DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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XR's rule change was not why the racing was good at Kokomo | Daily 9-20-2022
I'm not going to get sucked into your late model droop rule overreactions from Kokomo. Not a on Tuesday morning. Let's go!
It's Tuesday, September 20th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
In case you weren't aware, it's overreaction Tuesday around the late model droop rule. The XR Super Series dropped the droop rule in advance of the Kokomo Dirt Nationals, and a solid race last night has folks claiming it was because of the droop rule change. I got on Twitter this morning and immediately saw multiple tweets about it. In the main event, Shane Clanton started fourth and ended up the winner, and along the way we had some solid action with Tyler Erb, Jimmy Owens, and Brandon Overton in the mix at various points. Late in the going it came down to Clanton and Erb, but honestly, if Clanton doesn't smoke the wall in three and four on the final lap, the finish wouldn't have been nearly as close as it was. The $20,000 win for Clanton was his third XR victory of the season, which includes big checks from Gondik Law and Belleville. Erb and Owens joined Clanton on the podium. Now, back to the droop rule. We need to remember that Kokomo is a 1/4 mile track, and not a big half mile like Knoxville or Eldora. The aero stuff is going to be much less in play at Kokomo than it would be at those other tracks. Also, Kokomo lends itself really well to the high low battles, which we see all the time in the open wheel races there. So small track, good prep, and track configuration were much bigger factors last night, and I think if the droop rule would have been enforced, you would have seen the same racing. Going forward, will removing the enforcement create better racing? Maybe. But we certainly can't say it's true after just a single race on a small track that is already conducive to good shows. We'll come back to this conversation after a lot more nights, and a lot more track diversity and see if the racing is significantly different. It's easy to look around the results this season and focus in on the big shows where Davenport dominated. But when we had a kickass Flo race last week at Fairbury with Bobby Pierce beating Frank Heckenast Jr., I didn't see any comments about the droop rule. Or what about Tanner English's 18th to the win run with the Outlaws at Davenport where he just barely beat Pierce and Devin Moran back to the line? For all the examples you can find of crap races this year, I can find examples of good races. I'm not saying that there isn't work to do between rules and tires, but show me real evidence and real trends, and we can go from there. The Kokomo Dirt Nationals continue tonight, with $40,000 going to the winner. You can again watch live on XR Plus.
Before we move on, I wanted to jump back to yesterday's show about the slide job between Logan Schuchart and Carson Macedo from Friday at Hanford. I did not know that so many of you felt so strongly about Macedo. Between the YouTube comments section and some tweets, I was surprised that there are so many ill feelings towards Macedo and how he races. On a scale of Donny Schatz to Thomas Meseraull, I feel like Macedo is somewhere in the middle. He's definitely aggressive, but I feel like we've seen much worse from other guys and Macedo fits right in with the current crop of young, talented drivers. I do think as he matures, Macedo will make some smarter moves, but I also think that it's just taken a bit more aggression to be successful in recent seasons. It's definitely a bit of the Kyle Larson effect. I also think this is what has hurt Schatz a bit. We're at a point where Donny almost races too clean, and it's to his own detriment sometimes.
A couple of schedule notes for you today. The ASCS National Tour continues their run of bad luck and have announced that this weekend's race at Super Bee Speedway in Louisiana has been moved to next season. So next up for the series is the Short Track Nationals at I-30 which start on September 30th. With the track appearing to have been sold, I'm assuming this will be the last Short Track Nationals to held there. Also, the Dirt Classic, which was held this past Saturday night at Lincoln, is getting a change for 2023. The tenth edition of the event will be a two day show, and will move to Labor Day weekend. We'll have to see where this slots in on the calendar next year, as the All Stars were in Ohio at Sharon during Labor Day weekend this season. There is also usually racing that weekend at Port Royal and a lot of the Ohio tracks. It's tough to make a judgement on this change until we see where the rest of the schedules in the area land.
Moving over to the IRA Sprint Car Series, their final weekend of the season is coming up starting Friday at Dodge County. They will then close out the year on Saturday at the Plymouth Dirt Track. With so much other stuff going on this week, I wanted to call this one out today so it doesn't get lost in the shuffle. With just those two race nights left, the championship battle is basically deadlocked between Jake Blackhurst and Jordan Goldesberry. Just nine points separate the two drivers. Blackhurst has three wins, 11 top fives, and 16 top tens in 22 races, while Goldesberry has two wins, 12 top fives, and 19 top tens. Both drivers have run well in recent weeks, and this one will most likely come down to the final laps on Saturday. If you want to soak up some 410 sprint car championship goodness, don't miss these shows this weekend. Both nights will be streamed live in FloRacing if you want to tune in.
The iRacing World of Outlaws Late Models are into their final stretch of the season, with round seven of 10 happening last night at Weedsport. The championship so far has been dominated by Evan Seay, and that continued last night. Seay started on row three, but was quickly to second early on. Polesitter Logan Rumsey was the early leader, but by lap 14, Seay was by him and stretching away. At the end of the caution free race, Seay's lead was something like five seconds. Zack McSwain ended up second with Rumsey third. Seay's teammate, and his closest challenger in the championship, Blake Matjoulis, came home fourth after transferring in from a B Main. The win for Seay was his fourth in seven races, and he's still yet to finish lower than second in any of these races. As for the battle for relegation, Matthew Selby and Drew Hopkins are tied on the cut line right now with Swindell Speedlab driver James Edens safe, and past sprint car champion Alex Bergeron on the outside looking in. Two races remain, with Volusia up next and Charlotte the week after. Barring him not showing up at all, this championship is pretty safe for Evan Seay.
There are three shows on today's streaming schedule. DIRTVision has weekly outlaw kart racing from Millbridge, XR Plus has night two of the Kokomo Dirt Nationals for the XR Super Series, and there is FloRacing 24/7. 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 Tuesday.
Thanks everybody for tuning in, I'll see you tomorrow for more DIRTRACKR Daily!