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.

FloRacing late model show lost, where was the entry list? Update on damage at Huset's Speedway | Daily 6-1-2022

On the show today we are talking Flo late models at Tri-City, Western PA Speedweek, an update on Huset's, plus why Lucas highlights are on FloRacing. Let's go.

Today is Wednesday, June 1st, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

As we start into a fresh month, I've got a quick request for you. If you don't already, make sure you are subscribed wherever you consume this show, either YouTube or your favorite podcast app. That will make sure you don't miss future episodes and it's a free way to help the show. Also reviews are appreciated as well. I'm hoping to crack a million total YouTube views sometime this month, and my goal is to get to 10,000 YouTube subscribers by year's end. I think we can get there guys. Now to some racing stuff...

The FloRacing Night in America Late Model Series is going quiet for the rest of June and July as other late model racing takes center stage, but before they do, they were supposed to be at Tri-City Speedway tonight. But overnight rain has led to the postponement of the event, with track and series officials working through possible reschedule dates. Through the first five races this season, we've had five different winners, with Dennis Erb Jr., Kyle Larson, Jonathan Davenport, Hudson O'Neal, and Brandon Sheppard all bagging victories. So far, we have five drivers with perfect attendance, they are BShepp, O'Neal, Mike Marlar, Tyler Erb, and Ricky Thornton Jr. So those drivers would be in line right now for the $75,000 championship check if they were to win the title. I had actually already recorded today's daily and was getting ready to upload it when I saw that this race was postponed so I've pivoted a bit here, but I wanted to at least share what had happened this morning when I thought we were still racing because I had some issues. It was just last week that I had talked about tracks and series doing more to help entice fans to the race track, and today's Tri-City show was shaping up to be an example of one of these problems we face. I had been looking around all morning trying to find any sort of list of possible entrants for the race, and had come up short. It appeared as though Kyle Larson would have been there with the Rumley six. He's also apparently racing tomorrow night with the USAC midgets, and Friday with the World of Outlaws late models at Tri-City. We should have also seen RTJ, but from there I wasn't really sure. The original pre-race release from Flo doesn't have expected entries, and there is nothing at DirtonDirt.com. You can often find a list on their racewire pages. The Tri-City Twitter account hasn't been updated in two years, and the details about Larson and Thornton I found on the track's Facebook page. I even waded into 4M to no avail. This race was on Hudson O'Neal's schedule on his website, and also for Tyler Erb and Bobby Pierce, but not on the Rocket schedule for BShepp. Marlar was probably a question mark with his leg injuries, so that covered the top six in the standings. It would have been a solid Wednesday night super late model race in advance of a big NASCAR weekend, with good money on the line, and really smart people in charge, but yet I couldn't find a decent list of drivers we might see there. I understand that the nature of dirt racing is that often times we don't know who will roll through the gates, but we've got to do better than this. I shouldn't have to hit up 25 driver websites to see if they hopefully updated their own schedules, which they often don't, to put together an entry list. Super frustrating, and I wasn't even going tonight. This feels like a simple thing to start to rectify, and something that needs to be done better going forward. A few phone calls, some text messages, and put out a list. And maybe the organizers knew early on that they would be sacking the race because of the weather, so they didn't think it was necessary to do this leg work, but that feels pretty lame if it's actually true. Either way, this is another example of where we need to do better.

In Pennsylvania today, Western PA Speedweek for 410 sprint cars is scheduled to get underway at Michael's Mercer Raceway. There is some weather in the area, so stay tuned for updates. All five races this week are $3000 to win and $300 to start and Ryan Smith is the defending Speedweek champion from one year ago. Following tonight, they will make stops at Pittsburgh's Pennsylvania Motor Speedway, Lernerville, Sharon, and close out at Tri City Raceway Park. Smith should be back to defend his title, and other drivers we could see include Sye Lynch, Josh Baughman, Carl Bowser, AJ Flick, Jack Sodeman, Brent and Brandon Matus, Anthony Fiore, and Bradley Howard among others. Tonight's show will be streamed by Dirt Track Digest, with the next two being put on by Lernerville. I'm not sure about the rest of the weekend, but I'll have them on the daily streaming schedule if they are available.

Up at Huset's Speedway in South Dakota, Tod Quiring and his team have been working non-stop since early Monday morning to get the track back in shape following that severe storm that damaged the facility. They lost their Memorial Day program, but they do plan on being open for this weekend's World of Outlaws sprint car sto p. They had damage to the scoring tower and suites, looks like some light poles down, among other problems. But work has been ongoing to get things cleaned up and repaired, and it looks like they've made pretty incredible progress in just a few days. The Outlaws are at River Cities on Friday night before heading to Huset's on Sunday.

I had a question on Twitter yesterday from Joe about Lucas late model highlights appearing over on FloRacing lately. He was curious about the change and wanted to know if this was some sort of conflict of interest between MAV and Flo, or if this could lead to more business dealings in the future, including a possible sale of MAV to Flo. First, I wouldn't expect any sort of sale in the near future. Don't forget that MAV and MAVTV Plus are owned by Lucas Oil, with the Lucas family also owning the late model series. They seem pretty content to be vertically integrated in this area. Kind of like World Racing Group and DIRTVision. It would take a pretty monumental offer to get either company to part with their broadcast arms. What I'll say about the highlights though, is don't forget Michael Rigsby and Dirt on Dirt in all of this. DoD has had Lucas highlights as part of their offerings for years, and with Flo now owning DoD, I'm sure a deal was made to keep those highlights coming and share them across both platforms. I know it might sound a little backwards, but I think it's actually a smart move for Lucas and MAV to do this. It exposes the Flo audience to their product, and I wouldn't be surprised if it led to subscriptions on the MAV side. I think it makes a lot of sense to offer free highlight packages, either on YouTube or elsewhere, and create that freemium situation. Here are some highlights, but if you want more, go here to subscribe. This is an idea that gets used a lot on apps and around the internet. Give a little, and then offer more for a fee. I even do this with the analytics at dirtrackr.com. So hopefully that answers Joe's question. If you have questions you'd like me to try and answer, don't hesitate to shoot me a DM or email.

If you're looking for other dirt racing audio this week, Passing Points has Terry Mattox, Quicktime has Frank Galusha, Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks has Bud Kaeding, and there is a new episode of the Dirt Reporters. I made a couple of additions to the podcasts page as well yesterday, with three podcasts from XR now included. They have a Scott Bloomquist show called Team Zero, there is the XR Super Series podcast, and they have a show called All Gas, No Brakes. Recent episodes of each and links to everything are included now at dirtrackr.com/podcasts and will be going forward.

The streaming schedule has five shows today and looks like this... DIRTVision has weekly micros from Millbridge, FloRacing has weekly racing from Action Track USA, and Flo 24/7. Dirt Track Digest has the opening night of Western PA Speedweek, and Speed Sport has IMCA action from Buena Vista. 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!