DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Dylan Cisney is the new major of Port Royal after Tusky 50 crash... No joke! | Daily 9-13-2022

From a fiery crash to mayor in two days? We've got that today, plus another track owner complaining about streaming, and the Flo series is back racing tonight. Let's go!

It's Tuesday, September 13th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

On Saturday night at Port Royal, the fiery crash for Dylan Cisney was pretty widely shared and talked about. And we mentioned yesterday the efforts of Logan Wagner and Danny Dietrich in aiding Cisney in that moment. They bailed out of their own cars and helped extinguish the flames as Cisney rolled around on the track. We know that Dylan is okay, he posted to social media afterwards that he doesn't have any burns, but is banged up. In an interesting twist to this story, just 48 hours after being involved in that wild crash during the Tuscarora 50, the Port Royal Borough Council met on Monday night and it's seven members voted unanimously to elect Cisney as the new mayor of Port Royal. According to the Juniata Sentinel, Cisney entered shortly after, arm in a sling, and accepted the position. And yes, this story is absolutely true. Both the Sentinel and Juniata County Radio reported on the happenings. Hopefully Cisney's time as mayor goes a little smoother than the feature did on Saturday night.

When I got up this morning I had a DM from Rob pointing me to a lengthy Facebook post from Smoky Mountain Speedway's owner Roger Sellers. The nine paragraph, nearly 700 word bit was posted around 10PM ET last night, and is titled "The Great Decline." Very dramatic. In the words to follow, Sellers basically gets very wordy to complain about not getting enough of a share of streaming revenue for the events at his race track. He, like most others that have this complaint, points to anecdotal evidence and uses his opinion to say that streaming is what is killing attendance at his track and others. If you've been around a while, you already know my feelings on this subject. So instead of re-litigating all of that, I thought we'd take a bit of a different approach to this specific situation. In his post, Sellers mentions that the Lucas late model series does share some revenue, but that the quote "other big series" does not. I continue to not understand why track owners sign sanction agreements they then decide later they aren't okay with. In this instance, the other big series he's referring to is clearly the World of Outlaws and their service DIRTVision, which his track hosted just a little over a week ago. If track owners are not okay with these agreements, the simple solution is for them to quit putting those series on their schedules. We saw this same thing with Scott Ronk and Terre Haute back in May with USAC and FloRacing. Don't agree to the dates and then complain on Facebook later. Leave them off your schedule and put pressure on the series and streamers in a real way if you really believe they are the problem. If suddenly the series can't get dates at certain tracks that might spur them to reconsider their stance on sharing streaming revenue. There are also opportunities for these tracks to run their own streaming services, either through partnerships or completely on their own. Smoky Mountain has done a bit of that, so Sellers knows that's an option. These tracks that view streaming as such an enemy could also band together and create their own services. That way they would benefit completely. Posts like what we saw from Sellers don't really accomplish anything except to demonize the players already in the space and sew discontent among the fans. And I have yet to see any real evidence or actual data proving that streaming is indeed what is hurting attendance at these tracks. Show me the numbers and then we can start working on solutions. Inadvertently, Sellers does get to the heart of his real problems in the post, and the problems of a lot of other tracks as well. He mentions staying home is more convenient, as is eating your own pizza and drinking your own beer. So why don't these tracks make their flow of traffic better, getting fans in and out quicker. Why don't they stop running shows with four or more divisions that take until 1AM to complete. Make the food and beer at your facility affordable and of decent quality. I can go to my local minor league baseball stadium and get craft beer and high end food options. How many dirt tracks have that? He also mentions weather problems, including rain and temperatures. How many tracks and series have predatory ticket policies that make it difficult or impossible to get refunds? A grandstand seat might cost $25, $30, $40 or more. So for a family of four you are looking at well over $100 in a lot of cases. That's a big risk to take when you know that getting a refund could be a problem. What about covered grandstands where people could sit for at least some of the day out of the sun and rain? He also says Smoky Mountain isn't Eldora, Fairbury, or Bowman Gray. And he'd be correct in that statement. But there was a point in time where those tracks weren't a big deal either. Smoky Mountain is actually an interesting track to look at for this problem, because in recent years they have made updates to the facility including newer bleachers, some new buildings, and other updates. Not all tracks can say that. But you could argue that those updates were long overdue, and that more needs to happen to make these facilities really competitive with the other entertainment options available to people. The easy thing to do right now is point at the cameras on your tower and complain that they are keeping fans away. So don't let them in. See if that fixes your problems. When it inevitably doesn't though, then maybe we can have a real discussion on how to make things better.

At Fairbury tonight, the FloRacing Night in America Late Model Series is back after an extended break. The midweek late model series lost races in June and August to rain, so we haven't seen them in action since May 18th at Marshalltown. Just to reset, with five races complete, Brandon Sheppard is the series points leader over Hudson O'Neal and Mike Marlar. We've had five different winners this season, with Kyle Larson taking the opener at Eldora, Jonathan Davenport won at Brownstown, Sheppard took Spoon River, Dennis Erb Jr. was the winner at Lincoln, and O'Neal is the most recent winner from that show at Marshalltown. Including tonight, five races are still left this season, with all of them paying $22,000 to win, except the finale at Senoia that is $53,000 to win. Tonight's field should include a nice mix of teams and drivers. The top six in the standings are expected to be there, plus you'll have some of the regional guys like Ryan Unzicker and Mike Spatola, some Outlaw regulars in Erb and Tanner English, and more. Joining the late models tonight will be UMP modifieds, and you can watch the action live over on FloRacing.

If you watched the DIRTVision broadcast over the weekend, you got to hear and see Logan Seavey in the booth with Johnny Gibson for the Gold Cup at Silver Dollar. Just a few days later, Seavey was apparently turning laps in a super late model. Seavey and Rocket Racing posted photos from Farmer City Raceway on Monday with Seavey in the seat of the famous Rocket house car. The California driver can be found in a non-wing sprint car or midget most weekends, and has had plenty of success in USAC competition. He tweeted quote "Cool day today. Got some laps in a @Rocket_Chassis dirt late model. Hopefully get the chance to do it again some day! Thanks to the @Rocket1_Racing crew for making it happen" unquote. I love all of this crossover we've gotten to see lately, and hopefully there will be more to come.

Moving on to your favorite segment of the week, it's time to talk video game racing. The iRacing World of Outlaws were back in action last night after a week off. It was round number seven and they were at Knoxville for a 50 lap main event. Evan Seay and his teammate Blake Matjoulis have really been the class of the field this season and that didn't really change last night. Matjoulis did have to transfer in from the night's second B-Main, but he then drove from 18th to finish sixth. Unfortunately, with Seay winning yet again, the gap between the two in the standings grew ever larger with three races remaining. It was a super fun show with the feature going caution free for 50 laps. Swindell Speedlab driver Kendal Tucker started on the pole and he was the leader until right before half way when Dylan Wilson took over out front. Seay was lurking though, starting from the fourth position. As the top three continued to race hard, it brought the rest of the top five into the mix and with 15 to go, you could throw a blanket over that top five. Seay took the lead at lap 18, and was able to keep everyone at bay for the remaining laps. Dylan Wilson ended up second with Zack McSwain third. It was Seay's third win of the season, and he has still yet to finish worse than second through seven nights. Three weeks remain, with Weedsport coming next Monday night, then Volusia on September 26th, and the finale at Charlotte on October 3rd. For more information on the series, head over to iracing.com/woolm.

There are five items on the streaming schedule today, although it's really four, because one program is being streamed by two different providers. FloRacing has the Flo Night in America Late Models from Fairbury, the ASCS from Clay County, and Flo 24/7. Speed Sport has WISSOTA racing from I-94, and they also have the ASCS from Clay County. 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 Tuesday.

Thanks everybody for tuning in, I'll see you tomorrow for more DIRTRACKR Daily!