DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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David Gravel stumbles, Kasey Kahne has his first World of Outlaws podium | Daily 6-23-2022
Coming up, David Gravel stumbles and Kasey Kahne has his first podium, plus what the hell is happening with MAVTV Plus, and more. Let's go!
Today is Thursday, June 23rd, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
I've got a bunch of stuff for you today, and we'll start with the World of Outlaws at Huset's. Spencer Bayston picked up his second win of the season and fourth of his career after leading just the final five laps of the feature. It was a pretty good way to start the new partnership with title sponsor TrueTimber, who joined the team just this week. There is a lot to unpack from last night though outside of the Bayston win. We had Kasey Kahne starting on the pole, he led the most laps at 23, but settled for third at the end. It was his first career podium with the Outlaws, first top five of the season, and just third top ten result. Huset's isn't an easy track to pass on, and Kahne took full advantage of a good qualifying spot to earn a dash appearance, and pulling that one in the dash draw turned into a podium finish. We also had David Gravel crashing out of the lead on lap 19 and ending up 20th after that car couldn't get out of the work area. Gravel crashed past half way, so they were not guaranteed any time to get the car fixed, and there was just too much damage to overcome. Gravel has fallen into a tie with Logan Schuchart for fourth in the Outlaw standings, they are both 74 points behind Sweet. Gravel started fourth, and was by Kahne for the top spot on lap 17. But the two car tried to thread the needle on the frontstretch to get by a lap car on the highside, and Gravel caught the outside wall. It looked like the contact maybe broke the right front, and from there he was just a passenger. Before last night, it had been 18 races since Gravel won an Outlaw show and I wonder if maybe we didn't see a bit of desperation from him in that moment. It was a move he didn't necessarily need to make, and he was clearly faster than the nine car. So the hole in the championship gets bigger for the Big Game team, and the pressure will only grow through the weekend at the track owned by his car owner. A couple of other notes. There was no Kraig Kinser last night, and there won't be for the rest of the weekend either as he continues to recover from a concussion. Also, last night was Donny Schatz's first quick time of any type of 2022. He wasn't overall fast time for the night, but was quickest in his group. His time trial average for the season so far is his worst of the six years of Outlaw results I have in the dirtrackr.com analytics database. So headed into three more nights of racing at Huset's, Brad Sweet's championship lead is now down to 42 over Carson Macedo, with Sheldon Haudenschild just another four points back in third. Gravel and Schuchart follow, with everyone from Schatz in sixth on back well more than 100 points behind. Last night's racing was full points, and tonight and tomorrow will be normal full point nights as well. Saturday will be show up points only. Thanks to the Outlaws' Anthony Corini for that info. Tonight's opener for the High Bank Nationals will again be live on DIRTVision. The prediction formula has shifted to favoring Schatz for tonight, I'm going Macedo after what I saw on Wednesday.
Now, looking at some Outlaw dash stats. On the Chase Raudman conversations episode from Tuesday, Red Road commented about David Gravel and his dash starts, mentioning that Gravel had been a bit down about his poor draws recently. I went into the database to see what Gravel's dash starts have looked like for the year, and am actually a bit surprised. He leads the series in dash appearances with 20, but of the top five in points, he's actually pretty in line with everyone on average dash start. His average start is 4.3, Sweet's is 5.1, Macedo is 4.4, Sheldon is 3.2, and Schuchart is 4 even. In the month of May, Gravel did have four straight dashes where he started seventh or eighth, but in the four appearances since, has started 4th, 2nd, 2nd, and 6th. In those 20 dashes though, he's only won twice, both at Volusia back in February. And he's finished seventh seven times, all consecutively from May 11th at Lincoln, through June 11th at Knoxville. Three of those seventh place finishes came after starts of 2nd, 2nd, and 4th. He does continue to lead the series full timers in average time trial position, heat race wins, and heat race average finish. So he's still good early in the night, but things aren't going super great once the dashes and features go green. As evidence of that, he's actually negative in feature plus/minus for the season at -14. Obviously last night's 4th to 20th performance hurt that pretty dramatically. But when you start trying to figure out where that team has gone wrong lately, there is your answer.
Elsewhere tonight we have the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series opening the Firecracker 100 weekend at Lernerville, the POWRi midgets continue Illinois Speedweek at Fayette County, the Summer Nationals move over to Spoon River, and Dirt Cup starts at Skagit.
This MAVTV Plus situation continues to confuse me. I completely whiffed on the POWRi shows from Charleston yesterday because the website hadn't changed, but then after I recorded, the site was back in it's full form. Cannon McIntosh won the midget show last night, with Zach Daum taking the WAR feature win. But last night, as broadcasts were beginning to start, MAVTV Plus went free again with the simplified front page and stayed that way until this morning, and now it's back to the full site again. I also noticed yesterday that the MAVTV Plus Twitter account has been deleted. This whole situation continues to be super weird, and we aren't seemingly any closer to a resolution. Tonight's Lucas show and the POWRi stuff is on the streaming schedule at dirtrackr.com. What happens going forward, I haven't a clue.
This weekend at Lernerville will be the first time the Firecracker 100 is Lucas sanctioned and not Outlaw sanctioned. Remember that this event was created by World Racing Group when they owned Lernerville, so this is a nice thumb in the eye for WRG by Lucas taking this over. Brandon Sheppard leads Tim McCreadie, Tyler Erb, Ricky Thornton Jr., and Earl Pearson Jr. right now in the standings. Brandon Overton, Cade Dillard, and Tim McCreadie are the previous three Firecracker 100 winners. This weekend isn't on Overton's schedule on his website, but it seems like some still think he will be there. He, Sheppard, and McCreadie all have good average finishes there, as does local Mike Norris. The prediction formula likes Jonathan Davenport tonight, but I'll go TMac.
In Summer Nationals action last night at Adams County, Bobby Pierce picked up win number three over Shannon Babb and Max Blair. Nick Hoffman handled the modified field yet again. Pierce now leads Unzicker by 43 points in the late model standings, with Brian Shirley, Jason Feger, and Logan Martin completing the top five. Hoffman continues to grow the points lead on the Modified Nationals side. Both divisions are headed for Spoon River this evening.
Out at Skagit in Washington, Dirt Cup 50 starts tonight, and the weekend is back to being a 410 sprint car event, with the winner bagging $50,000 on Saturday. The Monday field of 35 should grow probably into the 40s for the weekend, the list of entrants includes the west coast's best, plus a few national names. If the track is anything like it was on Monday, don't miss these races. You can watch live on Flo.
Before we close out today, I wanted to talk about Ryan Timms and Kyle Hammer. Hammer is currently in the midst of his first full season out full time with the World of Outlaws late models, but is apparently off the tour, giving up his sixth position in the standings. He tweeted yesterday quote "After a rough weekend this past weekend, my Father and I are not seeing eye to eye. It has been decided to put racing behind us and move on with our lives. I’m sorry to all of my fans friends and sponsors that have invested into us. This is a tough post to make being this was such a big part of my life and my dream. But I made some mistakes and have to live with the consequences. I will be back on track somehow someway. Just not now" unquote. So from full time Outlaw competitor to completely out of racing it appears. Kyle's father Don has put what appears to be quite a bit of late model stuff for sale in recent days. Hopefully the two can work things out, regardless of whether Hammer goes back racing again.
As for Ryan Timms, after sweeping Huset's and Jackson last week, he posted a photo on Twitter in front of a World of Outlaws trailer with caption "They don't want the smoke." If you aren't aware, Timms is still 15 years old, and won't be old enough to run with the Outlaws until later this season. So no Huset's this weekend, even after his success last weekend. As Chase Raudman mentioned on Tuesday, the Outlaw insurance is what holds someone like Timms back from competing before 16. As talented as Timms appears to be, I have no issue with this rule. There has to be a line somewhere, and Timms will have plenty of future opportunities to get his head kicked in by the best in the business.
It's a busier than usual streaming schedule for today. DIRTVision has the Summer Nationals and High Bank Nationals, FloRacing has the first night of the Dirt Cup and Flo 24/7, MAVTV Plus has POWRi Illinois Speed Week from Fayette County and the Lucas late models at Lernerville, and there is a bunch of local and regional shows across Dirt Track Digest and Speed Sport. To see the full list of shows and episodes, head over to 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!