DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Funeral home owner buys dirt track, Kyle Larson back in a midget | Daily 6-2-2022

USAC's Indiana Midget Week sort of starts tonight and will include names like Kyle Larson, plus thoughts on Jason Sides and Kraig Kinser, and an interesting story about the purchase of Randolph County Raceway. Let's go!

Today is Thursday, June 2nd, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.

Indiana Midget Week doesn't technically start until tomorrow at Bloomington, but the USAC National Midgets kick off eight races in 10 nights starting tonight at Tri-City Speedway. Tri-City doesn't count towards Midget Week though, because it's actually in Illinois. We haven't had a midget race on dirt since Buddy Kofoid won at Port City way back on April 23rd. We did have a pavement race last Friday night at IRP, which was part of the Indy 500 festivities and was a non-points event. Bobby Santos started 10th and picked up the win. But things get back rolling again for real tonight at Tri-City, and with only four races completed on the season, we should see the championship standings move around a lot. Justin Grant enters tonight with a five point lead over Kofoid, with Mitchel Moles, Bryant Wiedeman, and Cannon McIntosh completing the top five. JG currently leads both the midget and sprint car standings, and is third in the Silver Crown points. The USAC midgets haven't appeared at Tri-City since 2019 when Tyler Courtney went to victory lane. Before that, they had five race nights in 2015 and 2016, all of which were won by Tanner Thorson. And speaking of Thorson, we haven't heard much from him since he announced his departure from Reinbold Underwood a few weeks ago. But he will supposedly be racing tonight, I just don't know who for. He's the winningest USAC midget driver going back through the 2020 season, so he could easily be a factor tonight. Besides the midget regulars, we know Kyle Larson will make his season debut tonight in a Chad Boat owned car. He ran last week at Millbridge with the Xtreme Series in that ride. Larson last won a national midget race at Placerville in November of 2021, but that was in his own car with Paul Silva. We'll also see names like Zach Daum, Steve Buckwalter, Jason McDougal, Joe B. Miller, Ryan Timms, Chance Crum and more. The dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula likes Buddy Kofoid tonight, and that's not a bad pick. Him and JG are the only two drivers to win a points paying feature this season, and they have both finished in the top five in every race. I thought about picking Grant, but I'm going to be different tonight and go with someone else to break the Kofoid, Grant stranglehold. I like Mitchel Moles here. Four straight top tens, was second last time out at Port City, and had good runs recently in the Reinbold Underwood sprint car at Terre Haute. He's running a Boat car all season, and I think is a sneaky pick for some wins. With Tri-City losing the Wednesday night show for the FloRacing Night in America Series, the track has added DIRTcar late models to tonight's program for $5000 to win. This will be in addition to the World of Outlaws night tomorrow, so there should be some decent names in that field I'd imagine. This show will be available over on Flo. We'll dive into Indiana Midget Week on tomorrow's show.

As expected, last night's Western PA Speedweek show at Mercer was rained out. They will try again tonight at Pittsburgh's Pennsylvania Motor Speedway. If you want to keep up with what's happening with these events for 410 sprint cars, head over to westernpaspeedweek.com.

And the USMTS modifieds were supposed to be in action all weekend between Dallas County, Lakeside, and I-70, but heavy rains have forced officials to postpone all three nights until later in the summer. The three races will now take place August 11th through the 13th. For more on the schedule changes, head over to usmts.com.

I got asked yesterday in the YouTube comments from Rick about the sale of Randolph County Raceway in Missouri to late model driver Reid Millard. Earlier this week, Millard made the purchase of the track official from previous owners David and Janelle Claypoole. The track sits north of Columbia, Missouri between Kansas City and St. Louis, and has hosted all sorts of events in the past including the Summer Nationals. I saw this story somewhere earlier in the week, and I've seen Millard's name before, so you just think hey, late model guy buying race track. Good deal. But I love this story after digging in a bit. Millard is a funeral home owner in Missouri, and makes fairly regular appearances as a driver with the national late model tours. He's got 21 Lucas starts since 2020, and 10 Outlaw appearances over the same stretch. His best finish was a 15th at Wheatland with Lucas back in July of last year. He's previously promoted races at several tracks, including the Weiner Nationals at Randolph County, where he brought in the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile as the pace car, had food trucks, drag queens, and a hot dog eating contest along with super late models. He's doing that event again this season, and it's a $10,000 to win race for the MLRA series. Millard is planning a special event schedule at the track which includes dirt racing events plus things like demo derbies and monster trucks. He's hired Kevin Gundaker to run the facility for him, and get this, according to Dirt on Dirt, he's turning the track into a non-profit with any proceeds going back into the racing plus charities and scholarships. Gundaker owns Tri-City and is a knowledgeable hire to run the facility for him. I don't know about you, but I wasn't expecting to talk about a funeral home owner buying a dirt track to bring in the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile and drag queens on today's show.

One more question from yesterday came from Jim, and he asked about Jason Sides and Kraig Kinser. He mentioned that they both won earlier in the careers, but struggle now with their own teams and what that means for their legacies. He mentioned that they could probably win if they ran regionally or locally more often. And yes, I agree that is probably the case, but these guys race for a living, and there aren't many places around the country where you can do that with a 410 sprint car. They have both struggled for good finishes in recent years, but even with the lack of performance, they are able to make it work as professional teams thanks to tow money and small crews. With Kraig for example, it's basically just him and Mikey Kuemper most of the time. I don't doubt that with more funding, someone like Kraig could probably run much better, but that would mean sponsorship, and I think it's difficult to be out pounding the pavement for sponsors when you're the driver and running the team on a nightly basis. As for their legacies, I don't really know what it means or how people will view their careers. Kraig is a Nationals champion, and did get a chance to try NASCAR. And Sides owns 15 Outlaw victories in his career. Those are things you can't take away from these guys. And as much as it may suck to watch them struggle at times, they are getting to make a living going up and down the road with the World of Outlaws. Not many drivers and teams can say they are able to do that, especially for as long as these guys have been making it work. I'd be curious what you think of this situation with Sides and Kinser. How do you view them as drivers and their careers? Leave me a comment below.

There are nine shows on today's streaming schedule. FloRacing has the USAC National Midgets from Tri-City and Flo 24/7. Sprint Car Unlimited has 410 sprint cars from BAPS, and there are five races on Speed Sport, including the Western PA Speedweek opener. 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 Thursday. 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!