DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Crew changes didn't slow Anthony Macri down, Brandon Overton breaks through for $50k | Daily 7-11-2022
Coming up, someone lit a fire under Anthony Macri's ass, Carson Macedo bounces back, Brandon Overton has his first big paycheck, and more. Let's go!
Today is Monday, July 11th, two thousand and twenty two. This is DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
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I'm going to start today with Anthony Macri and his two weekend victories, one at Williams Grove and one at Lincoln Speedway. I had a few folks comment about the wins after the changes that came to the Macri team late last week and I wanted to discuss right off the top. When we talked about the moves on the Friday Daily, I mentioned this could be a massive hit for the 39 team, as they've been really good this year. It can certainly be a hit to lose not only your crew chief, but also a second member of your crew, but Macri went out this weekend motivated, and wanted to show people it wasn't all about the Shuttlesworths. And good for him. I think a couple of commenters were almost trying to come at me for saying this could be a hit for that team, but I didn't say it was a guarantee, I just said it could happen. I have no dog in this fight. There are probably dozens of examples of guys losing crew chiefs over the years and then going completely sideways afterwards, so this wasn't a big stretch to think that. I do want to point out a few things though. Macri did have Bernie Stuebgen with him, who isn't some slap off the street. Bernie has won, and won in Pennsylvania, with other drivers. Also, Macri was running Lincoln and the Grove, not Placerville and Chico. These are two tracks I'd hope he has a good package for, even without his usual guys. I do think with some of the heat he's taken, that the Concrete Kid will continue to be motivated to show his talent and ability, and that's good. Sometimes you just need a little kick in the ass, and he's gotten that. The Bernie thing is probably not a long term fix for the 39, so we'll have to see what plays out there.
Sticking with sprint cars, the World of Outlaws only got one of two shows in over the weekend because of the Friday rainout at 34 Raceway. On Saturday night at Wilmot, Donny Schatz led the first two laps, before Carson Macedo took over for good. It was Macedo's seventh win of 2022, and it was a big time bounceback from the crash the week before at Cedar Lake that left him with a 22nd place result. James McFadden finished second, with Schatz also on the podium. Donny has now led laps in consecutive weeks after not having been out front since the win at Volusia in February. That TSR team though is still way off even from last season's pace and they continue to be a non-factor in the championship fight. The second place finish for JMac was his third such finish in his past six starts. He's still winless in the Roth 83, but it feels like that could change very soon with the speed they've had lately. In the Outlaw title fight, not a whole lot of change at the top with four of the top five guys finishing in the top six in the race. Logan Schuchart lost ground with a 14th place finish, so he's back to 92 points behind Sweet. The Big Cat leads Sheldon Haudenschild by 42, Macedo by 48, and Gravel by 60. Benny asked in the comments about where the points would be right now if Macedo hadn't gotten the DQ at Williams Grove for being light at the scales, so here you go. Macedo crossed the line on May 14th in second, which is worth 146 points. After the DQ, he was credited with 26th, which ultimately gave him 102 points. So a 44 point difference. If he had those back, he'd only be trailing Sweet right now by 4 points headed into this big money week in Ohio. Looking ahead, the Brad Doty Classic at Attica is tomorrow night, July 12th. We then go to Eldora Wednesday for the Jokers Wild, followed by the Historical Big 1 which will pay $100 grand to win, Friday is the Knight Before, and Saturday is the Kings Royal. So plenty of sprint car racing and cash coming up. Before we move on, hat tip to Matt Vandervere. According to the Outlaws, the 35 year old driver has been battling cancer and is awaiting a heart transplant. He wanted to race one more time, so he rolled to Wilmot on Saturday, put his 10V in the show and finished 18th. Good luck to him going forward with his health.
We did a show last week about the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series championship battle, and over the weekend at Deer Creek we had a change at the top. Tim McCreadie's third place finish on Saturday night was good enough for him to jump over Brandon Sheppard into the series points lead, with Sheppy now 50 back. Ricky Thornton Jr. also gained ground and his 185 out in third. Things on the weekend went sideways for Sheppard and the Rocket team on Friday night, when they got collected in a crash with Kyle Bronson and ended up 23rd. They repaired the car for Saturday night, but things still weren't right and they ended up 20th after starting fifth. That 20th place finish is what has set them back, and now the team is back in West Virginia getting things put back together. They had originally planned on going to the XR races at Stuart tonight and tomorrow, but instead went home to build a new car so they can be ready for I-70 on Thursday. It was a tough break for that team, but it shows how tight that championship race is right now and how quickly things can turn around. McCreadie and these Lucas guys were not just going to roll over for the Rocket house car, and I'm pumped to see this thing continue through the summer. In the big show on Saturday night, Brandon Overton finally broke through for his first big money win of the season, leading 58 of the 75 laps and bagging the $50,000. It was Big Sexy's first Lucas win since he went back to back at Golden Isles way back in January. He'd been trending in the right direction though, with five straight finishes of sixth or better entering Saturday night. Chris Madden ended up second after a late caution thwarted his bid for the win. He had been challenging Overton in lap traffic before the yellow flew. McCreadie, Mike Marlar, and Ricky Weiss were the rest of the top five. Later this week, Lucas has races at I-70, Tri City, and Lucas Oil Speedway.
Before we move on, a quick thanks to watchers Cali Dirt Video and Ed for their recent super thanks. It continues to blow me away that you guys support the project like that with some cash. It is much appreciated.
With the All Stars over the weekend, the ground that Justin Peck had made up on Tyler Courtney during Ohio Sprint Speedweek was all basically lost again with two tough nights for the Buch 13. On Friday, a hard crash in their heat race forced a move to their backup car, and Peck had issues for the rest of the night, ending up in 17th. And Saturday, Peck and the 13 team were a victim of a late flat tire after running in the top ten all race long. An 18th place finish, combined with weekend runs of 8th and 2nd for Tyler Courtney now means the gap is back to 74 points between the two. Out front in the features, we almost had a Hunter Schuerenberg weekend sweep. He led almost the whole race on Friday night, before he exploded a right rear with two laps left. On the restart, Parker Price Miller outdueled Chris Windom and Cap Henry for the win at Ransomville. It was win number two on the year for PPM. Schuerenberg wouldn't be denied on Saturday night though, leading all 30 laps to score the win. It was a back-to-back victory at Stateline for Schuerenberg and the Vermeer 55, and that squad now has four victories on the season. Zeb Wise picked up two top fives in his final weekend in his own 10 car. He'll switch to the Rudeen ride tomorrow night at Attica. The All Stars are off now until July 22nd at Lake Ozark.
Up at Huset's for the USAC Nationals we had two first time winners with the sprint car series. Robert Ballou was the Friday night winner, but Saturday and Sunday saw Ryan Bernal and Mitchel Moles earn their first career national wins. Moles had been close on a couple of past occasions driving the Reinbold Underwood 19, including on Saturday night. He messed up on the cushion though with ten to go, and the ensuing flip took him out of contention. That opened the door for Bernal's first win. On Sunday though, Moles dominated the feature, leading all 40 laps from the pole. The sprint car points didn't change a whole lot though, with Justin Grant still leading Brady Bacon and Robert Ballou. Logan Seavey, Emerson Axsom, and CJ Leary all remain within striking distance. On the midget side, Buddy Kofoid picked up both the prelim night wins, but a flip on Sunday meant no weekend sweep. We ended up with three different leaders, with Jacob Denney and Justin Grant leading through half way, but Cannon McIntosh took over on lap 64 and led the rest of the way for his second series win of the season. It was not a great weekend on the midget side for Grant, who had a flat Saturday after nearly flipping, and then was a victim of a bad McIntosh slider on Sunday. Even with the issues for Buddy, his points lead is now 46 leaving the weekend. With everything that went on though, just about the only chatter I saw coming out of Huset's was more complaining about the racing on the midget side. There were plenty of bad sliders around, and it's become the popular thing to complain about these days. I still find it interesting that the veterans are just about as much to blame as the young drivers are in these cases. The sprint cars now take some time off to get ready for Indiana Sprint Week, while the midgets have four races this week between Red Dirt, Solomon Valley, and Jefferson County.
Elsewhere this weekend, Gio Scelzi was the 410 winner at Knoxville, Tanner Thorson bagged the AFCS win at Attica, DJ Netto won at Ocean, Michael Faccinto won at Placerville, Kyle Cummins won the Bob Darland Classic, Steven Shebester was an OCRS winner, and Austin McCarl wired the POWRi 410 show at Lee County.
In weekend late model action, Bryce Sward was a $10,000 WISSOTA winner at Brown County, Joe Martin was a RUSH winner at Sharon, Zack Dohm bagged $10k at Brushcreek, and Tanner English and Bobby Pierce were weekend Summer Nationals winners.
If you want some late model racing tonight, don't forget the Fever Heat 100 for the XR Super Series is going on at Stuart International. They are racing for $20,000 to win, and there should be a pretty stout field in attendance.
Before we close out, I'm normally going to avoid these types of things, because other people are much better at the tributes and stuff then I am, but someone asked me to mention this so I will. While competing over the weekend at Farmington, Missouri, Terry Babb was leading the sprint car feature but pulled into the infield and later died of an apparent heart attack. He was only 55 years old. Babb was a well known open wheel racer, running sprint cars of both types, midgets and in the Silver Crown Series. He will certainly be missed. Jason Keith ending up winning that feature.
There are three items on the streaming schedule today. The XR Super Series is headed to Stuart International for the Fever Heat 100 on XR Plus. There is also IMCA racing on Speed Sport and 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!