DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Battle between crew guy brothers underlines World of Outlaws championship showdown | Daily 11-1-2022
Did you know that this World of Outlaws championship fight has a family subplot? We'll talk about that, plus news from Parker Price Miller, Jason McDougal, and more. Let's go!
It's Tuesday, November 1st, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
We've been talking a lot lately about the championship battle for the World of Outlaws between Brad Sweet and David Gravel. 16 points separate the two with just three nights left to decide it. World Finals this week will be really interesting to watch as these two teams battle it out. Sweet trying to win his fourth straight title, while Gravel is going after his first. But something I didn't realize until yesterday, is that there is a family subplot going on between the KKR49 and the Big Game 2. It was pointed out in a tweet from Blake, and Blake I'm not going try and pronounce your last name, because I'll butcher it, but there are brothers working on these two teams. Sweet's crew includes bossman Eric Prutzman, Joe Mooney, and Andrew Bowman. Gravel's team is crew chief Cody Jacobs, Zach Patterson, and Trey Bowman. The Bowman brothers have been on tour with the Outlaws for quite a few years, with Andrew actually a past guest of ours when me and Ross Wece hosted Open Red. He and car chief Joe Mooney came on for our second ever crew guy episode. The Bowman brothers are from Ohio and came up through the ranks before working on Outlaw teams. Both of them worked in the past for Shawn Dancer, Andrew also worked on Joe Trenca's car. Trey was a crew guy on the Kyle Larson Racing two team before joining Big Game. Gravel did finish second in the championship a year ago behind Sweet, so the Bowman brothers were one-two in 2021, but things were decided before World Finals ever rolled around. This time though, Gravel only needs to make up eight feature spots on the NAPA team, so it will be on like Donkey Kong. Coming from the sprint car heavy state of Ohio, it has to be super cool for these guys to get to battle it out for a World of Outlaws championship. Just something else to keep in mind as you watch the racing this week.
Over at Sprintcarunlimited.com yesterday, Jeremy Elliott posted a piece about Parker Price-Miller and his future, and there were some interesting nuggets in there about the future for PPM and the McGhee team he's been driving for. PPM told Jeremy that he's working on putting his own cars together again, while also talking to other teams about partnering up for next season. Some sort of pick and choose schedule between his own team and whatever else he can put together is possible. He's also going to work with crew chief Kevin Osmolski, who was the head wrench on the McGhee car all season out with the All Stars. Apparently the future of that 11 car is in doubt at this moment, so PPM and Osmolski were already both seeking opportunities elsewhere. There is also apparently a possibility that we could see PPM crossover and run some late model stuff, with him mentioning racing in December and at Wild West Shootout after the first of the year. That would be good to see, as I'm always a fan of guys trying different car types. You can see the full piece from Jeremy with a subscription over at sprintcarunlimited.com.
The inaugural season for the Xtreme Outlaw Series has officially come to a close as of yesterday. The midget schedule had already come to a close with Zach Daum claiming that championship following I-44 Riverside a few weeks ago. The sprint car series had added two nights at Devil's Bowl to finish their year, but the original two nights that were supposed to happen over this past weekend were lost to rain. And as of yesterday, the event has been cancelled outright with no future reschedule possible. So Shane Cockrum is the first Xtreme Outlaw sprint car champion. In eight races in 2022, Cockrum had four top fives and seven top tens and an average finish of 6.0. He topped Alex Bright and Jake Swanson for the title. Overall, I think it was a successful first year for this new non-wing series from World Racing Group. Casey Shuman and Brian Dunlap did a nice job and were able to get a lot of good cars and teams on both sides. We had some cool first time winners, we had some drama, and a lot of good racing. And it looks like things are full go for 2023. Shuman is departing his role at World Racing Group to take over I-70 Motorsports Park, but he will remain in a key role with the Xtreme Series. And we know that the Xtreme Sprint Cars are back on the schedule for DIRTcar Nationals at Volusia coming up next February. I do think the cancellation of this Devil's Bowl weekend does not look good for the future of that race track. The rumors persist that the end is near for the long running track on the outskirts of Dallas.
Elsewhere in the non-wing world yesterday, we had a pair of news items for driver Jason McDougal. First, when the USAC National Sprint Cars hit Perris this week in California for the Oval Nationals, McDougal will be in a second car for Team AZ Racing. He'll join regular driver Jake Swanson for the three day program, with Swanson in his 21AZ, and McDougal in the 22AZ. JMac has made 25 sprint car starts this season with a best finish of second along with seven top fives and 16 top tens. He did lead laps at Eldora back in September. Also, McDougal announced his Chili Bowl ride last night, tweeting that he'll be in an Andy Bondio ride for the event. Bondio has been bringing cars to the expo for a really long time, with three wins to his credit. 1991 with Lealand McSpadden, and 2000 and 2004 with Cory Kruseman. We've seen Tim McCreadie drive for Bondio, and last year it was Danny Stratton and Zach Daum in his cars. McDougal has nine Chili Bowl appearances on his resume, with his best result coming in 2020, when he finished 15th in the Saturday feature. Last year he was fifth on his prelim night after leading laps, and ended the event 19th in a Saturday B-Main. Chili Bowl runs January 9th through the 14th.
Before we close out, I wanted to briefly double back to yesterday's show about standalone races. It seems as though some took my talking about the National 100 and Bridgeport races to mean that I think everything should be under a series sanction, which I definitely don't actually think. I also don't think that certain crown jewel races are included in this discussion. Those events have enough of their own history and prestige to live on their own. I more wanted to just talk about where some of these other races fit into the schedule and how you guys view them, versus making a definitive statement about what they should or shouldn't be. I do like that series provide an easier entry into the stories, and offer bigger context, but if you are just here for individual nights and features, that's cool. You do you. I am not advocating in any way for these races to go away, or to go out and add sanctioning, but it is incredibly unique in sports, and even motorsports, for races like this to live completely on their own, and have no other ties to any other races or tracks or series. I think that's interesting to think about and to talk about.
There are two items on the streaming schedule today. DIRTVision has day one of the Carolina Micro Showdown from Millbridge Speedway, 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 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!