DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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High Limit Series tempting for sprint car teams, but what would they be giving up? | Daily 9-2-2022
On the show today we'll talk Logan Schuchart's Outlaw win at Skagit, Casey Shuman's new gig, some World of Outlaws money stuff, and what's happening around the country this weekend. Let's go!
It's Friday, September 2nd, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
Tough news to start the show off with today. Modified racer Nick Hoffman was involved in a highway incident last night with his toter home and is currently in an ICU in Kentucky with a head injury, according to his sister Ashley on Facebook. Nick's dad was also injured in the crash and has a broken veterbrae. They were headed to Illinois to race this weekend at Farmer City, Fairbury, and Spoon River. Nick is a wildly successful modified racer with his famous two car all around the country. A ton of wins at Volusia, with the Modified Nationals, and elsewhere. Hopefully we'll get some good news regarding Nick in the coming days. If you are headed to the race track this weekend, please be safe out there!
Alright, onto the rest of the show.
We'll start with results from last night. The World of Outlaws Sprint Cars kicked off the Skagit Nationals last night with a $10,000 to win show. Logan Schuchart has had plenty of success at Skagit in the past, but he's been so up and down this season, I had a hard time wanting to pick him to win this weekend. For example, he won his prelim night at Knoxville, finished third in the Nationals, then went to Jackson and won the first show. But since then, had finishes of 11th, 22nd, and 7th. And his whole 2022 has been like that. Some really awesome stretches, then some not so good runs with a few wins sprinkled in. But last night that 1S machine was dialed in. Third quick in qualifying, a heat race win, and second in the dash set him up for a front row start. Pole sitter Brad Sweet led the first 21 laps, but Schuchart poured it on late, got by the Big Cat with nine laps left, and then was able to keep the 49 at bay through lap traffic. It was Logan's fourth win of 2022, which matches his Shark Racing teammate in Jacob Allen. Donny Schatz joined Schuchart and Sweet on the podium, with Carson Macedo and David Gravel rounding out the top five. It's tough to say a top five finish isn't good enough, but that's where we are with Gravel and Macedo. The absolutely must find ways this weekend and in the coming weeks to beat Sweet, or he will drive off with his fourth straight series title. I would have liked to see what would have happened with James McFadden last night. He was a Skagit winner a year ago, and was coming last night before contact with a lap car ended his night while running third. He looked strong and is in need of a victory. As for the young guys, Corey Day was the top finisher in 8th. Joel Myers Jr. made the feature in his Outlaw debut, ending up 19th, while Ryan Timms missed the feature transfer in his heat, and was one spot out of a transfer in the B-Main. He look to improve upon that tonight. Tonight at Skagit is another $10,000 to win show, with Saturday night paying $25,000 to win. The dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula is staying with Schatz for tonight, I'm gonna flip to Sweet. Both races will be live on DIRTVision.
Before we move on, I wanted to offer you guys a little discount code on DIRTRACKR merch for the holiday weekend. I'm not sharing a discount code anywhere else, just on today's show. So, head over to shop.dirtrackr.com and use code "daily" at checkout to get 20% off anything and everything. The code will be available to use through 11:59PM on Monday. Both shirts and both decal sizes are available. As always, shipping in the US is free.
On yesterday's show we talked about the High Limit Series adding another event for 2022, and the questions about the future relationship between full time Outlaw drivers and the series will persist until a resolution is found. In the comments on yesterday's video, JetStar9er asked about some sort of cooperation between High Limit and the All Stars and if we'd see maybe some Outlaw guys jump to full time with the All Stars so they would have more freedom to race elsewhere. That is certainly an option, but I feel like if guys were going to leave as full time members, they'd go the Brent Marks route and be completely pick and choose versus being locked into the All Star schedule. Staying on as a full time Outlaw member though will continue to be very attractive. The money difference between the Outlaws and the All Stars is pretty damn significant, and I think people forget that a lot. With the Outlaws, you'll probably get 75 races in a year, whereas it's closer to 50 with the All Stars. If you are further down the order with each series, here's an easier comparison. 12th in points with the Outlaws is worth $30,000 at season's end. It's $8000 with the All Stars. The standard Outlaw show is $10,000 to win and $1000 to start, with the All Stars it's $6000 to win and $550 to start. Also, I did some quick math this morning based on the publicly available numbers I could find. The new Outlaw bonus program will probably be worth nearly $40,000 this year at $500 a race. So that's $37,500 at 75 races. Add to that $30,000 for 12th in points, another $37,500 in tow money, and if you finish DFL in an Outlaw race with a standard purse, that's worth $1000. So tack on another $75,000. So just in purse money, points fund, tow money, and the Outlaw bonus program, a team should make at minimum about $180,000. That's $2400 a night. And that doesn't include any sponsorship, contingencies, or if you happen to run better on certain nights. If you are one of the top five or six guys, you'll obviously make more in the bonus program and tow money, plus your race winnings will be more. It's going to be difficult to walk away from the guaranteed incentives to run a handful of races elsewhere. I do think though that middle ground can be found between WRG and the top guys that want to venture out periodically.
In other news around World Racing Group and the Outlaws from yesterday, it was announced that Casey Shuman will take over as general manager at I-70 Motorsports Park in Missouri for the 2023 season. Shuman is currently the series director for the World of Outlaws Late Models and the Xtreme series. For next year, he will give up that role with the late models, but continue in a leadership position with the Xtreme midget and sprint car series. This one surprises me a bit just because I think Shuman is a rising star in the industry. He and wife Brooke did good work running the WAR series before moving over to WRG. I-70 is only planning 8-10 big events for next season, so the work load will be much smaller, and this feels like a move to allow Shuman to be home more often with his family. I do like that he's sticking around for the Xtreme stuff. On the flip side, the Outlaws hiring Steve Francis makes a lot of sense now. Francis should have no problem filling the void left by Shuman with the late model series.
Other Thursday night winners included Jason Feger taking down the Herald and Review 100 at Macon. He led 62 of the 100 laps and topped Rusty Griffaw and Jayme Zidar. Only six of the 23 starters completed all 100 circuits. The Illinois late model weekend continues with MARS shows at Farmer City, Fairbury, and Spoon River. Mike Harrison won the night's modified feature.
Elsewhere around the country, there is plenty of other late model racing going on with both national tours in action this weekend before the World 100 starts at Eldora next week. The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series is headed to Portsmouth on Saturday for $15,000 to win and then to Tyler County on Sunday for the Hillbilly 100 that is $30,000 to win. Tim McCreadie brings a sizeable 195 point lead into the weekend over Brandon Sheppard. Ricky Thornton Jr. has won the two past visits to Portsmouth, with McCreadie, Jonathan Davenport, BShepp, Hudson O'Neal, and Jimmy Owens all also having recent wins there. Don't expect to see Davenport this weekend though. That team appears to be taking the days off to prepare for Eldora. Lucas hasn't been to Tyler County since 2019, Josh Richards won that event. The formula likes Sheppard tomorrow, but I'll go Thornton. Fast at Portsmouth, plus he led laps at Port Royal last weekend before finishing second to EPJ.
The World of Outlaws Late Models are in the southeast with stops at Smoky Mountain and Lavonia coming up tonight and tomorrow. Dennis Erb Jr. still leads Tanner English in the standings, but English has closed the gap in recent weeks. Chris Madden has won at Smoky Mountain most recently with both the Outlaws and Lucas, but just like Davenport, he's off this weekend in preparation for Eldora. Besides the Outlaws tonight, we should see Jimmy Owens, Dale McDowell, Hudson O'Neal, Cory Hedgecock, and Scott Bloomquist among others. The prediction formula is going O'Neal for the win, but I'm gonna pick Brandon Overton. Both of these Outlaw shows are on his schedule, and he'll be tough to beat.
In Ohio this weekend, the All Stars are headed to Sharon for two nights, $6000 to win tonight, and $12,000 to win tomorrow. We continue to watch and see if Justin Peck can really make a challenge for the championship against Tyler Courtney. I have the most recent eight All Star shows at Sharon in the dirtrackr.com analytics database, and we've had eight different winners. Christopher Bell and Cap Henry already have victories at the track in 2022. We talked about Kasey Kahne not running with the Outlaws, and besides racing at Port Royal coming up, Kahne is set to join the All Stars the next two nights at Sharon. The prediction formula likes Peck, I'm going Brent Marks.
Other racing to check out this weekend includes the ASCS National Tour. Their race tonight at Red Dirt has been postponed, but they will race Saturday and Sunday at Lake Ozark. Blake Hahn leads Wayne Johnson and Tim Crawley in the standings. The USAC Silver Crown cars are at DuQuoin this weekend for the Ted Horn 100. Kody Swanson is the points leader with three wins this season. It looks like they'll have a very healthy field of cars. The Racesaver Nationals are at Eagle this weekend for 305 sprint cars, and they will have plenty of racers on the property. And the USMTS has three shows over the next few days between Mississippi Thunder, Deer Creek, and Fayette County, with all three paying $10 grand to win. Dustin Sorensen continues to lead Tanner Mullens and Dereck Ramirez for the championship.
There are more than 40 shows on the streaming schedule today, with plenty more to come this weekend. That includes both Outlaw series on DIRTVision, FloRacing has a bunch of stuff including the All Stars, Lucas, USAC Silver Crown cars, ASCS and more. And there is local and regional racing aplenty across Dirt Track Digest, Speed Sport, The Cushion, and Fast Four. To see the full daily streaming schedule through the weekend, head over to dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
That's it for the show today, enjoy the dirt racing weekend.
Thanks everybody for tuning in, I'll see you tomorrow for more DIRTRACKR Daily!