DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Kevin Rumley, Brandon Overton go testing... With $60,000 to win | Daily 12-2-2022
Coming up we've got day one at the Dome, science experiments in Florida, and the All Star schedule. Let's go!
It's Friday, December 2nd, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
We are off and running inside the Dome in St. Louis with the first of two prelim nights complete. On Thursday it was all Bobby Pierce in the late model feature. He started on the pole of the 25 lapper and was never challenged out front. He grabbed $5000 for the win and a locked in spot to Saturday night's $30,000 to win feature. Second finishing Ryan Unzicker and third place man Tanner English are also in the big show. English continues to look strong in these early outings with his new Viper Motorsports team. Names like Ricky Thornton Jr., Shannon Babb, and Brandon Sheppard will all have to come through the qualifiers on Saturday after finishing outside the top three. As expected, the field is real big, with 65 cars signed in last night. In the ongoing story about Brandon Sheppard and his chassis choice going forward, his B5 machine was missing any sort of Rocket branding last night. The initial design concept that we shared had Rocket on the rear spoiler, but thanks to an email from Nick pointing it out, we saw last night that that space on the spoiler is now occupied by Dennis G. Woodworth, Attorney. I heard that BShepp had talked about Longhorn in a live stream somewhere. If anyone has a link to that, feel free to share it with me. In last night's modified feature, Drake Troutman bagged the win over Tyler Peterson and Michael Ledford, with the help of a front row starting position. Today for the Gateway Dirt Nationals, they'll do it all over again, just with a different group of drivers. Three more will lock into Saturday's feature, and then everyone else will have to race their way in tomorrow. The field for tonight includes Scott Bloomquist, defending winner Tyler Carpenter, Tyler Erb in his first appearance in the Dome, NASCAR driver Carson Hocevar who skipped out on the Snowball Derby, Devin Moran, and Hudson O'Neal. Doors open again at 2PM local, with on track action set for 3PM. The schedule is basically the same for Saturday as well. If you aren't headed to the Dome, watch it live on FloRacing.
In open practice last night at All-Tech for the XR Super Series, Ashton Winger led the way, with 20 cars officially taking part. This final 2022 weekend for XR begins for real tonight with a $20,000 to win show, and closes out Saturday with $40,000 to win. Should probably be somewhere around the mid-20s for car count, with names like Jonathan Davenport, Brandon Overton, Tim McCreadie, Matt Sheppard, Shane Clanton, Kyle Bronson, and more in attendance. Sheppard was third quick overall last night, and I'm curious to see what he can get done this weekend. There are a bunch of southeastern regional guys there as well, including names like Cla Knight, Jensen Ford, and both Hunt the Front cars. We talked yesterday about Brandon Overton driving this weekend for Kevin Rumley, and thanks to a couple of videos posted to the XR channels, we got a little bit more of the story. According to Kevin Rumley, they are using this as a Longhorn Chassis development program. They had Overton in the car during a test session back at Charlotte in November and are going to continue using it as a test bed. Kyle Larson is still Rumley's driver for the six, and Overton is still the Wells driver, but this is an opportunity to continue making advancements for Longhorn and their customers. It was interesting to hear Rumley say that he hadn't really worked with Overton before, even though they have known each other a long time. I'm always curious how much information gets shared among some of these big teams and the chassis manufacturers, and maybe it's not as much as I thought. Both of these race nights will be live on XR Plus if you can't get to All-Tech this weekend.
If you want to kill about eight minutes today, the World of Outlaws put out a cool video following sprint car race director Mike Hess for a night at World Finals. Several years ago, I recorded all the driver radio communications for a night and we cut them up into an episode of the Open Red podcast. This was kind of like that, but in video form. Tony LaPorta has been running around all season making some interesting video stuff for the series, and he did a nice job with this one. If you want to check it out, I'll have a link to the video below in the description, and I'll link to that past episode of Open Red if you are curious.
As promised, the All Star Circuit of Champions released their 2023 schedule yesterday. 50 races from February 3rd through September 23rd. As has been usual, the season will start in February down south with several non-points races, before the season begins in earnest in April at Attica. They'll open with two nights at Senoia Raceway in Georgia, go to Volusia for two nights of DIRTcar Nationals, and close that February run with two nights at East Bay. There are definitely a few changes along the way, and the season will now end at Eldora during the 4 Crown weekend, instead of in October at Fremont. Ohio Sprint Speedweek looks a little bit different as well, with Attica on June 9th to kick it off, followed by Fremont, two nights at Wayne County, Sharon, Atomic, Eldora, and then Portsmouth. Just like the Outlaw schedule, the reaction is mixed, but that's nothing new. Of the 50 races, 21 pay $10,000 to win or more, 15 are $6000 to win, two are $7000 to win, 11 are $8000 to win, and one is $8500 to win. Those two nights at Eldora leading into the Kings Royal weekend are not part of the Outlaw schedule, and they aren't part of this All Star schedule. So I'm guessing maybe we are looking at unsanctioned races for those two nights. Now we'll wait on the High Limit slate and what drivers decide to go which directions. I do know one thing though. If I'm a car owner who is interested in a touring series, I'm waiting to see what happens with the top Outlaw drivers before I make a decision. If there is indeed actual unrest at the top, and some of these teams follow through with some of the things that have been incinuated, I'd be ready to pounce. No spring California swing lowers the barrier to entry, and heavy hitters gone from the top would mean opportunity. Less drivers to share bonus and tow money with, and more wins available. Let the fun begin.
It's a decent weekend across the streaming services for it being so late in the year. You've got racing from Toowoomba and Perth down under on Clay-Per-View, DIRTVision has 360 sprint cars and crate late models from Volusia, FloRacing has the Dome the next two nights, and the XR Super Series is on XR Plus among others. To see the full daily streaming schedule through the weekend, head over to dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
That's it for the show today, have a good weekend! Appreciate everyone who continues to support the show in all of the various ways that you do so. See you guys back here on Monday.