DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Tanner English, Riggs Motorsports parting ways; Sweet, McCreadie take steps forward towards titles | Daily 9-26-2022
A championship contender is losing his ride, Brad Sweet took a big step towards another title, as did Tim McCreadie, and a lot more from the dirt racing weekend. Let's go!
It's Monday, September 26th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
I have a boatload of stuff to get to today on the show, so we'll just jump right in.
I'll start with the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars between Eldora and Sharon. Friday at Eldora it was Rico Abreu driving up from third to earn his first official Outlaw win since 2018. It was something like 111 races between victories. I tweeted out on Saturday how much better Rico has been this season with Ricky Warner as crew chief, and the numbers are pretty staggering. Average finish is up nearly three spots. His qualifying average is more than six spots better. He's got five heat wins versus zero a year ago, and 11 dash appearances versus two. There was talk early in the year about Rico maybe going full time for 2023, and if that is still on the table, they have definitely got that program going in the right direction. It wasn't easy for Rico though, a late spin for Sheldon Haudenschild nearly collected the 24. There was also a nasty hit for Brock Zearfoss. I was glad to see him walk away from that one. Jacob Allen kept his top ten streak alive with a 21st to sixth run, which was good for hard charger, don't tell me there's no passing in sprint car racing. On Saturday at Sharon, Brad Sweet took a big step forward towards earning his fourth consecutive series championship. It took three tries to get the race started, but once going, it was all Sweet out front. He led all 35 laps en route to his fifth win of the year. He finished ahead of David Gravel and Carson Macedo both nights, and headed to Williams Grove this week for the National Open, the gap back to Gravel is now 96. As for Macedo, they had mechanical issues at Sharon and ended up with a DNF in 22nd. With just nine nights left, and the hole 140, I think we can say that Macedo is about out of this thing. Sweet and that KKR team have been pretty incredible down the stretch here. His worst finish over the last 11 races is sixth, and that stretch includes wins at River Cities and Sharon and ten top fives. If we stretch it out to his last 21 races, the 49 has finished outside the top ten just once, an 11th at Jackson. As for Jacob Allen, his top ten streak is now 15 straight races with a 12th to sixth charge at Sharon. The National Open weekend starts on Friday.
The rest of the weekend at Eldora for 4-Crown was packed with racing and storylines. We talked on the Friday show at Lane Racing dropping Cap Henry and crew chief Zack Myers with just three All Star races left, and when the show was done, we didn't know who the replacement was. For Eldora, it ended up being Sye Lynch. Friday with the Outlaws got off to a slow start with Lynch ending the night 10th in the B-Main. The Saturday program went better, with Lynch in the dash and a sixth place start. But he did fade to 14th in the feature. Remember though that All Star field was quite a bit softer with the Outlaws at Sharon. We don't know yet know what the final weekend at Fremont will look like for the Lane 4, or the future. I also mentioned I didn't know who would be in the McGhee 11, and it ended up being Logan Seavey. He bagged a heat win in that car, and ended up 11th after starting fifth. He and Chris Windom were the only two drivers to run all four races on Saturday. The Saturday All Star win went to Tyler Courtney, who led all but one lap. Justin Peck kept him honest though through much of that feature. I thought with the championship pressure off, Sunshine would have a good shot at the win, and it ended up being true. So now the All Stars have just two nights left, with a double header weekend at Fremont coming up in a few weeks.
In the Silver Crown race we had a big shakeup for the championship. Points leader Kody Swanson crashed out on lap one, and that combined with a win for Logan Seavey has left the standings tied with just two races left. The Bettenhausen 100 at Springfield on October 15th and the finale at IRP on October 22nd will settle this thing.
The midgets had a wild two nights with big crashes and some crazy racing. Friday night it was Cannon McIntosh going for a big ride, catching the turn one wall and flipping wildly from the lead. That handed the top spot to Mitchel Moles who drove away to the win. It was the second victory of the season with Chad Boat for Moles. Saturday didn't go so well for that team though, with Moles crashing out in a big way and ending up 16th. There was also a crazy incident for Buddy Kofoid and Chance Crum. Kofoid blew a right rear and Crum had no where to go. Both cars were destroyed, and both drivers are okay, if not a little sore, following the crash. Chris Windom drove on to the Saturday win, which was his first this season in limited starts. Nine points paying races remain for the midgets, and Kofoid leads Grant by 157 markers.
On the sprint car side of things, after a tough weekend between Circle City and Haubstadt where he gave up ground to Brady Bacon, Justin Grant clawed some of those points back between a fifth at Gas City, and the Saturday night win at Eldora. JG got by early leader Jason McDougal on lap five and that was it. It's not over yet, with still seven race nights remaining, but the gap between Grant and Bacon is now 80 points. We haven't seen Bacon win since all the way back in June, and that team will need to find a little more pace if they are going to track down Grant for the title.
Over to the weekend's late model racing, we had Lucas at Brownstown and the Outlaws at Boyd's. A story I missed from last week was the announcement that Tanner English and Riggs Motorsports are set to part ways following the 2022 season. I'm a bit surprised by this one, because English just picked up those wins at Davenport with the Outlaws and is still in the mix for the Outlaw title with Dennis Erb Jr. It sounds from the release and the Dirt on Dirt story that this move was initiated from the Riggs' side, but that things are good between the two parties. Riggs will continue to race with their sons, and English is now ride searching. He told DoD that he's open to any opportunities, big or small. As for that Outlaw title fight, not a whole lot of change over the weekend. English finished ahead of Erb on Friday at Boyd's, but behind him on Saturday, so the difference is 98 points right now with eight race nights left.
That Friday race was dominated by Jimmy Owens. He started on the pole and led all 40 laps to score his second straight Outlaw win. It was the first time Owens had won back-to-back Outlaw shows since he did it at Volusia in 2020. The Saturday show looked like we might get a similar performance, just from a different veteran driver. Dale McDowell led 46 of 50 laps, but things got good at the end. Ryan Gustin was able to track McDowell down a late, and a big move into turn one on the white flag lap got it done for the Reaper. Gustin went low and slid across McDowell's nose to take the lead, and he drove off to his second Outlaw win of the year. The move was definitely a little sketchy, but Gustin went right to McDowell after the race and both guys were smiling. The Outlaw season continues this weekend with stops at Cherokee and Senoia.
As for the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series at Brownstown, they ended up running both features on Saturday because of Friday rain. Both shows this weekend were also points paying, which wasn't a good thing for Brandon Sheppard. He entered Brownstown just 100 points back of Tim McCreadie, but is 180 out leaving the weekend with TMac finishing ahead of him in both races. The Friday feature was dominated from green to checkered by Hudson O'Neal. Daulton Wilson tried to make it interesting, but just didn't have enough, and he ended up third behind Josh Rice in second. In the 100 lapper on Saturday night, McCreadie led early from the pole before Tyler Erb took over out frot on lap 26. McCreadie seemed content to just ride for a while and conserve his stuff for a late race push. And that push came after half way. TMac drove back by Erb for the lead on lap 65, and in the closing stages, second running Ricky Thornton Jr. couldn't close up on the 39. It was McCreadie's third career Jackson 100 victory, and his fifth Lucas win of the year. Erb ended up third on the night, which was his first podium and first laps led with Lucas since Huset's in July. The final six race stretch for Lucas begins this weekend with shows at Tyler County and Raceway 7.
The championship finale we spotlighted for the weekend was for the IRA Sprint Cars. Jake Blackhurst came into the final two nights with a nine point lead over Jordan Goldesberry, but unfortunately we did not get the exciting conclusion we were hoping for. Blackhurst had disaster strike on Friday in the second dash. He got upside down in turn four trying to make a pass on the top side, and not only did it force him to scratch for that night's feature, he was also not in attendance on Saturday at Plymouth. Jordan Goldesberry ended up third on Friday and 13th on Saturday, and that was more than enough to secure him the 2022 IRA championship. Port Royal Pennsylvania mayor Dylan Cisney won the Friday show, while Jake Neuman won the season finale.
Other weekend winners from around the country included Daryn Pittman in 410 action on Friday at Selinsgrove. Anthony Macri won the big cash on Saturday night, taking down $26 grand. Lance Dewease won Friday at Williams Grove, Joel Myers Jr. won the Sprint Car Challenge Tour Show at Petaluma, and Kyle Larson won the main event in CBell's micro show at Texas Motor Speedway. With the Super DIRTcar Series, Matt Sheppard went 15th to the win at Albany-Saratoga. Weekend USMTS victories were scored by Cayden Carter and Jim Chisholm. Tyler Bare scored the big $50,000 FASTRAK win at Virginia Motor Speedway, while Tyler Stevens swept the Comp Cams weekend at Boothill.
The only items on the streaming schedule today are are the iRacing World of Outlaws Late Models on DIRTVision and FloRacing 24/7. To see the full daily streaming schedule any time, head over to dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
That's it for the show today, have a good Monday. Please hit that like button, and subscribe to the show if you don't already.
Thanks everybody for tuning in, I'll see you tomorrow for more DIRTRACKR Daily!