DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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When dirt racing merch shows up in unexpected places | Daily 10-27-2022

An NFL player wearing a sprint car t-shirt, on and then off again tire rules, and some cool sprint car content. We've got a little bit of everything for you today. Let's go.

It's Thursday, October 27th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

Every once in a while, we'll see dirt racing shirts end up in strange places in culture, or at least unexpected places, and that happened yesterday. NFL free agent wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. is currently rehabbing his knee after tearing his ACL during the Rams/Bengals Super Bowl early in 2022. He's hoping to get his knee healthy and get back to playing in the NFL, but that takes a lot of effort and workouts. On his Instagram account yesterday, OBJ posted a series of photos of him during a workout session, and you don't really notice anything out of the ordinary in the first three. But in the fourth photo, it's clear that he's wearing a Donny Schatz t-shirt. The car image on the shirt has Bad Boy Buggies on the wing and Chevy performance on the hood. It also has the World of Outlaws logo from before the Craftsman sponsorship began, so the shirt is clearly from 2015. We don't know if OBJ is indeed a big Schatz fan, or if sprint car merch is just making it's way into popular fashion right now, but we may see the veteran NFL wide receiver at a future Outlaw show. The Tony Stewart Racing Twitter account reached out to him, inviting him to a race, and he replied, saying let me know when. Hopefully they are able to get something worked out, because that would be a very cool crossover. Seeing a championship winning professional athlete wearing a sprint car shirt was not something I expected to see on Wednesday.

If you're a Chili Bowl fan, we've had an interesting 24 hours with the tire situation inside the expo for 2023. Yesterday afternoon it was announced that because of availability issues, only certain Hoosier tires would be allowed during the event coming up. That caused quite the reaction from the midget community, with the main concern being that a lot of teams had existing inventory of tires for the racing that were no longer going to be allowed in competition. But as of today, officials with the Chili Bowl have walked back that policy, saying in a release quote "We have rescinded the requirements for the rear axle, and any brand of Midget Racing Tire will be acceptable for use during the 2023 event. The tires that were posted Wednesday are the ones that Hoosier is manufacturing, but all discontinued inventory of Midget Racing Tire will be allowed for use" unquote. They also apologized for the panic and confusion caused by the Wendesday announcement. It's nice to see a situation like this where a decision is made, but then changed after getting feedback from the community about what's best for everyone involved. You can find more details on this announcement, on on the Chili Bowl in general over at chilibowl.com.

Over the past few seasons, if you've tuned in regularly, you know I've advocated for more drivers and teams to be involved on social media, including making their own video content. And when cool things pop up, I try and spotlight them for you. We've done that with TMez TV on YouTube, along with Logan Schuchart and Sheldon Haudenschild's newer channels. If you're a TikTok user, I've got a new one for you today. It was about three weeks ago that Central Pennsylvania sprint car owner John Trone decided to release driver Chase Dietz from his 39 machine. In the time since, young driver Cameron Smith has been in the car, with Trone still working on future plans. On the other side of this was what happens now for Chase Dietz. A couple of days ago on his TikTok account, Dietz announced that he's going to start his own team for next season. And it looks like he's going to use this account to bring us along for the ride as he gets things going. In more recent posts, he's showed us the shop he intends to work out of, and talks about funding and why this hadn't happened sooner. I'd definitely recommend following along, and you can find Chase on TikTok at race_dietz. If you're a racer looking to get more involved on social media, a situation like this is an awesome opportunity to build your own fanbase. With Dietz, we'll get to watch him build this thing and really feel like we're on the journey with him. That's not something that can be easily manufactured from outside a team, and this is exactly how drivers and teams should be utilizing platforms like TikTok. You can also do similar short form vertical video on YouTube with shorts and Instagram with reels.

Looking around the country tonight, there is some dirt racing to check out. The final USMTS weekend of the season starts with a stop at Tri-State Speedway n Oklahoma, before moving to Lakeside Speedway on Friday, and then 81 Speedway on Saturday. Dustin Sorensen enters the weekend with a 127 point advantage over Tanner Mullens for the USMTS championship, and things look pretty good for Sorensen. Mullens is the only driver with a mathematical chance at running Sorensen down, but even with three wins on the weekend for Mullens, Sorensen just needs to finish in the top 15. According to the series, a single top five run for Sorensen will lock things up. There is still plenty to race for though, with each night paying at least $10,000 to win.

One other modified show to check out this weekend is the Sooner Limited Modified Series at Elk City. They are racing for $5800 to win on Saturday night, with a total purse of over $40,000.

Also, tonight begins a big two weekends of racing at the Dirt Track at Charlotte. First up is the World Short Track Championship, which runs today through Saturday, and then next week it's World Finals. This weekend's World Short Track Championship features 10 divisions and they should get across 400 total cars. We'll see 604 and 602 late models, UMP modifieds, pro mods, mini stocks, hornets, northeast sportsman modifieds, thunder bombers, pro stocks and street stocks. This is a cool opportunity for some local racers to get on the big stage, but there will be plenty of notables in attendance. Chris Madden is expected to run a modified, as is NASCAR driver Justin Haley. And keep an eye on World Racing Group CEO Brian Carter. He's run a pro stock in the past at this event and others, and will do that again this weekend. But he's also going to compete in a crate 602 late model as well. I absolutely love the boss guy going racing. Grandstand tickets for Friday and Saturday are $25 if you are in the area, with a two day ticket costing $45. If you want to tune in online, DIRTVision has the stream.

Five shows on today's streaming schedule across the platforms. DIRTVision has day one of the World Short Track Championship from Charlotte. FloRacing has action from Georgetown and Flo 24/7. RacinDirt has USMTS modifieds from Tri-State Speedway, and there are mods micros and more from Tri-City Speedway on Speed Sport. 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 Thursday. 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!