DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Davenport tops $1.5M in 2022 earnings, Brad Sweet's Outlaw competition in trouble | Daily 8-8-2022
Today on the show we'll talk dominant performances from Jonathan Davenport and Brad Sweet, results from Knoxville's 360 Nationals and the Capitani Classic, and other weekend winners. Let's go!
It's Monday, August 8th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
Following Saturday night's dominant win in the USA Nationals at Cedar Lake Speedway, Jonathan Davenport has now crossed over $1.5 million dollars in winnings this season across his dirt late model starts. A big part of that is obviously the Eldora Million win, but even if you took that race out completely, he'd still only be trailing Chris Madden right now in season earnings. And Madden has had one hell of a 2022 himself. Davenport held off a few challenges from Tyler Erb, but Terbo was never able to officially lead a lap. And Madden couldn't run down Superman in the closing laps. So JD your winner, Madden second, and Erb completed the podium. Davenport is now the third driver to win the USA Nationals in back-to-back years, joining Billy Moyer and Jack Boggs. JD doesn't run with the Outlaws a ton during the year, as he only has 35 appearances since 2019. But when he does race, he takes full advantage. Saturday night was his fourth Outlaw win of the season in nine races, and if you look back over his last 13 Outlaw starts going back to Cedar Lake in 2021, he's won seven times, and led laps in nine of those features. It can be feast or famine though with the 49, as in that stretch of 13 shows, Davenport has finished 19th or worse four times. As for the Outlaw championship, no changes in the standings. I'm guessing Saturday's program was show-up points only, as Dennis Erb Jr. still leads Tanner English by 164, and Max Blair by 184. Those guys are going to start running out of races though to catch Erb, as only 19 nights remain on the Outlaw schedule for the season. The series is quiet this weekend, and returns August 19th at Williams Grove.
On the sprint car side with the Outlaws, it had been a pretty interesting season to date coming into the Ironman weekend at Pevely. Brad Sweet has somehow been able to maintain the championship lead with only two wins, but his competition might be in trouble going forward. It was just a few weeks ago that the Big Cat picked up his first ever win at Williams Grove, which was big for a driver who usually struggles in Central PA. And then we damn near saw a weekend sweep of the Ironman. If it wasn't for an insane last corner move for Carson Macedo on Friday night, Sweet would have led all 85 laps over the two features. The 49 had a little bit of trouble with the lap car of Marcus Dumesny on the white flag lap, and that gave Macedo the opening he need to throw a big slider and steal the victory. It was Macedo's eighth win of the year, and it tied him with Sheldon Haudenschild for the most on the season so far. There would be not be a repeat on Saturday though. It was all Brad out front in the 55 lapper and he topped Macedo and James McFadden to earn his first career win in the event. A sixth on Friday for David Gravel, combined with two flats on Saturday and a 12th place run mean that the points lead has been extended now to 68. Headed to Knoxville where only show up points will be paid for the week, the KKR 49 now has a little bit of breathing room. Sweet leads the series in average finish over both the previous five and ten race stretches, and if that team is somehow over the hump with whatever was stopping them from winning races, Gravel, Macedo, and Haudenschild could be in big trouble as we work through the second half of the year. A couple of other drivers to point out for you are James McFadden and Donny Schatz. McFadden had an abysmal week at Eldora, followed by a 20th at Port Royal. But since then, now has six straight top tens, including two podiums at Pevely. And Schatz now has five straight top four finishes headed to Knoxville. As much of a struggle as this year has been for the TSR 15, they will very much be in the mix for the Nationals win come Saturday.
Also at Pevely this weekend, we got two nights for the Xtreme Outlaw Midgets. Friday it was Chance Crum and the Rudeen squad earning their first national midget win. And Saturday, during a brief US trip for Kiwi Michael Pickens, the accomplished sprint car and midget racer stole the win right at the line from Jacob Denney. Pickens was in a Dave Mac Dalby car and bagged the $5000 victory before heading back home to New Zealand. With five midget races complete on the year, Zach Daum is leading the championship standings over Brenham Crouch and Bryant Wiedeman.
At Knoxville, we had the 360 Nationals on Saturday night, and the Capitani Classic on Sunday. The $30,000 and the 360 Nationals crown went to Aaron Reutzel after a dominating performance. Sam Hafertepe Jr. tried to run Reutzel down in the closing stages as the eight car seemed to be going away a bit, but Hafertepe could never get close enough to make a serious move. It was Reutzel's first career 360 Nationals title, and as I said last week, I think he'll continue to be a serious challenger all week at Knoxville. Clint Garner joined Reutzel and Hafertepe on the podium, and Kyle Larson was a non-factor over the three night program. He was eighth on Friday in his prelim feature, and went 16th to 11th on Saturday night.
Last night for the Capitani Classic, 69 cars took the opportunity to get on track for the final time before things get real on Wednesday. In the night's feature, second starting Logan Schuchart led 24 of 25 laps to score the win and $9000. He had a nice battle in the late stages with Donny Schatz, with the 15 officially leading a lap, but Schuchart got back by and picked up the victory. Aaron Reutzel was third, with Brad Sweet fourth, and Parker Price Miller in fifth. Big shoutout to Danny Lasoski and the Brian Brown Racing guys for their work last night. Brownie got upside down in a big way in his heat race, and those guys were able to get another car together which allowed Brown to win the night's second B-Main and get into the feature. Brownie did end up out of the race though in 24th. So the next time we'll see action on track at Knoxville will be for Wednesday's prelim action. We'll be talking about the Nationals all week, but I think right now you're looking at Brad Sweet, David Gravel, Donny Schatz, Kyle Larson, Carson Macedo, and Brent Marks as probably the favorites. I also wouldn't sleep on Rico Abreu, Schuchart, Reutzel, or Haudenschild. I am a little surprised we didn't see Marks at Knoxville last night, but he tweeted today they are racing the Nationals. There is obviously no guarantee that laps during the Cappy will help, but track time is track time. If you want even more sprint car racing tonight, a lot of these teams are headed over to Oskaloosa for Terry McCarl's Front Row Challenge. If you can't be there, it will be live on FloRacing.
Elsewhere this weekend, Eric Spangler picked up $34,000 at Merritt topping Devin Moran and Ryan Unzicker. Chris Ferguson was a $20,000 Ultimate Southeast winner at Virginia Motor Speedway, Devin Gilpin won the Iron-Man show at Brownstown, Logan Roberson was a RUSH winner at Pittsburgh's PA Motor Speedway, and Rick Eckert was a $4000 winner at Selinsgrove. If you want some late model action tonight, the XR Super Series is at Gondik Law for the first of two nights. I belive both of these programs pay $20,000 to win. And they should draw some good cars post Cedar Lake. The racing will be live on XR Plus.
With the USMTS Modifieds, Dereck Ramirez scored wins on both Friday at Humboldt and Saturday at Wheatland as he tries to run down Dustin Sorensen in the points standings. Right now the top three in Sorensen, Tanner Mullens, and Ramirez are separated by just 95 points.
There are four shows on the streaming schedule today. FloRacing has the Front Row Challenge from Osky and Flo 24/7. The Cushion has outlaw karts from English Creek, and the XR Super Series is on XR Plus from Gondik Law. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, head over to 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!