DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Big questions surround start of 2023 dirt late model season at Wild West Shootout | Daily 1-6-2023

Today on the show, where we stand right now with full time sprint car teams with the main series, we'll look at the Wild West Shootout field, and more. Let's go!

It's Friday, January 6th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

This episode of the show is being sponsored by MSP Mounts. We are right on the verge of the 2023 Chili Bowl, and when you look around the building this coming week and watch the racing on Flo, you're going to see a lot of GoPro mounts on cars. As drivers are rolling around with two or three mounts on their cages, know not all of these are the same. If you want a high quality mount for your race car, that's easy to use, adjustable, strong, and built for the community, check out MSP Mounts. Sprint car racer Dan McCarron, who races 410s around Ohio and Michigan, and who's made starts with the Outlaws and All Stars, created these mounts because he wanted something better for himself and other racers. What was already on the market was lower quality, or you needed a screwdriver and several minutes to get them installed. That's not the case with MSP Mounts. High quality builds, these can be put on and taken off quickly by using just the included clamp and can fit rollbars and tubing from 3/4" thick all the way to 2" with the provided inserts. Spend more time on your race car and content creation, and less time worrying about your GoPro. Jump over to MSPMounts.com to order, and when do you, use code "DIRTRACKR" at checkout for 10% off. This deal is just for listeners and watchers of this show. That's D I R T R A C K R at checkout for 10% off at mspmounts.com.

The offseason is over and dirt late model racing gets underway in 2023 for real this weekend. We've got the Ice Bowl at the Talladega Short Track, and the Wild West Shootout gets going at Vado Speedway Park in New Mexico. Looking around at entries, we should be right around 60 cars to start the week at Vado. It's kind of an eclectic mix of drivers and teams from around the country. The drivers to keep an eye on for wins include names like Tyler Erb, Kyle Larson, Jonathan Davenport, Mike Marlar, and I like Garrett Alberson. I'll be curious to see how the season gets started for Davenport with a new crew chief leading the way. Bobby Pierce could be in the mix as well, but he'll be adjusting to a new Longhorn Chassis. I feel similarly about Brandon Sheppard. This will be his first full event with the Sheppard Riggs Racing team and their new Longhorns. These guys could come out of the gate hot, or they could need some time to sort their new setups. Other names on the entry list include Cade Dillard, who's been pretty quiet on the national scene lately, Billy Moyer is racing, we'll see Dustin Sorensen for the first time in the 28 car that Jimmy Mars made famous, and Ricky Weiss will be in attendance. I do think this week sets up really well for Larson and Kevin Rumley to succeed. Larson will have a chance to get comfortable in the late model again after a night or two, and then really work on being dialed down the stretch. The event will run Saturday and Sunday, take Monday and Tuesday off, run Wednesday, Thursday off, and then Friday, Saturday, and Sunday through January 15th. All of the shows are $10,000 to win and $600 to start, with the finale on Sunday being $25,000 to win and $1000 to start. There is also a $10,000 point fund for the week, with the champion getting $3 grand of that. Competitors will also have a shot at extra cash by winning a bunch of the nights, although the bonuses seem unlikely. Six wins will get an additional $300,000, five gets $100 grand, and four gets $25,000. With the level of competition in the pits, even four wins on the week seems incredibly difficult. So don't expect any of that cash to actually get paid out. Modifieds and X-Mods are also on the card for the week, and if you aren't headed to Vado, FloRacing will have live coverage. I'll be curious to see how the crowds are for these nights of racing. Vado hasn't typically drawn well in the past, and I don't know that I'd expect much different this year. It's an incredible facility that Royal Jones has there, but it's not exactly in or near a hot bed of dirt racing. So we'll see. The Wild West Shootout starts tomorrow.

One other dirt late model note for you today, the Comp Cams Super Dirt Series will compete under the DIRTcar sanction for 2023. That includes adopting DIRTcar rules and the unified dirt late model tire from Hoosier. It sounds like they hope that will make it easier for some teams to compete with them, because they won't need to make changes to their cars or have extra tires available. The 2023 season for the Comp Cams series starts in March at Boothill Speedway. For more info, visit compdirt.com.

Writer Alex Nieten had a piece yesterday over at speedsport.com about Zeb Wise and Rudeen Racing. In it, Wise revealed that the Rudeen 26 will again run the full All Star schedule this year, along with select World of Outlaws shows, and as many High Limit races as they can get to. As I talked about last week when we dove into the series or pick-and-choose model, the early season show at Tulare, and the summer race at Grandview were ones that Wise pointed to as High Limit shows they'd probably miss. Tulare won't matter as it's non-points, but that Grandview race will be why All Star drivers don't compete for the High Limit championship. I've had a few people comment that the All Star guys could fly back and forth for that one and have cars ready at Grandview, but that won't happen. Yes, it's possible for drivers to do that, but what car owners are going to roll out a 410 for one race to keep these guys in the points? There aren't 410 sprint car teams just lying around waiting for drivers to call. With this bit of information from Wise, I did want to take another look at confirmed full timers for the sprint car series. Right now, the All Stars have Scotty Thiel and Premier confirmed. Add Wise to that list makes two. It sounds like Chris Windom and Hayward will be back with NOS, and a Facebook post from Buch Motorsports seems to point towards Justin Peck being back. That's four. We know that Kyle Reinhardt is not returning, and Tyler Courtney's plans are still not public. I'd assume Hunter Schuerenberg will be back with the Vermeer car, so that's five. The futures are uncertain for Cap Henry and the Lane Racing car he parted ways with at the end of 2022. Bill Balog has a new team partnership, but that team isn't confirmed publicly as of yet. So right now, we can count five with the All Stars; Wise, Thiel, Windom, Peck, and Schuerenberg.

On the High Limit side, we have three confirmed in Kyle Larson, Rico Abreu, and Buddy Kofoid. Alex Bowman told FloRacing he'll try and run as many of those races as he can, but he didn't say full time necessarily. And we know a lot of guys, like Wise, will run a sizeable portion of this schedule. I do think drivers like Brian Brown and Brent Marks could run all of these as well.

With the World of Outlaws, we are sitting at six full timers right now. They are James McFadden with Roth and Toyota power. Noah Gass is back for year two, and Robbie Price is returning to the Sides 7S. We mentioned Logan Schuchart confirming to Steve Post that Shark Racing will be back, so that's Schuchart and Jacob Allen. And Bill Rose plans to attempt the full series again, on top of running a big block modified at DIRTcar Nationals. I've heard rumors of potentially two new additions, and if any of the big names decide to drop off, like Brad Sweet or Sheldon Haudenschild, that could be opportunity for others to step in. That would be wins, and plenty of money opened up with their absences. Gravel said the other night they are waiting on clarification on how certain races will be handled in the restrictions, but my feeling is that teams will sign up to start the year, get the provisionals and tow money early, and then play it by ear. If they get pissed again, or are down the standings, or their math works out differently, they will fall off later. Similar to what we see from some teams in dirt late model racing, and we've seen these games played before with the Outlaws. So, on January 6th, with less than a month to go until the first All Star races at Senoia, that's where we stand with full timers right now.

Before we go, there have been questions about the famous Chili Bowl pool, and as of yesterday, it sounds like things are still on, but we don't have the sheet yet. I was thinking about maybe doing a live stream on the YouTube channel on Sunday. Sort of half watch party for Chili Bowl practice and we can talk about the various pool information. I know a lot of you probably watch football, so I was thinking about doing it earlier in the day, to coincide with the morning practice sessions. Drop me a comment, let me know if that would work for you and if you'd stop by.

It's going to be a busy weekend across the streaming services, starting today. Racing down under on Clay-Per-View, FloRacing has the Wild West Shootout, Chili Bowl, and more. There are also shows on Speed Sport, RacinDirt, and DIRTVision. To keep up all weekend, head over to dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.

Alright, that's it for the show. Have a good weekend. Thanks everyone for tuning in. We'll be back here tomorrow for more DIRTRACKR Daily.