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Knoxville Raceway adds third World of Outlaws event for 2023, what about Bristol? | Daily 10-11-2022

Schedule changes are coming for the World of Outlaws in 2023, the Flo late models are at 411 tonight, and we've got news from Anthony Macri and Parker Price Miller. Let's go!

It's Tuesday, October 11th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

We are getting into that time of the year where we will start hearing about races and dates for next season for the various big series, and we got an early look at a change for the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series just this morning. According to KNIA-KRLS radio, which covers Knoxville, Iowa, Knoxville Raceway is adding a two day Outlaw show in April next year. New track general manager Jason Reed said quote "this is kind of hot off the press, but we're adding a two-day Outlaw show the end of April" unquote. So this event would be right after the track opened for the year. Their season opener for this year was on April 23rd, so for 2023, we would potentially be looking at April 28th and 29th. And I would assume this is in addition to the June dates for the Outlaws that have been on the schedule for years. With the Knoxville Nationals, this would make it three Outlaw events on that calendar. What's interesting, is if you look at the 2022 World of Outlaws calendar, this late April weekend that will now be at Knoxville, was the Bristol weekend. So does this mean now no World of Outlaws at Bristol? Or does that event shift to a different weekend? I did a quick Google search this morning and couldn't find anything definitive about it. The speeds at Bristol have created a mixed bag of feelings about those races, so if you were going to replace the sprint car shows, you can't really go wrong with an extra Knoxville weekend. I also wonder about the future of the XR event at Bristol. We know that the NASCAR Cup Series spring race at Bristol will again be on the dirt in 2023, but a quick search this morning on the XR stuff was inconclusive as well. The 2023 schedule on the Bristol website shows all five NASCAR nights, plus NHRA, but no other events, including for the Outlaws or XR. So we could potentially be looking at a little schedule shakeup for both the Outlaws and XR next season. With as much work as goes into putting the dirt down at Bristol, you'd think the track would want to run something else to help justify the expense, plus running races in advance of the NASCAR weekend helps them dial the track conditions in, or at least it has in the past. If the Outlaws are indeed not going to Bristol, that would be the first of a few shakeups we could see for the 2023 slate. There are rumors of other changes coming as well. We probably won't get a good look at the Outlaw schedule for at least another six weeks.

Looking at some racing this week, it's pretty quiet around the country until we get closer to the weekend, but we do get a third straight week of the FloRacing Night in America Late Models tonight. Last week it was Dale McDowell topping Brandon Overton and Chris Madden at Tri-County Racetrack in North Carolina, and this week it's a stop at 411 Motor Speedway in Tennessee. The track sits about 25 minutes to the southeast of downtown Knoxville in Seymour, Tennessee, and it hosted the Flo series last year. Jimmy Owens led all 50 laps and topped Jonathan Daventport and Nick Hoffman in that one. Coming into tonight, Brandon Sheppard leads Bobby Pierce by 103 points in the championship fight with just a few nights left. As expected, and as Michael Rigsby hinted at, they did add another night to the end of the season. Following tonight's race at 411, they will head to Senoia Raceway in Georgia for not one, but two nights in November. The Saturday, November 12th show was already on the schedule for $53,000 to win, but back on Friday they added November 11th as well which will be $20,000 to win. So Pierce has three more nights to try and close down on BShepp for the big money. Pierce has the most Flo wins this season with two, while Kyle Larson, Jonathan Davenport, Sheppard, Dennis Erb Jr., Hudson O'Neal, and Dale McDowell all have one each. Tonight's list of drivers in the field will include last year's winner Jimmy Owens, Sheppard, Pierce, Tyler Erb, Ricky Thornton Jr., Brandon Overton, McDowell, Chris Madden, Mike Marlar, and we'll get another Kyle Larson late model start. We will not see Davenport tonight though. It looks like those guys are just focusing on the Dirt Track World Championship coming up this weekend. Also on the card tonight are 604 late models and modifieds, with hot laps set for 6:30PM ET. If you can't get there, you can watch live on FloRacing.

On yesterday's show we talked about Anthony Macri's rise to now becoming a World of Outlaws winner, and this coming weekend he'll add to his resume even further. The USAC Silver Crown Series is headed to the Springfield mile for the Bettenhausen 100, and Macri will be in attendance. He'll pilot a second car owned by Chris Dyson in the event and make his series debut. Macri has run with Dyson before, including in a winged sprint car and in a midget, so there will be plenty of familiarity this weekend. It also won't hurt that co-points leader Kody Swanson drives for the team. According to USAC's Richie Murray, we haven't had a driver win their Silver Crown debut since Marvin Carman did it in 1984. Tyler Roahrig was second last season on the pavement at Lucas Oil Raceway in his series debut, and David Gravel started 26th and charged through the field to second in his series debut at Illinois State Fairgrounds back in 2020. So far this year, Macri's win total sits at 23, and he's at nearly $400,000 in winnings. With just two races remaining, and Swanson and Logan Seavey tied for the Silver Crown championship, this weekend's race will be crucial in deciding the title. So multiple reasons to tune in on Saturday.

Before we close out today, I wanted to share some good news from Parker Price Miller. He's obviously had a rough year with the cancer diagnosis and treatment, and now dealing with an injury. But back on Friday he tweeted that his final scans showed he is currently cancer free which is really great to hear. We haven't seen PPM behind the wheel since that crash at the Knoxville Nationals that left him with injuries to his C7 and T5 vertebrae. In the weeks since, we've seen names like Cory Eliason, Anthony Macri, Cole Duncan, and Logan Seavey behind the wheel of the McGhee 11. I'm not sure if we'll see him behind the wheel this season, but he did say that he'll be back stronger in 2023.

There are two items on the streaming schedule today, both of FloRacing. They've got the FloRacing Night in America series from 411 Motor Speedway, plus Flo 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 Tuesday. 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!