DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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How one sprint car sort of had three drivers in one night | Daily 7-29-2022
One car, one race, three drivers. We'll tell you that story today, plus get you ready for a busy dirt racing weekend ahead. Let's go!
It's Friday, July 29th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
So we are going to start your Friday off with a little story time from Lincoln Park Speedway last night. Thomas Meseraull is not a regular competitor on the USAC sprint car side, but we have seen him a bunch this season. He raced in Florida to start the year and during Eastern Storm, driving the Chris Dyson owned machine. Over the last few weeks though, when TMez has driven with the series, it's been with Jack Yeley and the Yeley/Petty number two car. TMez grabbed three top tens at Huset's, with a third, a seventh, and an eighth, and that included laps led on July 8th. Definitely a very solid week. Fast forward to Indiana Sprint Week, and things haven't gone quite as well for the driver and team pairing. TMez did make the feature in the opening race at Gas City, finishing 15th, but not showing the same pace we'd seen at Huset's. When sprint week moved to Circle City on Monday, things were still going okay, TMez qualified 18th, but ended up pulling off during his heat race after leading early on, and we didn't see the two car for the rest of the night. On Tuesday at Kokomo, Meseraull ended the evening 16th in the B-Main after just missing a feature transfer by one in his heat race. He ended up in an incident in that B, and just took it to the truck afterwards. I don't know if there was any damage or not. So, now you have the background on Meseraull's recent history in the two, now, let's get weird. Just before 4:30 yesterday afternoon, TMez tweeted that he arrived to Lincoln Park Speedway to find the team fitting a new seat into the car for driver Anton Hernandez. Meseraull said it wasn't the first time he'd been fired during sprint week, and that quote "apparently I don't drive the car hard enough" unquote. So the night's program starts, but there was rain threatening. They get through damn near all of qualifying before the drops start, but there were still just a few cars that hadn't taken time yet. When things were stopped, Hernandez was way down the order, 46th quick, while Kyle Cummins was fast time. And now you're saying, but Justin, what does Kyle Cummins have to do with TMez and Hernandez? Well let's get into that. So USAC waits out the rain, then works the track back into racing condition and restarts the program. During hot laps, the series tweeted that Cummins had scratched for the night with engine issues. And curiously in the final hot lap group, there was no Hernandez on track in his scheduled place. We then get into qualifying, and onto the track rolls the Yeley/Petty two car, only this time, it's not TMez, it's not Anton, but instead Kyle Cummins in the car. Things don't go much better for Kyle though then they did for Anton in the first qualifying session, with the two ending up 46th of 50 cars to take time. An 11th place finish in the heat race, followed by an eighth in the C-Main, and the night is done for the Yeley/Petty two team. An incredibly strange situation with a car owner deciding to make two driver swaps in the course of a few hours during one racing program. I don't know that I've ever heard of a situation where three guys thought they were the driver of one car in a single night. In some of the replies on Twitter, there were folks who didn't seem too surprised by the car owner's moves, and I don't know what went into the decisions, but damn what a mess. What happens with that car tonight and for the rest of the week is anyone's guess. Later on in the night, Mitchel Moles bagged his second career USAC National Sprint Car victory, leading 29 of the 30 laps. He did get a little help with a late caution that put him back to the lead after Brady Bacon had gotten around him. In the end, Moles topped Jadon Rogers and Bacon. Series and sprint week points leader Justin Grant had a 14th to 5th run and stays on top headed to Bloomington tonight. The dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula likes Cummins tonight, I'll go Bacon. You can watch the remainder of sprint week all weekend long on FloRacing.
At Fairbury this weekend, the $50,000 to win Prairie Dirt Classic for the World of Outlaws Late Model Series takes center stage. Tonight the competitors will qualify and run four 25 lap, $3000 to win showdowns to help set Saturday night's field. And then Saturday, three last chance races will add the final racers to the 100 lap main event for the big money. This weekend is also the finale for the Modified Nationals season. Dennis Erb Jr. continues to lead the Outlaw championship standings by a fairly wide margin over Max Blair and Tanner English. The focus this weekend though will be all about the racing and the cash. Kyle Larson is the defending PDC winner, and this victory one year ago was Larson's first late model crown jewel score. With the Cup cars not far away in Indy, Larson will be in the field with the Rumley six to defend the crown. On top of the Outlaw full timers, other names you can expect to see tonight include Jonathan Davenport, Brandon Sheppard, Bobby Pierce, Ricky Thornton Jr., Tyler Erb, Mike Marlar, Jimmy Owens, and a lot of the regional favorites like Jason Feger, Ryan Unzicker, and McKay Wenger. This event drew 74 cars last season, and we should have a big field again coming up. The prediction formula is favoring Larson here because of that win last season, but I think I'm going to pick Marlar. It's been a bit since Larson was in the late model, Marlar was second to Sheppard in this race back in 2019, and he's been really strong lately. If you can't be at Fairbury, which should probably be on your bucket list of tracks, you can watch live all weekend long on DIRTVision.
Up in New York on Saturday and Sunday, the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars are inbound to Weedsport Speedway for two nights of racing. Following Williams Grove, Brad Sweet did extend his points lead, with David Gravel and Sheldon Haudenschild in tow. From Carson Macedo in fourth on back, everyone trails Sweet by triple digits. Gravel is the most recent winner at Weedsport, back in July of last year, while Brent Marks was a winner there in 2018. Both shows are $10,000 to win, and following the weekend, the focus shifts back to the midwest with the Ironman 55 and Knoxville Nationals coming up. The prediction formula favors Sweet for Saturday, and I think I'll agree. That Williams Grove win could be the boost that team needed to really start knocking down some wins. If you aren't headed to Weedsport this weekend, watch live on DIRTVision.
Last night's racing was rained out, but the All Stars are back at it tonight at I-70 Motorsports Park for the Rayce Rudeen Foundation Race. The series also has a date with Knoxville on Saturday. Zeb Wise is the defending winner of this event, but one year ago it was at Kokomo and not I-70. Wise is now driving for the Rudeen team though, so if he would repeat, it would be a big night for that squad. Tyler Courtney is doing a nice job working on that championship defense, and he leads Justin Peck by 100 points coming into the weekend. Brian Brown won the I-70 race with the All Stars in 2021, and he'll be in attendance tonight, but the formula likes the hot hand in Courtney. I'll go with that pick as well. The All Stars will be live on FloRacing both nights.
In other results from Thursday, Matt Sheppard topped Anthony Perrego and Max McLaughlin at Orange County Fair with the Super DIRTcar Series. Sheppard extended his points lead with his third win of the year. Matt Covington led all 25 laps at 81 Speedway to handle the ASCS Speedweek event. It was his second win of 2022, and he topped Wayne Johnson and Tim Crawley. Johnson now leads the ASCS points with Blake Hahn finishing 13th last night. Hahn is 19 out, while Crawley is 27 back. Speedweek closes out with upcoming shows at Creek County and Salina on Friday and Saturday. And with the Southern Nationals, David Payne won a rain shortened feature at Tri-County last night, topping Brandon Overton and Payton Freeman. Tonight's race at Boyd's has already been cancelled because of weather, so that means Cory Hedgecock will take his slight 12 point lead for the championship to Tazewell on Saturday for the $10,000 to win finale.
Before we shut it down for the week, one news item for you from the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series, as reported by Dirt on Dirt. After nearly five years as an official with the series, the Kentucky Colonel Steve Francis has departed his role as the Lucas tech director. He told Kevin Kovac that he doesn't want to travel as much as he had been, and that he's going to take some time off before finding his next role in dirt late model racing. His wife Amanda is also leaving the series, she'd been handling their social media accounts. No word yet on who might replace Francis in the position.
As is usual, the streaming schedule is busy for the weekend. Well over 40 different races to watch tonight, with plenty more to come over the weekend. That includes both World of Outlaws series on DIRTVision, the All Stars, ASCS, USAC and more on FloRacing, plus shows on The Cushion, RacinDirt, Fast Four, and a bunch of local and regional racing on Speed Sport. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, head over to dirtrackr.com/watchtonight. It's wild to me how popular the streaming schedule has become. It's neck and neck with the main page at dirtrackr.com for most viewed single part of the website. That was not the case in 2021. Pretty cool that you guys use it that much.
That's it for the show today, enjoy the dirt racing weekend. 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!