DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Do we need or want a third dirt late model crown jewel race at Eldora? | Daily 11-14-2022
Do we really need another crown jewel at Eldora? We'll get into that, plus weekend results from Flo and XR and bunch more. Let's go!
It's Monday, November 14th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
We had two competing big late model events over the past weekend with the XR Super Series at Las Vegas and the FloRacing Night in America Series at Senoia for the Peach State Classic. At Senoia, the track did an incredible job to have the surface prepped and ready to go for two days of racing following Tropical Storm Nicole. We talked late last week about the tarping efforts, and Friday afternoon, they even brought in a helicopter to fly low around the track and help dry things out. That Friday feature ended up having quite a bit of attrition between incidents and tire problems. At the the end though, it was all Kyle Bronson. He dominated to pick up the $20,000 victory, topping Spencer Hughes and Garrett Alberson. It definitely felt like a full moon night though. Dennis Erb Jr. pulled in early in heat race one from the lead thinking the race had ended when it hadn't. The drone fell out of the sky in heat two in the midst of an incident involving Carson Ferguson and others. They also battled issues getting stricken cars off the surface with tow trucks struggling for traction. Things went smoother on Saturday, but the feature result was somewhat similar with one driver dominating for the duration. Only instead of it being Kyle Bronson, it was Ricky Thornton Jr. RTJ led wire-to-wire in the 75 lapper to pick up the $53,000 winner's check. His margin of victory at the end was north of ten seconds over Hudson O'Neal. Devin Moran rounded out the podium after missing the feature on Friday. Brandon Sheppard was crowned the Flo series champion for 2022, picking up $75,000 in the process. He didn't have a particularly strong weekend, finishing 8th on Friday and 13th on Saturday. But it was more than enough to clinch the title with Bobby Pierce out west. It definitely looks like Sheppard and his B5 team will have a little work to do through the winter to get their program ready for a national tour run in 2023.
At the Dirt Track at Las Vegas, the features looked pretty similar to Senoia, with dominating winners both Friday and Saturday. Things were spicy early in the show on Friday with Jimmy Owens and Bobby Pierce tangling in the second heat race. Pierce threw a slider at Owens into turn three which didn't quite clear and Owens took offense. The Newport Nightmare drove back by the 32 and then ran him into the outside wall right about the flagstand. Neither driver ended up finishing the heat, but both were eventually able to get into the night's main event. The reaction to the incident online is pretty mixed and I'd guess depends on which driver you are a bigger fan of. Owens though was clearly not a fan of Bobby's move and decided to do something about it. In the Friday feature, it was all Jonathan Davenport. He was out front at the end by about seven seconds. Brandon Overton and Shane Clanton completed the podium. There was no such trouble for Pierce on Saturday night though, as he dominated the weekend finale for a $40,000 pay day and won the event for the second straight year. Late cautions made this one a little closer than it actually was, with Davenport second and Billy Moyer third. The XR season closes out in a few weeks at All-Tech in Florida for the Sunshine State 50.
Back on Friday we talked about the 2023 schedule for the World of Outlaws Late Model Series and by the time I got that episode posted and distributed, the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series schedule for next year was out. Contrary to some rumors about the series' demise, next year Lucas will have 56 races across 32 tracks and 16 states from January through October. $5 million in purse money alone will be available for racers. The schedule is a lot of what you've come to expect from Lucas, starting the year with Golden Isles, Bubba, and East Bay, and all of your favorites through the year. There are some very notable changes though. The first, and I think biggest move is that the season ending Dirt Track World Championship that pays $100,000 to win is moving from Portsmouth Raceway Park over to Eldora. That was definitely a move I didn't see coming, and I'm honestly not sure how I feel about it. There have been complaints about Portsmouth as the home to this race, so a move wasn't out of the question, but I just don't know if I think this is the right place for it. You're going to have the World 100 in September, and then just six weeks later another big money late model race right back at Eldora. Did we really need a third late model crown jewel here? Does this cheapen the other races that happen earlier in the year? I definitely have mixed feelings about this one, let me know where you are in the comments section. Also notable for 2023 is that the Silver Dollar Nationals is moving from I-80 to Huset's Speedway. That was a poorly kept secret all summer. Huset's will be a kickass track for that event, but will the fans travel and support it? We'll wait and see. Other notable additions include a stop at Georgetown Speedway, plus the Farmer City 74 and Fairbury Spring Shootout, which were MARS sanctioned races a year ago, now become Lucas sanctioned. With the deal between Lucas and FloRacing for broadcasting underlying all of this, these races getting onto the schedule feel like the Michael Rigsby affect. Farmer City and Fairbury were part of the FloRacing Illinois Speedweek a year ago, which included two FloRacing Night in America races, and this will pump that week up a bit more. And Georgetown is owned by Brett Deyo, who has a deal with Flo to stream racing from Georgetown already, plus Fonda and the Short Track Super Series. So Rigsby and Flo definitely with some influence on this schedule for next year. Overall, I like it, I'm just not sure about the change to Eldora for the DTWC.
Before we move on, a quick DIRTRACKR merch update. I'm currently sold out of sprint car decals, but have ordered more and they should be back in stock soon. Logo decals and late model decals are still available. Also, I'm officially out of the logo New Era flat bill hats. I went ahead and put in an order with Kahne Screen Print late last week for a new round of hats, but these will be different. I'm doing some mesh back trucker style hats, with two logo placement options. They will be available soon over at shop.dirtrackr.com. Shipping in the US is always free and I cover sales tax.
A few other races to look at from over the weekend. Ryan Godown closed out the Short Track Super Series Cajun Swing with a win Saturday night at Boothill that was worth $20,000. The track was a challenge with the rain from the day before, and those guys definitely had their spurs on. Matt Sheppard actually loaded his car up and rolled out because of the conditions. Up at BAPS Motor Speedway in Pennsylvania, Brent Marks got to the lead of the Saturday sprint car race and drove off to the $6500 win. He topped Danny Dietrich and Freddie Rahmer in what was the final race of the year for a lot of those guys. And out at Cocopah Speedway in Arizona, Dominic Scelzi swept the weekend wins with the ASCS Southwest region. He beat Austin McCarl and Ryan Timms on night one, and Ryan Timms and Austin McCarl on night two.
I know things are going to start to slow down dramatically, but if you want some other dirt racing content to get into, head over to youtube.com/dirtrackr and click the channels tab. There I have a bunch of other channels listed and I just added Ryan Timms, Jason Feger, and Chris Ferguson to that page. Definitely plenty of videos and channels to discover over there.
There are two items on the streaming schedule today. So you are used to hearing me say FloRacing 24/7, which is basically a non-stop stream on Flo of whatever past content they have and feel like sharing. It's been a part of the Flo service since covid got started, and was originally USAC 24/7. Not to be outdone, DIRTVision has added their own version of this called DIRTVision Now. Same idea, 24/7 streaming video, but this one featuring World of Outlaws and DIRTcar content, plus racing from their roster of weekly tracks. No Perth Motorplex this year and no Xtreme late model series means there will be quite a bit of downtime on the service in the coming months, so this is their answer to fill the time. You'll now see this daily added to the streaming schedule. If you want to see that schedule, head over to dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
On the show tomorrow we'll get into some of the recent late model team news, plus we could have some sprint car crew chief stuff to talk about, so stay tuned for that.
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!