DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Tempers, conspiracy theories flare up at Weedsport with the Outlaws | Daily 8-1-2022
Coming up we'll talk World of Outlaws drama at Weedsport, big cash for BShepp and more from the dirt racing weekend. Let's go!
It's Monday, August 1st, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
I don't know if we've had full moons, maybe the heat is getting to people or what, but we can't seem to get through a dirt racing weekend without crazy drama here lately. Last week it was fights at two sprint car races, this week it was a thrown helmet and flag man conspiracies at Weedsport. The World of Outlaws Sprint Cars were in town for two nights and going forward, nobody will remember the Saturday night show for David Gravel dominating the second half of the race. What they will remember the evening for is Sheldon Haudenschild throwing his helmet on to the track during green flag conditions and for his crew guy flipping off the tower as they pushed the 17 back to the pit area. Late in the race, Sheldon spun out of a top ten running position and ended up stopped inside turn one in the infield. There wasn't good video of what happened to the NOS machine, but the car sat for several laps, and the race never went yellow. Sheldon was clearly not happy that a caution wasn't thrown, and after a few laps and some big gestures to the tower to express his displeasure, his helmet got tossed onto the track. That did cause a caution, which erased a massive lead for Gravel with just a few laps left. There was a brief skirmish when the safety crew tried to tow the car away, but eventually the 17 was pushed by four wheeler back to the trailer, with one of his crew guys showing the bird. Gravel went on to the win over Donny Schatz and Paulie Colagiovanni, with Sheldon scored down in 24th. I get here that those guys were upset that the yellow wasn't thrown, and in the moment when emotions are high, people make bad decisions. But you don't want to see things escalate to the point where they did. This is something that needs to be handled between the driver and officials in a reasonable manner. Not play out on the frontstretch and possibly affect the outcome of a race. There seems to be growing tension between the competitors and the series and all involved need to get together and squash it. And if that wasn't enough, social media was again ablaze on Sunday night following Donny Schatz's dominant win. A hot mic on DIRTVision caught flag man Dave Farney asking Schatz about the signalling he does with the flags and folks took that to be some sort of shady situation happening with officials. For those unaware, Farney is a veteran flag man in the northeast, and he's been doing the signalling for years. There is not a traveling flag man for the Outlaws, they just use whoever is available locally, and Farney is a staple in the northeast, and he does a ton of work for WRG down in Florida to start the season, and at World Finals. He's famous for his flagging, and whether you agree with it or not, that is just what he does. We seem to be at a point where people are looking for any little thing to try and create problems and drama, and they will latch onto whatever they view as evidence for some larger conspiracy. If we hadn't had the work area issues a while back, and the Sheldon situation on Saturday, maybe this doesn't blow up like it did, but it seems to me like the series has some work to do to clean things up. Leaving the weekend with the Ironman coming up next, the Outlaw points situation has changed pretty dramatically. What was a five car battle a few weeks ago, is now suddenly a two team fight between Brad Sweet and Gravel. Those two are only 36 points apart. Everyone else from Macedo in third on back is over 100 points behind.
Before we move on, a couple of quick driver and team notes for the Knoxville Nationals. Swindell Speedlab will have California driver Justin Sanders in the 39 for the next few weeks We talked about that TBA a few days ago, so now it's filled. Also, Jason Johnson Racing co-owner and crew chief Philip Dietz will bring back his Dietz Motorsports number 14 for the Nationals with the other Macedo brother in the seat. So Carson in the JJR 41 as usual, and brother Cole in the Dietz 14. We normally see Cole around Ohio with the Linders and the Gill Construction 18.
At Fairbury on Saturday night for the big $50,000 to win Prairie Dirt Classic, nobody could run down Brandon Sheppard. The Rocket house car started on the pole and held off challenges from Mike Marlar and Bobby Pierce, and eventually led all 100 laps. So BShepp got $50 grand for the win, and an additional $50 grand for leading all the laps. Each lap led in the feature was worth a $500 bonus. My win pick in Marlar ended up second, with Tanner English rounding out the podium. Defending event winner Kyle Larson may have been a factor late, but he picked up a flat tire and a couple brushes with the Fairbury wall ended his night. An incredible 81 cars were in attendance for the two day show. Max Blair did finish eight spots ahead of the World of Outlaws Late Model Series points leader Dennis Erb, but the gap is still 168. Tanner English is only two more points behind Blair with the USA Nationals at Cedar Lake coming up this week, which features another $50,000 pay day.
With the All Stars over the weekend we had Anthony Macri picking up the big $26,000 payday at I-70 for the Rayce Rudeen Foundation race, and Rico Abreu going eighth to the win on Saturday at Knoxville. Rico had a nice mid race battle at I-70 with Macri, before the 39 was able to get away. Abreu ended up with mechanical trouble with just a few laps left though, and ended up 23rd. Buddy Kofoid and Justin Peck joined Macri on the podium. The win was Macri's fifth All Star victory of 2022, and his first away from Pennsylvania. On Saturday at Knoxville, they had a big field of 55 cars and Kerry Madsen led 20 of 25 laps from the pole. Things got good late though between Madsen, Rico and Tyler Courtney, with Rico eventually getting away for the win. It was Rico's first All Star win of 2022, and I think a sign that the 24 could be a serious factor at the Nationals with Ricky Warner on the wrenches. In the race for the All Star championship, Sunshine padded his lead a little bit more, with the gap back to Justin Peck now 126. With other 410 racing taking center stage the next few weeks, the All Stars are going quiet until August 19th at Outlaw Speedway.
In Indiana, USAC's Indiana Sprint Week closed out over the weekend with Justin Grant earning his first ever sprint week title. In six nights of racing he had six top fives, a win and five podium finishes. His top ten streak is now sitting at 15 straight, and his season long points lead has grown to 111 over Brady Bacon. Kyle Cummins was the Friday winner at Bloomington, back in his own car. He won from 10th, which is tied for the deepest starting position a winner has had this year with the series. On Saturday night in the finale at Haubstadt, Robert Ballou led all 30 laps from the second starting spot to earn his fifth win of the season, topping Cummins and Grant. So with the rocking chair in his posession, JG will now look toward the season long championship with the next stop for the series coming up later in August at Kokomo for the Smackdown.
Other weekend late model winners included Dale McDowell taking down the Southern Nationals finale at Tazewell. Cory Hedgecock's 11th place finish was good enough for him to clinch the championship. Matt Cosner and Jared Miley were winners at Bedford and Outlaw on Friday, Justin Zeitner won six grand on Saturday at Adams County, while Jacob Hawkins, Rick Eckert, and Devin Gilpin were weekly winners as well.
Other weekend open wheel winners included Cannon McIntosh getting the POWRi midget sweep between Jacksonville and Macon, Zach Daum and Paul Nienhiser were MOWA winners, Andy Forsberg was a Sprint Car Challenge Tour winner at Petaluma, and Ryan Timms was the Sunday winner at Huset's topping Matt Juhl and Kaleb Johnson.
There are two shows on the streaming schedule today, which includes FloRacing 24/7 and weekly racing from the Clay County Fair Speedway on Speed Sport. 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!