DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Why are dirty midget sliders okay for some, but not others? Jonathan Davenport bags $50,000 | Daily 6-6-2022
Why are dirty midget sliders okay for some and not others. We'll discuss that today, plus big money for Jonathan Davenport, drama with the All Stars, and more. Let's go!
Today is Monday, June 6th, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
I'm going to start today off with Indiana Midget Week, and I'm going to do so because of the chatter following last night's show at Haubstadt. I know that will probably turn some of you off, because non-wing talk is never good for my video views, but oh well. We have the first three nights of Midget Week complete, which included two Buddy Kofoid wins and Thomas Meseraull victory last night. In the year long points, Kofoid has stretched away quickly from Justin Grant and now leads by 52 points. In the midget week standings, Kofoid leads JG by 42. Through the first two nights, Friday at Bloomington and Saturday at Lawrenceburg, Kofoid was in top form. He battled on Friday with Chance Crum in lap traffic before getting away late thanks to a well timed restart. It was a fun battle between the leaders though in traffic before that caution. On Saturday at the Burg, Kofoid started sixth, but was leading by lap three and was basically gone from there. It was his fourth straight USAC midget victory. Hat tip to the Keith Kunz Motorsports guys for getting Kaylee Bryson back into the race after that very early flip. That car needed quite a bit of work, and they did a hell of a job to get her rolling again. Now, on to last night at Haubstadt. The murmurs about the racing started with the night's B-main, and Chris Baue was one of the biggest offenders early on. He definitely had some questionable moves and decisions, with the last coming on the final lap. He was locked in a battle for the transfer with Jace Park and Logan Seavey, and into turn three coming to the checkered, Seavey got wiped out and Baue took the final feature spot. Not a good look, but I've certainly seen far worse moves from much more higher profile drivers. Which leads me to the night's feature. TMez started second and was quickly by polesitter Taylor Reimer at the start. He officially led all 30 laps to score his first series win of the season. A few times though, he and Kofoid traded sliders and questionable moves, with neither any worse for the wear. Things went downhill though for Buddy inside five to go. He was under fire from Justin Grant for second and tried a crossover move down the backstretch that turned into contact and JG tipped over. He said afterwards that he didn't think JG was going low, and that it wasn't on purpose. I think that's fair, but it wasn't a great decision in the moment, and JG wasn't happy. His NOS Energy Drink two car got back on four wheels and rolling again, and he made sure to share his feelings with Kofoid under that caution period. TMez drove off to the win, Buddy ended up second. Afterwards, we got typical TMez in his victory lane interview, the usual slide or die stuff, and for some reason it always seems to work on the crowds. On the flip side, Kofoid got booed during his interview and he even took the time to address the crowd in his comments. I don't think we've seen spicy Kofoid before. So the night turned into the usual comments about the quote "kids" and midget racing being broken, and all the usual stuff you hear on a night like this. From my perspective though, I don't understand why some guys get a pass for bad moves, and others don't. It's not okay when a young driver makes a bad slider, but it's cool when Grant or Meseraull or other veteran guys do. The "kids" need their asses kicked, but the veterans are just doing what they need to do and hey, that's racing with midgets. It's a strange situation, and I don't understand the hypocrisy and different set of rules. I feel though that midget racing is unique in the place it currently finds itself, and you don't find this elsewhere in motorsports. You've got young, inexperienced drivers who can get in top rides and go fast quickly. You've also got talented veterans in the mix who must find their way through the moving chicanes at times. It creates this slide or die mentality that is probably not good for anyone. The young drivers are trying to make names for themselves, and the veterans don't feel like they get respect, so it just turns into everyone dirtying each other all the time. It makes for great viewing and drama at times for us race fans, and I think the rest of Midget Week could be pretty epic. But none of it is really necessary. We've watched Donny Schatz win 10 Outlaw championships and do it cleaner than maybe any driver ever. JG and TMez can't sit here and bemoan the way they get raced, when they are the veterans setting the example. Unfortunately for those paying for all this equipment, I don't feel like any of this is going to change any time soon. Hopefully a couple of days off here will let some of these drivers cool down a bit. Indiana Midget Week continues on Wednesday at Circle City.
If you wanted high paying racing this weekend, the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series had that, with $50,000 to win on Saturday at West Virginia Motor Speedway. On Friday night in the appetizer, Devin Moran won a non-stop feature over Jonathan Davenport and bagged $15 grand for doing so. It was his fourth Lucas win of 2022. Moran led early from the pole, but Davenport slipped by on lap nine and drove away. Later though, lap traffic allowed Moran to close back up on the 49 and eventually take back the top spot. On Saturday night, Davenport made sure though that nobody could catch him. He started on the pole and led all 50 laps, bagging the $50 grand and his first Lucas win of the season. It's weird to say that actually, with all the winning that Davenport has done in 2022. While Moran and Davenport were winning, it was a nice weekend for Gregg Satterlee who had finishes of third and fourth. It's also been a nice stretch for Ricky Thornton Jr., who has six straight top seven finishes. In the battle for the Lucas championship, Brandon Sheppard maintains the points lead, but he did give up ground to both Erb and McCreadie thanks to a 14th place result on Saturday night. McCreadie is currently 80 points back in second, with Erb another 30 back in third. The Lucas late models are back on June 16th at Cherokee Speedway. I did feel like the car counts seemed a little light both nights. 31 Friday and 32 Saturday, with one feature $1000 to start and the other $2000 to start. I know we are headed into Eldora Million week, but I thought we would have more cars than that.
On the flip side of the national late model picture, the Outlaws had one race, Friday night at Tri-City Speedway. Bobby Pierce led all 40 laps from the pole to earn his fourth career Outlaw win. Kyle Brnson and Ryan Gustin joined him on the podium, with Kyle Larson down in sixth. Chase Briscoe missed a feature transfer by one in the night's first B-Main. It looked like they had a really good crowd there, and it was a solid motorsports weekend in the St. Louis area with NASCAR in town. Josh Richards was absent as he continues to recover from those injuries suffered at Eldora. Chub Frank drove the other Boom Briggs owned car. The standings did tighten up just a bit with Max Blair finishing 8th and Dennis Erb Jr. down in 12th. The gap is now 98 as the series takes a few weeks off before returning to Pevely on June 24th.
In weekend sprint car action, we had both big series racing, with the Outlaws up north and the All Stars in Ohio. The Outlaws were supposed to race twice, but the Sunday show at Huset's ended up getting rained out, which was brutal after all the work the track put in to get things cleaned up after the damage they suffered the week before. The race night isn't cancelled though, and will be added to the High Bank Nationals weekend at Huset's later this month. Friday night at River Cities, Carson Macedo survived a bit of a rought track and an early challenge from Logan Schuchart to pick up his fifth win of 2022. He's now tied with Sheldon Haudenschild for the most this year. Schuchart ended up 6th after getting caught out by the rough conditions and tipping over. A trip to the work area and some nice driving later salvaged a nice top ten. In the race for the championship, we've had one change in the top five, with David Gravel back to second after Haudenschild went backwards in the feature and finished 13th. Sweet leads Gravel by 52, with Sheldon third, Macedo fourth, and Schuchart fifth. Still only 88 points separate the top five. Big shoutout to rookie driver Noah Gass for his run on Friday night. He hard charged from 17th to 10th, which is his best Outlaw finish to date and his first ever series top ten. It has not been easy for that group this year, as we figured it probably wouldn't be, but Friday night's performance was definitely a bright spot. The Outlaws are at Knoxville this weekend for two nights.
In Ohio, the All Stars had two shows, Friday at Attica and Saturday at Atomic. On Friday, after a very spirited battle through the midpoint with Cory Eliason, Zeb Wise got away late in clean air for his first win of 2022. It was his third career series win, and first since Attica back in September of last year. It was a tough night for Parker Price Miller, who had issues multiple times and ended up 16th. PPM had more trouble on Saturday at Atomic after leading a bunch of laps. He was one of many victims of popped right rear tires. Another 16th place result has pushed him down to fourth in the standings, and he trails Tyler Courtney now by 92. Not the weekend that McGhee team was looking for. That Saturday race was pretty wild, and we ended up with three different lap leaders, and two Ohio regulars battling it out for the win. Cole Duncan eventually came out on top after getting by Travis Philo on the final lap and beating him back to the line. The track went pretty weird at the end and started eating tires. It didn't appear to be a typical rubber down surface, but that didn't stop it from consuming tires for PPM, Chris Windom, Dylan Westbrook, Justin Peck, and a bunch of others. Shout out to Danny Smith for picking up a top five result. Leaving the weekend with Ohio Sprint Speedweek coming up, Sunshine leads Peck by 64, with Hunter Schuereberg, PPM and Cap Henry completing the top five. The series is right back at Attica on Friday night.
In the win picks department, not a bad weekend for both me and the prediction formula. I had four correct, with both Kofoid wins, Davenport on Saturday, and Cole Duncan at Atomic. The formula had both Kofoid wins as well. The formula is 13 for 96 this year, sitting at 13.5% percent. I'm 24 for 96, which is exactly 25%.
Other weekend late model winners included Eli Beets in Iron-Man action at Ponderosa, Jake Timm was a Dirt Kings winner at Mississippi Thunder, Dustin Linville topped the Southern All Stars at Richmond, Colton Flinner was a weekly winner at Port Royal, and Trever Feathers won Sunday at Hagerstown.
In other weekend open wheel action, AJ Flick won all three Western PA Speedweek races and the mini series championship. Lynton Jeffrey and Aaron Reutzel split 410 wins at Knoxville on Saturday night. Danny Dietrich bagged the Steve Smith Tribute Race and $19,000 at Lincoln, Derek Hagar and Wayne Johnson picked up weekend ASCS regional victories, and Jake Neuman won the MOWA race Friday night at Tri-City that also included Alex Bowman and Chase Briscoe.
There are two shows on the streaming schedule today. Speed Sport has IMCA racing from the Clay County Fair Speedway 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 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!