DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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New paths lead to big changes for Jonathan Davenport, Bobby Pierce in dirt late model racing | Daily 11-15-2022

Durham and Davenport split, a new chassis for Bobby Pierce, David Gravel talks 2023 and merch sales, and we look at tonight's USAC midget show at Bakersfield. Let's go!

It's Tuesday, November 15th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

There have been a few late model news items in recent days that I didn't want to miss talking about, and I pushed them to today so they wouldn't get lost in the mix of the results and news from over the weekend. First, Dirt on Dirt reported last Friday that Jonathan Davenport's crew chief Jason Durham is set to depart the Lance Landers owned team following the final XR weekend coming up at All-Tech. Except for a brief stint with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series, Durham has been employed by Landers since 2014. He and Davenport were paired together in 2018 and have had one of the most successful runs in the history of dirt late model racing. Nearly $2 million in earnings just this season to go along with multiple Lucas championships, wins in the World 100, plus other crown jewel victories like the USA Nationals, the Silver Dollar Nationals, the North South 100, the Topless 100, and a lot more. Durham has been housing the Landers team in his shop in Kentucky, but that equipment will move back to Arkansas, and Durham's shop will be taken over by the Stormy Scott Rancho Milagro team. Durham will run Scott's program going forward, as they want to run a much smaller schedule, and Durham will take advantage of the added down time to be around his family more. This is very much an amicable split, with both sides very complimentary of the other in Kevin Kovac's piece. I thought I had seen somewhere that Vinny Guliani was going to take over as crew chief after Durham, but Kovac says that Landers has hired Cory Fostvedt from the Jimmy Owens Ramirez team, and that he was with them at Las Vegas. Definitely a smart move for Landers to bring in the new crew chief before the old one departs. Gives him some time to see how things were run and get up to speed. Fostvedt also previously worked on the Clint Bowyer owned late models, so he brings in a wealth of experience. Both Durham and Fostvedt will take over their new teams coming up at the Wild West Shootout in January. For Stormy Scott, getting Durham is a big pickup and should very much boost his program. As for Landers and Davenport we'll have to wait and see if they can keep up this torrid pace. I'm sure that car will remain key in the Longhorn and Bilstein circle, which should keep them at the tip of body and suspension innovation. From there it will be about the chemistry between Davenport and his new crew members. Over the past three seasons, nobody has won more Lucas races than Jonathan Davenport.

As for Bobby Pierce, he will transition to Longhorn Chassis himself starting with the Wild West Shootout at Vado. He's still going to run his Pierce chassis coming up at Gateway in December, and then will start getting new Longhorns ready after that for 2023. The car he won with at Las Vegas is likely the final Pierce Platinum Late Model chassis to ever be built, with Bobby's dad Bob choosing to focus on modified chassis going forward. Pierce is a five time DIRTcar late model national champion, has won the Summer Nationals title five times, and in nearly 90 races in 2022 has 20 wins and 64 top tens. Bob told Kevin Kovac that with him transitioning away from building late models, Bobby needs another chassis manufacturer to get hooked up with. And clearly Longhorn is the hot piece right now with names like Davenport, Tim McCreadie, Brandon Overton and others taking them to victory lane a lot. As cyclical as racing is though, switching like this won't necessarily be a magic bullet. We've seen other drivers try other chassis at various points, including in recent years, and not have the same success, so we'll see how Bobby fares. I'm thinking specifically about Jimmy Owens and Tyler Erb both trying Longhorns recently.

If you're a David Gravel fan, you may have seen he went live on his YouTube channel last night and spent nearly an hour and a half talking about his season and answering fan questions. There were a couple of notable takeaways, including what he said about his 2023 plans and some talk about making money and driver merch. The status of full time World of Outlaws teams has been something we've talked about quite a bit and will continue to keep an eye on as World Racing Group and CEO Brian Carter figure out how they are going to handle things like the High Limit Series and allowing platinum teams to race or not race elsewhere. Gravel said last night that his Big Game Motorsports team is considering both another full time Outlaw run and a pick and choose schedule for 2023. He said they'll decide once they know what will happen with the platinum agreement going forward. It is his preference to stay on as a full time Outlaw driver, and he mentioned goals that include getting to 100 Outlaw wins and winning an Outlaw title. Currently he's 13th all time in wins at 70. Gravel also mentioned something interesting about driver merch sales, saying that some of the top guys are making the same amount or more selling merch from track to track that they do from winnings actually driving the car. That would mean potentially someone like Gravel or Sheldon Haudenschild or others are making as much as $150 or $200 thousand dollars a year on merch sales. That's pretty damn incredible to think about. As these guys weigh decisions on whether to stay out with the Outlaws full time or not, that has to be a consideration, as full time Outlaw teams get those guaranteed merch trailer spots at races, while non-platinum teams do not. If you want to see Gravel's stream, head over to youtube.com/davidgravel and click on the live tab.

Today is a random Tuesday in November, but don't worry, there is dirt racing to watch today. The USAC National Midgets begin their west coast swing and the final run to the championship finale. We've talked about a few names we'll see over the coming days, including Tanner Thorson, Carson Macedo, Michael Pickens, and others, but the projected entry list for tonight's show at Bakersfield is north of 40. Very healthy mix of USAC regulars, California drivers, and a bunch of others incoming. With seven race nights remaining, Buddy Kofoid has taken control of the championship over Justin Grant with 194 points separating the two. Kofoid is trying to go back-to-back, while Grant is attempting to win two of the three USAC titles in 2022, with the sprint car championship already won. It will take some incredible performances for JG to do that though, as Kofoid is returning to an area of the country he's very familiar with, having grown up in California. Kofoid already has 10 victories this season, and in this California swing in 2021, he won twice, at Bakersfield and Merced, and had six top five finishes. In 25 starts this season, Kofoid has 21 top fives, 23 top tens, and an average finish of fourth. Very, very good. Other names to watch tonight include Ryan Timms back in a Keith Kunz midget, Mitchel Moles is back home after his move to the midwest this season, he's in a Chad Boat car. I wouldn't be surprised to see someone like Jade Avedisian be fast, and I wouldn't sleep on names like Ben Worth, Jacob Denney, and Alex Bright. Following tonight's show at Bakersfield, the series will have Wednesday off before the Hangtown 100 begins Thursday at Placerville.

There are three items on today's streaming schedule. FloRacing has the USAC midgets from Bakersfield and Flo 24/7. There is also DIRTVision Now. 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!