has gotten off with their package right now, and there is no guarantee when it will come back. Don't forget here too, there is no Ricky Warner in that building anymore. With Tony Stewart shelving the 14 car, Ricky moved over to crew chief for Rico Abreu. Even though Ricky hasn't been Donny's crew chief in several years, he was still a resource at TSR. It's at least something to consider in this situation. The Outlaws head to Eldora this weekend, and it could be a very good track for Schatz and TSR to turn things around again. Over the last 26 races at Eldora, nobody has a better average finish than Schatz. We'll talk more about the Outlaw weekend ahead on Friday. If you want to see these stats and a lot more for yourself, head over to dirtrackr.com/analytics. And get even more with a subscription to dirtrackr Plus.

I wanted to make a quick correction to yesterday's show. I thought Larson just went full send on that final lap at Bristol on Friday, but as some pointed out, he actually blew the right rear tire. I went back and found the tweets from Jacqueline Rumley as well. Thanks to those that pointed that out.

If you want more dirt racing content this week, there are lots of new podcast episodes from the various shows. LoudPedal has Cap Henry, Passing Points has Tanner Holmes, Forward Bite has Ronnie Sewell, the Dirt from Knoxville has Brian Brown, and there are new episodes of Open Red Credentials Denied, the Dirt Reporters, the Dirt Nerds, and Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks. To see the full list of shows and episodes, head over to dirtrackr.com/podcasts.

There are three shows on the streaming services today. DIRTVision has micros and legends cars from Millbridge, FloRacing has another night of California IMCA action, this time at Tulare, and there is 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!