DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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O'Neal vs Carpenter, Charlie Mefford, Terbo's emotional win + Davenport the $2 million man | Daily 12-5-2022
Have you ever noticed how you only hear about Tyler Carpenter one time a season? We'll get into that plus a lot more from the Dome, Jonathan Davenport is a 2 million dollar man and more. Let's go!
It's Monday, December 5th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
The Gateway Dirt Nationals inside the Dome in St. Louis are done, and man there is a lot to talk about from the weekend. I don't know what it is about this specific event, but it seems like every year there is something crazy or notable that happens through the course of the weekend. I don't know if it's racing inside, the tight race track, it being the final event of the year for most drivers, or what it is. Things on Thursday were relatively quiet, with Bobby Pierce and Drake Troutman handling the two features. That lack of excitement did not continue Friday. In the night's fourth heat race, the drama blew up in a big way between Hudson O'Neal, and, you could have probably guessed it, Tyler Carpenter. On a restart, Carpenter squeezed O'Neal down the backstretch, forcing the 71 into the wall at the track opening, causing big damage and piling up a few cars. O'Neal then was not going to allow Carpenter to go unpunished, so under the caution, he drove through the rear of Carpenter's car, causing a bit of damage and a flat left rear tire. Both were done for the heat, with O'Neal done for the weekend. It sounds like promoter Cody Sommer was going to park the 71 for the night anyway, but O'Neal's car had a destroyed front clip, so they packed it in and went home. Afterwards, there seemed to be a bit of a kerfuffle in the pits, but that was not unexpected. If you are aware of either driver in any way, their interviews with FloRacing afterwards were about what you'd expect. O'Neal not pleased with the way Carpenter raced him, and Carpenter was, well, Carpenter. I tweeted about this back on Friday, but T Carp is such an interesting phenomenon in dirt late model racing. You literally hear nothing about the guy all season long, except for this one event. He's a regional racer with not a lot of resources, so he doesn't really compete on the national stage. But the Dome levels the field a bit, and he can race like a hooligan and make it work. In this one event where he does get attention and is in the conversation, he's both a favorite to win, but also has the best odds to cause a complete scene at some point during the weekend. And he again accomplished both this year. After the heat race incident, he drove through the B-Main to finish fourth in the Friday feature, adding a little dustup with Tyler Erb to the mix, and then went tenth to fourth on Saturday in the big show. And now, we'll go back to not hearing a thing about him for the next 12 months. That is, unless he shows up somewhere like the Chili Bowl. And I say that because, Tanner Thorson was trying to start a campaign on Twitter to get him a ride at the expo coming up.
The other viral moment from Friday night was modified racer Charlie Mefford's roll in the B-Main and subsequent Blake Anderson interview. Among other comments, he led the St. Louis crowd in a "you can't park there" call. He also said "they don't call me pit lizard pimpin for nothing." Side note here, that is what is on his t-shirts that were available from Race Ranch, that quickly sold out online after the interview. To take advantage of his 15 minutes of fame, Race Ranch is now selling Charlie Mefford shirts that say "you can't park there" on them. I guess if you're an obscure 16 year old racer from Kentucky, and you're going to roll a modified in a B-Main at the Dome, you might as well grab some attention and sell some shirts doing it.
The Friday features were won by Cody Bauer, and Ricky Thornton Jr. RTJ was actually the mod winner. The main events were both entertaining on Saturday as well. We had a great battle in the mod feature between Jordan Grabouski, Mike McKinney, and RTJ late, with RTJ rolling on to the win. The track was pretty technical, and it made for some good action. That continued in the late model main event, where it looked like maybe Wil Herrington was going to snag a big victory. But a caution with five to go closed up the field and gave Tyler Erb the opening he needed. Erb jumped to the front after a wild restart and survived the final few circuits for the $30,000 win. It has not been a super great season for Terbo, and that was made significantly worse earlier in the week when he lost his dad to a heart attack. He, his mom, and his crew were very emotional afterwards. Just to give you an idea of how tough the night and the track were, only eight of 20 cars were running at the end of the 40 lapper, according to MyRacePass.
Down south in Florida while all hell was breaking loose in the Dome, Jonathan Davenport went over $2 million in earnings for the season. And he did it almost quietly. A fourth on Friday with XR at All-Tech, and the $40,000 win on Saturday put him over the top. I saw somewhere that his total ended up being $2,002,700. Which is pretty incredible if you think about it, because if you take out the Eldora million win, Superman still made a million bucks through the rest of the season. According to Dirt on Dirt, Davenport ended the season with 24 wins in 79 races. That's a win percentage of more than 30%. And I say he went over $2 million quietly, because it felt like most of the dirt late model world was focused on the Dome. Ashton Winger picked up the Friday win at All-Tech for $20,000, grabbing the lead from Mark Whitener with 12 to go. Tim McCreadie and Joseph Joiner were also on the podium. Davenport topped Brandon Overton in the Rumley car and Joiner in the Saturday race. Nice weekend there for the Hunt the Front squad.
So now, with the Dome done and the XR season complete, most of the late model world will take a breath for the next 30 days. We'll see a lot of the heavy hitters back in action at Vado in early January for the Wild West Shootout, and then the World of Outlaws season begins towards the end of January down at Volusia. Feel free to use the comment section below to leave your thoughts about the wild weekend at the Dome and Davenport's big money season.
Before we shut it down, quick hat tip to Krikke Motorsport and driver Dayne Kingshott for grabbing the Western Australia Sprintcar title over the weekend at Perth Motorplex. If you want some dirt racing in the coming weeks, there is still a lot happening down under.
Three items on today's streaming schedule. They are the iRacing World of Outlaws Sprint Cars on DIRTVision, plus DIRTVision Now. There is also 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 Monday! Make sure to hit that like button, and if you enjoy what I'm doing here, tell a friend! We'll see you tomorrow for more DIRTRACKR Daily.