DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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More World of Outlaws work area drama | Daily 7-4-2022
Coming up we are talking a wild Outlaw weekend at Cedar Lake, a big win for Brandon Sheppard, domination from Brent Marks, and weekend winners. Let's go!
Today is Monday, July 4th, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Before we get going, I wanted to say thank you for our first million YouTube views. We crossed over late last week which is really incredible. The next goal is 10,000 YouTube subscribers by year's end. I think we can get it done. If you guys keep watching and listening, we'll keep rolling along with these shows.
There may not have been a set of races over the weekend with more drama than the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars at Cedar Lake, so we'll start there. First right off the top, Jacob Allen and Brock Zearfoss were your two winners. I doubt anyone had an Allen/Zearfoss weekend anywhere on their 2022 Outlaw bingo card. Allen's win was his third of the year, which means only Carson Macedo and Sheldon Haudenschild have more than he does. Jacob won't contend for the championship, but is clearly capable of winning more this season. As for Zearfoss, this was his first Outlaw victory since winning at the Grove way back in 2017, before he was a series regular. The Pennsylvania driver is good for a top ten periodically, but only has scattered top fives over the past six seasons. With just eight top fives in his past 177 races, Zearfoss is only getting top fives once every 22 races or so, so this win was definitely a surprise. For a team that has struggled as much as those guys have, Saturday's win will be a nice shot in the arm for them. I also wanted to point out that Donny Schatz leading laps on Friday was the first time we've seen the ten time champion out front in a race since he won the opener at Volusia. It was a span of 32 races. In the points standings, even without a win, Brad Sweet was able to extend his advantage thanks to finishes of second and third while his rivals had issues. David Gravel, Logan Schuchart, and Haudenschild all managed two top tens each, but they had to battle for them, with all three taking trips to the work area during the weekend. The biggest loser was Carson Macedo. He led laps Friday before settling for fifth. And then Saturday was caught up in a crash and could not return to the race track because of pretty gnarly frame damage. I know if you were watching on DIRTVision you heard someone bring up the 49 after Macedo's team was told they couldn't go back out, but I don't care what the perception is with officials and people thinking they favor Sweet. In no way was it safe for the 41 to return to the race with breaks in the frame on both sides of the car. Whoever said that in the work area was just flat wrong. This sport is dangerous enough as it is without sending guys onto the track with destroyed frames. Completely irresponsible comments. And I know you guys are going to want whatever information I can provide about the incident involving the official and a TSR crew member in the work area from Saturday night. But to be honest, I didn't reach out to anyone to find out any further details than what was evident on DIRTVision. I'm not going to get involved in rumors and gossip about this stuff. If you want that, find your way to the forums and Facebook groups. Things were very clearly said that set the official off and he chose the wrong moment and the wrong way to address it. Obviously you shouldn't be putting hands on anyone, but this definitely felt like something that has history beyond just what we saw on DIRTVision. The series mentioned they are investigating the incident and I'm sure we'll get some sort of statement in the future, but don't expect a full rundown on details to be made public. This wild Outlaw season continues Friday at 34 Raceway in Iowa.
We've talked a bunch lately about Tim McCreadie starting to run down Brandon Sheppard with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series, and Sheppy must have been feeling the pressure, because that Rocket team turned up the wick over the last few races. Sheppard was a prelim feature winner on Saturday at Muskingum County and followed that up with a dominating win on Sunday, earning over $30,000 for the victory. Over the last five nights, including the Firecracker 100 finale, Sheppard has finishes of 4th, 5th, 6th, 1st, and 1st. Leaving the weekend, the gap back to TMac is now 55, and we've got ourselves a battle headed to Davenport and Deer Creek this week. Ricky Thornton Jr. is also trying to claw his way into the fight, and has made up ground on the top two. A win on Friday night at Portsmouth was just what that 20RT team needed, and even though they had a flat on Sunday after sitting on the pole, they still managed a top ten result. On the Outlaw side, it definitely feels like Dennis Erb Jr. is running away with that championship, but I like how this summer is shaping up with Lucas. Sheppard vs. McCreadie is a great battle, and it could get really interesting if RTJ can stay hot. The Lucas season continues Wednesday.
I want to hit on a bunch of other things from the weekend, but before I do, I just wanted to say a quick thanks to YouTube commenter Jim for the Super Thanks on my Friday show. Appreciate you tuning in and the cash my friend.
As expected, Brent Marks wrapped up the Pennsylvania Speedweek title over the weekend. He won Friday at the Grove and Saturday at Port Royal, before finishing second to Danny Dietrich in the finale on Sunday at Selinsgrove. Marks Speedweek results look like this: 2nd, 3rd, 1st, 3rd, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd. That's an insane run of really good races. Add to this three Outlaw wins on the year, plus two All Star victories, and 2022 is already shaping up to maybe be one of the best to date for Marks. Some are already starting to wonder about possible crown jewel wins for Marks like Knoxville and the Kings Royal. He's got wins in his career at both tracks. Anthony Macri was notably missing on Sunday at Selinsgrove after contending all week. He tweeted they were going to miss the finale due to quote "personal reasons" but that they would be back next weekend. Hope everything is good for Macri and his group.
With USAC, we had wins at Lincoln Park for CJ Leary and Justin Grant. Through 16 races, we've had six different winners with the sprint cars, with Brady Bacon leading the way at four. Unfortunately for him though, he lost ground in the standings with Grant winning on Saturday. With big money on the line this week at Huset's for the USAC Nationals, Grant is now 46 points ahead of Bacon, with Robert Ballou, Logan Seavey, and Emerson Axsom completing the top five.
Weekend Summer Nationals winners included Bobby Pierce, Brian Shirley, and Jason Feger. On the modified side, Trent Young won Friday, Lucas Lee on Saturday, and Nick Hoffman won Sunday from 20th. There wasn't much change in the standings, with Pierce still leading Shirley on the late model side and Hoffman maintaining that big gap back to Kyle Steffens.
We did though have a change atop the championship standings with the ASCS National Tour. Wayne Johnson entered the weeked as the points leader, but leaves in second behind defending champion Blake Hahn. Between Boone County and WaKeeney, Hahn went 3rd, 2nd, 2nd, while Johnson went 6th, 9th, and 24th. Johnson's Sunday at WaKeeney went bad early on the in the feature when went for a big ride in turn three. He was okay, but he's now in 41 point hole to Hahn. Weekend ASCS winners included Matt Covington, Jake Bubak, and Zach Blurton getting his first career series victory.
Other open wheel winners included Aaron Reutzel at Knoxville, Corey Day in Sprint Car Challenge Tour action at Stockton, and Nate Dussel in the Hampshire Classic at Waynesfield. Other weekend late model winners included Donald McIntosh with the Iron-Man Series at Boyd's, Dennis Erb Jr. with the MLRA at 34 Raceway, and Dona Marcoullier grabbed $10k at Merritt. And Sunday night Fonda, Stewart Friesen bagged the $10,000 Firecracker 50 with the Short Track Super Series north region.
Before we close out today, a couple of quick news items for you. First, the Super DIRTcar Series race scheduled for July 13th at the Bloomsburg Fair Raceway has been cancelled because series and track officials don't believe the new clay on the track surface will be ready in time. And the upcoming July 9th NARC race at Petaluma has been lost due to the ongoing tire shortages.
There are six shows on the streaming schedule today. FloRacing has the Southern All Stars late models, plus racing from Silver Dollar and Placerville. And Speed Sport has action from Nodak and Cottage Grove. 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!