DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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"It's our job to cheat, it's their job to catch us..." What officials are up against in inspections | Daily 9-21-2022
Wait until you see these late model team antics from Kokomo, plus Tim McCreadie topped Jonathan Davenport, and what's up with Terre Haute? Let's go!
It's Wednesday, September 21st, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
The XR Super Series closed out the Kokomo Dirt Nationals last night with the 60 lap finale that paid $40,000 to the winner. Jonathan Davenport sat on the pole, and with the way that team has been so dominant lately, you thought maybe this one was over before it even started. I was curious about Davenport's performances when he starts on the pole, and just to give you some idea I went into the dirtrackr.com analytics database to look at his results with Lucas over the past three years. JD has started on the pole of features 17 times since the start of the 2020 season. In those races he's led 600 laps, earned $264,125 in winnings, picked up 13 podiums, and won 10 times. So you're looking at a nearly 60% win percentage when he starts on the pole, and more than a 76% chance that he'll finish on the podium. That's pretty good I'd say. Things were again headed that direction last night, but Tim McCreadie was able to do something that most of the competition hasn't been able to accomplish this year and that was run down JD. The race was only slowed by a single caution, and as the laps wound down, the 39 was able to close down on Davenport and take the lead with 13 to go. Once he got passed, Davenport's car must have been going away, because even through lap traffic he wasn't able to stay with McCreadie. It looked like TMac was feeling the pressure through regardless, because he made some pretty aggressive moves through that traffic to try and put cars between himself and the 49. At the end though, it was McCreadie in victory lane picking up his second XR win of 2022. Davenport was second, Chris Madden went 16th to third, Ricky Thornton Jr. was fourth, and Dennis Erb Jr. completed the top five. The modified portion of the event was swept by Tyler Nicely. Two more events remain on the 2022 schedule for the XR Super Series. They head to Las Vegas November 10th through the 12th for the Duel in the Desert, and down to Florida at the start of December for two nights at All-Tech. Later this week, the focus for the super late model crowd will shift to Lucas at Brownstown for the Jackson 100, and the Outlaws at Boyd's in Georgia. There is also big FASTRAK money at Virginia Motor Speedway, Comp Cams at Boothill, and more.
Before we move on, I just have to share a few photos with you that were making the rounds last night. I know we've been talking about the droop rule a lot, and the big point of yesterday's show was the racing at Kokomo after XR dropped the droop rule measurement. In the last few days we've seen the Outlaws' series director Casey Shuman have a back and forth with XR's Barry Braun on Twitter, and now these photos. This is the type of stuff the series are up against when it comes to rules and tech enforcement. The deck height gets measured and can't be above a certain point, so these guys are doing crazy stuff to keep the cars down before they go through inspection like riding on the back of the car and apparently even moving the deck bar down using ratchet straps or other means. If you read through the Twitter thread, Barry Braun with XR did address these photos saying some teams were told to make changes and that in the future these antics won't be allowed. But this is the type of crap you get from teams when it comes to rules and anything they can do to try and gain an advantage. Don't ever let the teams and drivers try and convince you they are innocent in these situations. The series and tech officials get demonized over rules, but on the flip side there is rarely public discussion about the things that go on to try and skirt rules. It is a non-stop cat and mouse game that frankly seems pretty exhausting. I don't want to be beating a dead horse over this stuff, but damn some of this is really stupid.
If you were paying attention yesterday, there was an interesting announcement from USAC regarding the upcoming September 30th national sprint car race at Terre Haute. In a release from the series, it was revealed that the race is being moved from Terre Haute to Kokomo. The piece says the race is being moved because it is quote "in the best interest of racers and fans to move the event to Kokomo Speedway rather than cancel the event" unquote. Just for some quick background, Terre Haute has new promoters this season in Scott Ronk and Bernie Stuebgen, and after they did a ton of work to the facility, things haven't gone super well this year. Following the two USAC sprint car races there in May, Ronk got on Twitter to express his displeasure with FloRacing and NOS Energy Drink, accusing the two parties of hurting his attendance and his energy drink sales over the two days. We talked about his comments on this show back on May 24th. Since then, we haven't seen USAC back at Terre Haute, because the Indiana Sprint Week show there was rained out. Ronk is quoted in the release from USAC about the event change, so I don't know if this move is because of his issues with streaming and one of the series' main sponsors, or if this is a sign of bigger issues between the promoters and the fair board that oversees the facility. The Terre Haute Action Track is part of the Vigo County Fairgrounds there in Indiana. Either way, it has to make you wonder about the future of Terre Haute again. The move to Kokomo makes sense, as it's already a regular stop for the series, it's only about two hours away, and Reece O'Connor, who is part of the family that operates Kokomo, was part of the management group at Terre Haute with Bernie and Ronk. So now the USAC Sprint Cars will go to Gas City tomorrow night, Eldora on Saturday, and then Kokomo next Friday night. Lawrenceburg follows on October 1st before the series goes west to close out the year at Cocopah and Perris.
Around the other dirt racing shows this week, Winged Nation has Wayne Johnson and Heath Moyle, Passing Points has Christian Kinnison, and there are new episodes of the Dirt Reporters from Dirt on Dirt, the Dirt Nerds, and Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks. To see the full list of shows and episodes, head over to dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
Also, if you want some more insight from me, especially around the sprint car championship battles that are coming down the stretch, I hopped on with Blake Anderson yesterday for his Anderson 410 show that's over on FloRacing. It hasn't been released quite yet, but it should be available soon.
Just two items on the streaming schedule today. DIRTVision has micros from Millbridge and there is FloRacing 24/7. 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 Wednesday.
Thanks everybody for tuning in, I'll see you tomorrow for more DIRTRACKR Daily!