DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Fergie bags crown jewel win with Show-Me 100 score; Josh Richards, Mike Marlar injured | Daily 5-30-2022
First time winners, more Posse domination, injuries for Mike Marlar and Josh Richards, and a lot more today on a packed holiday show. Let's go!
Today is Monday, May 30th, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
It's Memorial Day, so if you are enjoying some festivities today, please be safe out there and remember the reason for the day.
It's been a really busy last few days around the country on dirt tracks, and there is plenty more to come today. Let's jump into a bunch of different things from the weekend.
We'll start with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series at Lucas Oil Speedway for the Show-Me 100 weekend. It turned into a bit of a wild card weekend, with a first time series winner in Johnny Scott on Friday night, and Chris Ferguson scoring the big $50,000 win on Saturday night. I know there were some complaints and issues with the track at Wheatland on Friday night, as it was pretty rough. Mike Marlar ended up not being able to race on Saturday night after he sustained a leg injury from catching a rut wrong. He didn't mince words on Twitter either, saying quote "Maybe @lucasspeedway uses better judgement today, don't want to see any of my buddies get hurt" unquote. Pretty wild photo too of his pedal area that was damaged. The racing out front though between Scott and Jonathan Davenport was pretty good though, as the two traded the lead seven times. Johnny took over for good on lap 32 and drove away to his first career win with Lucas. Things got off to a similar start on Saturday night out front with Scott and JD both leading laps, but neither ended up finishing near the front. Scott faded to 17th, and a late spin from Davenport relegated him to 16th. He was trying to avoid getting blocked in behind the lap car of Earl Pearson Jr. and made an evasive move to the middle, but Fergie was there and the two collided with Superman then going around. Tough ending for Davenport, who led 82 of the 100 laps. As for Fergie, he drove an incredibly methodical race, just slowly working his way forward from the 10th position. He got to second inside 20 to go, and took the lead with 12 laps remaining. It was the first big crown jewel win for the North Carolina driver, and we shouldn't be surprised, as that 22 car is usually fast in big events. He won the Diamond Nationals at Wheatland in 2020, and has shown plenty of pace elsewhere. Fergie is one of those regional guys who I wish we could see out with a series full time. I definitely think he could do a lot more winning like this. As for the guys out front in the Lucas points battle, it was a pretty quiet weekend. Sheppard maintains the top spot by 105 points after weekend finishes of 11th and 12th. Tim McCreadie has moved to second after a 17th to 3rd run on Saturday night. Tyler Erb is third after failing to make it out of the Friday B-Main, and finishing 13th on Saturday. Jimmy Owens and Ricky Thornton Jr. complete the top five. Except for a 26th place blemish at Port Royal in April, it's been a nice stretch for RTJ with seven top tens in his past eight starts, including two top fives this weekend. The big money keeps on coming this week as Lucas now heads to the wide open spaces of West Virginia Motor Speedway for the Historic 100. Friday night pays $15 grand to win, and Saturday is yet another $50,000 to win main event.
We also had a first time winner on the other national late model touring series, with Ryan Gustin finally breaking through on Saturday night at Sharon Speedway with the World of Outlaws. He led the final 12 laps, taking over from Shane Clanton, to score the victory. Gustin has run well so many times, you knew he would eventually get over the hump, but it took longer than I thought it would. I feel like I've picked him quite a few times to no avail over the last year or so. You gotta wonder if finally getting that first one might open the floodgates a bit, and they could come a little easier for him now. In the battle for the Outlaw championship, Dennis Erb Jr. was able to stretch away from Max Blair just a little bit more. Blair started on the pole at Sharon and led 23 laps, but faded to 7th at the end, while Erb ended up 4th. I really feel like Erb can just plod along through the summer racking up top tens and just run away with this thing. With the gap at 106 now, Blair would really have to get hot to run him down. I know it's early, but this just feels like it's slipping away already. I also wanted to talk about Josh Richards. After struggling early on with the transition back to the Outlaws with Boom Briggs, those guys have been much better as of late, and Richards now has four third place runs in his last five races. Unfortunately for him though, he suffered facial injuries on Sunday at Eldora in the Johnny Appleseed Classic, after being hit with a dirt clod. According to Kevin Kovac at Dirt on Dirt, Richards ended up in the hospital with what sounds like a broken nose, possibly a broken jaw and other injuries. Hopefully he has a speedy recovery, and we'll have to wait and see what this means for his future, as the Outlaws are back to racing this Friday at Tri-City. Tyler Erb ended up winning that Eldora race, but it sounds like the track was definitely an issue. Jerry Bowersock also tweeted about getting hit with a clod.
The World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series was also in action on Saturday night, ending a 13 year absence from the Atomic Speedway. And I called it, we got a Sheldon Haudenschild victory in front of his home state Ohio fans. The night turned into Sheldon vs. the Shark Racing cars, with Jacob Allen leading laps, but the 17 was just better, especially in clean air. It was the classic high low battle, with Sheldon on the top and Jacob on the bottom, but Haudenschild got away late to claim his fourth Outlaw win of the season. Logan Schuchart nipped his Shark teammate late to finish second, with Allen third. The win for Sheldon ties him with Carson Macedo for the most Outlaw wins on the year so far. We had a weird moment in that feature very early on when officials had throw a caution because the smoke from the pre-race fireworks had settled onto the race track and nobody could see anything. Not a situation you witness every day. Brad Sweet ended the night fourth, with David Gravel seventh, and Macedo 12th. The win vaulted Haudenschild from fourth to second behind the Big Cat, with Gravel third and Macedo back to fourth. How quickly things have turned around. Sheldon finished 14th at Bristol, then 21st at Lincoln, but in the four races since hasn't finished lower than fourth, and has two wins. The weekend continues tonight at Lawrenceburg for a $10,000 to win main event and the car count should be pretty good. I've seen Tyler Courtney, Ian Madsen, Ayrton Gennetten, and Brandon Wimmer all tweet they will be there, and it sounds like Kyle Larson is inbound to defend his race win from a year ago. Yung Money had an eventful Coke 600 last night, eventually finishing 9th after leading laps late. The dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula likes him for the win at the Burg tonight, and I don't see any reason to go against that pick. Hot laps are scheduled for tonight at 6PM ET and you can watch live on DIRTVision.
In Central Pennsylvania, the All Stars took another beating from the Posse. The Friday show at the Grove was rained out, but we did get both nights of the Weikert at Port Royal completed. And it turned into the Anthony Macri show. He beat Lance Dewease on Saturday night in a drag race back to the line after Danny Dietrich mostly dominated the feature. And Sunday in the big show, the Concrete Kid grabbed the lead on lap 10 from Chris Windom and held off Brent Marks in the closing laps for the weekend sweep. The All Star regulars haven't had a whole lot of luck in Pennsylvania recently as we talked about on Friday, and that trend continued. Justin Peck was the highest finishing All Star driver on Saturday in fifth, and Sunday it was Tyler Courtney earning a fourth place result. It is nice to see some signs of progress for Chris Windom as he's making the transition to full time winged competition. Those Sunday laps led were his first of the year, and he's got three top tens in his last six races. As for the All Star standings, not much changed. Sunshine still leads Parker Price Miller and Justin Peck by about the same margins. The season continues Friday and Saturday this week with stops at Attica and Atomic.
It's been a brutal season of rainouts and cancellations for the ASCS National Tour, and I know those competitors along with new series owner Terry Mattox were probably doing back flips because they got two shows in this weekend. Saturday it was Lake Ozark Speedway and Sunday it was Thunderbird Speedway. Dylan Westbrook was the Saturday winner, slipping by Matt Covington on the final lap when the 95 got stuck in behind a lap car. It was Westbrook's first win of the season. On Sunday at Thunderbird, Sam Hafertepe Jr. started second, and led all 25 laps for the win. It was his third top three finish in just four ASCS appearances this year. Leaving the weekend, Wayne Johnson continues to sit atop the standings, with Dylan Westbrook now second, and Blake Hahn third. The national tour is back on June 17th at Texarkana 67 Speedway. Don't forget we are tracking the ASCS in the dirtrackr.com analytics section, so head over there for stats and results.
Out west with the NARC sprint cars, Dominic Scelzi's win streak came to an end on Friday night at Willamette Speedway. Willie Croft led all 30 laps from the pole to earn his first NARC win in four years, and ninth of his career. Dom did end up second though. The Saturday race at Grays Harbor was rained out, but they did run last night, with Trey Starks scoring one for the locals. He dominated the feature, earning his first career NARC win, with Scelzi second and Justin Sanders third. With some drivers absent over the weekend, Scelzi extended his points lead, with Croft now second and Mitchell Faccinto third. We'll see NARC again on June 10th at Ocean Speedway.
Other weekend open wheel winners included Sprint Car Challenge Tour victories for Ryan Robinson and Tanner Carrick, Wesley Smith was a WAR winner at Double X, Chase Randall was a Sprint Invaders winner at 34 Raceway, Kameron Key won the MOWA opener, Austin McCarl won the 410 show at Knoxville, Ryan Timms was a POWRi midget winner at Lake Ozark, Scotty Neitzel won the IRA show at Rice Lake, and Ryan Timms won again on Sunday, clipping Kerry Madsen for the 410 sprint car victory. Unfortunately though, a severe storm hit Huset's early Monday morning, damaging the scoring tower and suites, among other things. They have cancelled their racing for today, and we are waiting for updates about the World of Outlaws race that is scheduled for this upcoming Sunday.
Other weekend late model winners included Mack McCarter and Josh Putnam with the Spring Nationals, Hunter Peacock bagged $10 grand in crate action at All-Tech, Ben Watkins was a Clash winner at Lake View, Ross Bailes was an Ultimate winner at Cherokee, Max Blair won the Sunday show at Eriez, and Jason Feger was a MARS winner at Spoon River.
With the USMTS, Lance Mari was a first time series winner on Friday at Chateau Speedway, defending series champion Dereck Ramirez dominated Satuday at Deer Creek, leading every lap. And Jake O'Neil won again on Sunday at Winneshiek. He's got four wins in just seven starts this year. With more racing coming today at Mason City Motor Speedway, Dustin Sorensen still leads Tanner Mullens for the title, but Ramirez has climbed all the way back to third.
And with the Super DIRTcar Series, Stewart Friesen dominated Sunday at Weedsport, leading all but 17 of 100 laps for the win. The big blocks are headed for Lebanon Valley today for more than $13,000 to win.
There are 11 races on the streaming schedule for this Memorial Day. That includes the World of Outlaws from Lawrenceburg and Super DIRTcar Series on DIRTVision, USMTS modifieds from Mason City on RacinDirt, and several local and regional shows on Speed Sport. 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 Monday. 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!>