DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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What's up with the Toyota 410 sprint car engine? | Daily 1-31-2023

An update today on the Toyota 410 sprint car engine program, plus we'll talk a wild night at Bubba Raceway Park, news from XR and the All Stars and more. Let's go!

It's Tuesday, January 31st, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

If you weren't paying attention last night, you missed out on a drama filled program of Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series action at Bubba Raceway Park. Kyle Larson showed up which no one expected. Mark Whitener wanted to fight Logan Roberson after their heat race. The track rubbered in hot laps and qualifying and needed extra work to salvage the night. Shane Clanton, Tyler Bruening, and Tanner English were DQ'd after qualifying for being light at the scales, and then Clanton packed up and left. And we had several on-track incidents during the feature that wiped out some contenders. The battle for the win came down to Jonathan Davenport and Ashton Winger on a late restart, with JD coming out on top. Dennis Erb Jr. was also really good in this one, leading laps past half way. This was Davenport's first Lucas win of the season, and first since the Wild West Shootout at Vado. He'd had some decent nights at Golden Isles, but was actually light at the scales on Sunday after qualifying at Bubba, but did bounce back to an eighth place finish. Vinny Guliani said it was the crew's fault they were light on Sunday, as they did not put fuel in the car. Yesterday though, it sounds like maybe there were actually problems with the scales themselves, and series director Rick Schwallie told Michael Rigsby and the Drive Home guys that they would have a new set soon. Last night's third for Dennis Erb Jr., and a fourth for Tyler Erb, were both big bouncebacks after they've each had poor performances so far during speedweeks. It was the first Lucas top five for each driver, and Tyler Erb is in a big points hole, down in 11th already, even with last night's good run. Ricky Thornton Jr. was in line for yet another top five, but got turned late in the feature by Devin Moran and finished 19th. Moran took the blame afterwards, and RTJ slipped quite a ways back from Overton in the standings. RTJ probably would have been the points leader if it wasn't for the spin. One other note from the Drive Home, Jimmy Owens is apparently done for speedweeks. Five nights with Lucas have resulted in just three feature starts, and a best finish of 14th. He was also 19th and 26th with the Outlaws at Volusia. He was declared, along with teammate Jordan Koehler, for both national tours, so we'll see what this means for his status going forward. The Lucas teams are off now for today and tomorrow, they've got practice on Thursday at All-Tech, and then two race nights, Friday and Saturday, before they then head to East Bay.

I've had a few folks ask me in recent weeks about the current status of the Toyota Racing 410 sprint car engine, which we've seen used here and there in the last few seasons. We know that James McFadden and Roth Motorsports will campaign them this season with the World of Outlaws, and thanks to Christopher Bell's time on David Gravel's live stream last night, we got a few more details. Aaron Reutzel is still using one, and there are two suppliers building them, in Speedway and Rider. Speedway has the Toyota midget engine program, and we knew they have been involved. This was the first time thought I'd heard about Rider building them as well. Gravel asked about why they aren't actually available for teams to buy, and Bell said parts failures, mentioning specifically crank shafts, have slowed TRD's progress. They didn't want to roll out full scale production until they'd worked out some more of these issues. So JMac and Roth, plus Reutzel will use them in 2023 with a larger rollout still in question.

Bell and Gravel also talked about the new Bell Kemenah team and Bell's lack of a dirt schedule. We should see the BKR sprint car at maybe 20 or 25 races this season, but not full time. Gavan Boschele was in the car last weekend at Volusia with the USCS. And as I've mentioned before, we won't see Bell in a dirt race any time soon, as he confirmed that JGR is not cool with him running sprint car and midget shows, among other things. He said that Coy Gibbs was a big supporter of his extracurricular racing, but now that Coy has passed away, he doesn't have that support inside JGR anymore and that Coach Gibbs is very much against it. So don't expect to see Bell at the Chili Bowl, in a micro at Millbridge, or in any sprint car shows for the time being. You can watch the full show with Gravel and Bell over at youtube.com/davidgravel.

Yesterday the XR Super Series finalized what their 2023 season will look like, with a bit of a reworked schedule. We had already seen the dates for some of these events, but there have been some changes. This season, the XR late model series will have 10 race nights, starting March 24th at Volunteer Speedway and ending October 28th at All-Tech. There are three $100,000 to win races, four $20,000 to win shows, and three nights of split field, $5000 to win main events. Besides Volunteer and All-Tech, we'll also see XR at Off Road Speedway, Kokomo, Dubuque, and Gondik Law. There are no schedule conflicts between XR and Flo, XR and Lucas, or XR and the Outlaws. So a driver could run a national tour, plus the Flo Series and XR. There are no Las Vegas XR dates this year, and they are planning a full championshp, including a points fund, which will be announced soon. This version of the XR Super Series is very different than the one we saw in 2022, as the organizers find their footing and a model that makes sense for both the series and it's competitors. For more info, head over to xrsuperseries.com.

I was really hoping we'd get to see some sprint cars this weekend, and I was actually pondering a trip down there, but as of yesterday the season opener at Senoia for the All Stars has been cancelled. The facility is already wet, and more rain is forecasted for the coming days. The event will not be made up, so we won't see the All Stars until next week at Volusia. Monday the sixth is a full program for the UMP Modifieds, and then the sprint cars start Tuesday. We get two nights of All Star sanction, and then the World of Outlaws season kicks off Thursday.

Before we move on, a quick thanks to some new channel members. We are up to 39 now, with the addition of Shawn, Chris, Danny, and Greg. Really appreciate you guys jumping on to support what I'm doing here. If you aren't a channel member and want to check it out, hit any of the join buttons on these videos or the YouTube channel, or go to youtube.com/dirtrackr/join.

Last night was the season finale for the iRacing World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series, and going in, I thought Alex Bergeron had the championship about wrapped up. He had a 23 point lead over Tyler Schell to start the night, and Schell hadn't won or even led a lap all season. It certainly looked like a massive longshot for Schell, but right off the top, things went Schell's way. He had a much better qualifying lap then Bergeron, which set him up for the heat race win. Bergeron actually missed the feature transfer in his heat, and was forced to come through a B Main. The series awards points for heat race action, so the gap was 19 to start the night's main event. Bergeron needed to finish seventh or better to guarantee the title. Aiden Forster and Schell started together on the front row, and those two battled it out all race long for the win. Bergeron was able to make quick progress through the field, but stalled out mid race just around the top ten. He had a fierce fight with Tanner Pettit and Kendal Tucker, but was just not able to get into that seventh position. Out front, Schell took over the lead inside ten to go, and then coming to the checkered had to throw a massive block, which basically meant crashing with James Edens, to score the win. They were Schell's first laps led, his first win of the season, and with Bergeron ending up tenth, the performance was good enough to see him bag the $10,000 championship. It was an incredible comeback for Schell who just seemed to be right outside of contention all season, chasing Bergeron and Timothy Smith. On top of the 10 Gs, Schell will get a trip to DIRTcar Nationals to be honored and get the VIP treatment here in a few weeks. Massive upset from Schell, and Bergeron missing isn't something we've seen often. Definitely another fun season with the iRacing pro series.

Three shows on today's streaming schedule. FloRacing has modifieds from East Bay for WinterNationals, and Flo 24/7. There is also DIRTVision Now. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.

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