DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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It's been a tame sprint car silly season... What moves have happened and why not much more is coming | Daily 11-16-2022
On the show today we'll talk about the lack of a sprint car silly season, last night's results from Bakersfield, and no, the Outlaws don't have a kung fu death grip on sprint car teams. Let's go!
It's Wednesday, November 16th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
Before we get going, today's episode is being sponsored by MSP Mounts. If you do any sort of racing, dirt or asphalt, or you've got an ATV like a side by side, you're going to want one of these action camera mounts. These are made by racers for racers and are used by some of the top content creators in the game, including FloRacing, Swindell SpeedLab, and every prelim night winning car at the Chili Bowl in 2022. You hear me talking all the time about wanting more racers to get into creating content, and this is a must have piece of equipment. MSP Mounts were created by sprint car driver Dan McCarron, who you'll recognize if you're a fan in Ohio and Michigan. These can fit any tubing or bar that is 3/4" to 2" and there are multiple inserts that come along with one to get a good fit. You don't need any tools to mount or remove them, and they can rotate 360 degrees to capture any angle. Sprint cars, modifieds, late models, midgets, micros, outlaw karts, whatever you are racing out there, this will work for. And the cool thing is, I talked Dan into giving my viewers a discount for these. So head over to mspmounts.com and use code DIRTRACKR at checkout for 10% off. That's D I R T R A C K R for 10% off checkout over at mspmounts.com. Big thanks to Dan for his support of my show.
I wanted to talk today about the sprint car silly season, or really the lack of a sprint car silly season to this point. On the late model side we've had a ton of of moves, and it seems like the hits just keep on coming. Yesterday's show was an example of that with the recent announcements for Jonathan Davenport's crew chief and Bobby Pierce changing chassis. Those go along with moves for Brandon Sheppard, Devin Moran, Hudson O'Neal, and others, and there are still things to decide and rumors persist about a few other situations. On the sprint car front though, not much has happened, and I don't know that we foresee much changing over the next few months. If we look back through the summer, we've had a few moves. I'm thinking of Scott Bogucki and Kevin Thomas Jr. splitting from Clayton Snow and full time All Star runs. More recently we had Zeb Wise replace Cory Eliason at Rudeen, Cap Henry dropped from Lane Racing, and Roth Motorsports moving on from Kerry Madsen. Beyond that, there have been a few regional moves like Devon Borden leaving Heffner, Bates Hamilton and Tim Kaeding splitting, and John Trone and Chase Dietz parting ways. Outside of that, there hasn't been much else, and nothing super high profile. On his live stream the other night, David Gravel made a good point about the current state of sprint car ownership, and how there are fewer car owners and more driver-owners, and I'm wondering if that is maybe playing a part. If you look at the full time Outlaws for example Logan Schuchart, Jacob Allen, Brock Zearfoss, Kraig Kinser, and Noah Gass all basically drive for themselves or family. If you throw in Kasey Kahne and Bill Rose, that's half of the top 14 in the standings. As for the hired drivers, obviously Sweet, Gravel, Macedo, Schatz, and Haudenschild are all safe. McFadden is confirmed back with Roth, and Bayston was rookie of the year with CJB and had a solid first year, plus he has a multi-year contract. If you look at the All Stars and the high profile travelers, it's much of the same. Sunshine, Peck and Schuerenberg aren't going anywhere after strong seasons. Same with Windom and Balog. Marks and Macri drive for themselves, as does Rico Abreu and Brian Brown. And KCP seems happy with Gio. There is even talk of that program escalating back to the Outlaws full time for 2023. And outside of some other regional drivers and teams that I haven't mentioned, I don't see any changes coming for really any of the top 30 or so drivers. There will be crew changes and some sponsors updates possibly, and we await decisions on full time series runs, but that's really going to be it I think for offseason drama. I do think that Gravel's point about owners is probably part of the equation, but I also just think some of these guys are set in their rides. This stuff ebbs and flows, and this year is just a down year for changes. Drop a comment, let me know your thoughts on the lack of a sprint car silly season.
I also wanted to quickly address today the piece from Joseph Terrell that was posted to sprintcarunlimited.com yesterday. He wrote about the World of Outlaws needing to allow their drivers more freedom for next season, and used statements like "kung fu death grip" and "monopoly" when talking about the relationship between WRG and the platinum teams. I feel like this type of narrative is misleading and doesn't accurately describe how the arrangement works between sprint car teams and running a series full time. Again, World Racing Group does not control any sprint car team. You can run every single World of Outlaws race on the calendar and not be under any sort of restrictions from the series. Drivers and teams trade their ability to run wherever they want for a guaranteed payout when they sign the contract to be a full time platinum member. The tow money, points fund, bonus cash, etc. It's a contract, they sign it, willingly. That's not a kung fu death grip, that's a business arrangement. You might not like Brian Carter or the World of Outlaws, and that's fine. You do you. I understand that the series are touted as the bad guys in these cases, and I've seen the terrible social media comments and the emails. But this idea that they are somehow keeping sprint car teams on a leash is just not true. Also, WRG and the World of Outlaws is in no way a monopoly. As the biggest series in the game, they do wield a lot of influence, but they do not control the entire sport of sprint car racing. Even the creation of the High Limit series proves that. If they had an actual monopoly, High Limit would have been squashed, like the way we've seen actual monopolies squash their competition in other areas, like with Microsoft, Standard Oil, and Bell Telephone. I'm fully aware that some of you are going to get into the comments and call me a WRG homer and question my biases after this, and that's fine. It doesn't bother me one bit. I just think we need to be clear about how all of this works, so fans understand the actual situation at play.
Last night at Bakersfield Speedway in California the USAC National Midgets kicked off their final stretch of races for 2022. They ended up with 39 cars taking time in qualifying, and it's pretty crazy to look at the times and see just how tight these fields are. Jade Avedisian went quick time at 12.416. The top ten was separated by just two tenths. The top 20 was three tenths. And the top 30 was half a second. Of those 39 cars, 28% of them were fielded by Keith Kunz, with KKM bringing 11 different drivers to the west coast. With that many in the show, you're bound to have some of them run into each other, and that's what happened in heat four. Taylor Reimer and Cade Lewis got into a disagreement over real estate, and Lewis ended up going for a tumble and collecting Dominic Gorden just a bit. I guess that's the risk you take with such a big percentage of the field coming from one organization. With the field so tight and the track hooked up, there were some big names that didn't make last night's feature, including Carson Macedo, Jake Swanson, Kevin Thomas Jr., and Ryan Timms. Taylor Reimer ended up leading the field to green and she led the first six laps before third starting Thomas Meseraull took over on lap seven. TMez was never challenged again out front, including on two late restarts. It was his third series win of 2022. New Zealand's Michael Pickens finished second in a Dave Mac Dalby car and points leader Buddy Kofoid was third. Pickens raced just this last Saturday night in New Zealand, then hopped on a plane to head to the US for this final west coast swing. With the pace he showed last night, he could definitely snag a win in one of these races. The podium for Buddy and a sixth for Justin Grant means the points gap has been extended to 209 with six nights left. Teams are off today, and then the Hangtown 100 weekend starts Thursday at Placerville.
Out there in other dirt racing podcasts this week, Passing Points has Jerry Russell and host Michael Tyre is venturing into some coverage of sprint car racing down under, so check out those episodes coming up. Forward Bite has Devon Morgan, and there are new episodes of The Dirt Reporters, LoudPedal, the Dirt Nerds, and Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks. To see the full list of shows and episodes, head over to dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
The only things on today's streaming schedule are FloRacing 24/7 and 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 Wednesday. 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!