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Hudson O'Neal salvages Speedweeks and I should have seen it coming | Daily 2-13-2023

East Bay was the exact track Rocket needed, and I missed it. Plus David Gravel starts strong, while others don't. And a busy Monday dirt racing schedule is on tap. Let's go!

It's Monday, February 13th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

The weekend ended up being pretty tough for dirt racing, with a lot of the shows around Florida cancelled, especially on Saturday because of rain. That included two of three nights for the Short Track Super Series, and both finale programs at Volusia and East Bay. The Lucas Saturday night finale was cancelled outright, while the World of Outlaws Sprint Car show will be run when the series returns to Volusia in March.

Wrapping up the dirt racing weekend though, it was a massive bounce back at East Bay for the Rocket cars. Hudson O'Neal went back-to-back on Thursday and Friday to earn his first two victories in the Rocket house car, and all five East Bay wins went to Rocket teams. It was exactly what O'Neal and the house car needed, and it was clear that a bit of weight was off Hudson's shoulders. He's under a lot of pressure as the new Rocket one driver, following Josh Richards and Brandon Sheppard, but these first victories will help his confidence. I think though that the pressure will remain all season for him to contend. And I probably should have seen this coming, and it's something I wish I would have noticed before and talked about ahead of the East Bay week. But if you look back at the previous two years at East Bay, Rocket has had a ton of success there. They won four of six nights there in 2021, and four of five in 2022, including three straight from Brandon Sheppard. Their package for the clay by the bay is clearly good, and it showed again this week. They were winless through the first 14 nights between Vado, Volusia, Golden Isles, Bubba, and All-Tech, and then roared back at East Bay to salvage a solid start. It was probably the exact track they needed to get to after the tough start they had to 2023. We'll see if they can keep it up into the rest of the year, against that potent Longhorn lineup. And thanks to some rough nights for other contenders, and being able to throw out some shows, O'Neal is right in the mix for the championship lead, only trailing Ricky Thornton Jr. by 50 points. RTJ's counted races are two wins, two seconds, and a third. O'Neal's got two wins, a fourth, and two fifths. Brandon Overton, Tim McCreadie, and Devin Moran complete the top five. After nearly starting with six straight top fives and two wins, RTJ's East Bay results were 13th in a B, 23rd, 25th, and he did salvage a fifth on the final night. He wasn't the only one to struggle through the week too. Davenport had two top tens, but was never a factor. Tim McCreadie was 27th on the final night. Max Blair was second on Thursday, but way down the order the other three nights. Tyler Erb had a roller coaster week, Brandon Sheppard wasn't great Thursday and Friday, and Overton was better in the 2X than he was the 76. With Speedweeks for Lucas complete, we won't see the series again for over a month, with the next race on the calendar being March 17th at Atomic Speedway. A bunch of these teams though will be at Volusia this week as DIRTcar Nationals switches over from sprint cars to late models.

I did want to mention too, the demise of East Bay Raceway Park has been talked about a lot in recent years, and it now seems as though we have a hard date for the end. Lucas will be back at East Bay for Speedweeks in 2024, but they have also scheduled a race weekend in October of 2024, which they are calling the Grand Finale. Three nights, October 10th through 12th, which includes a $50,000 to win feature. It's a shame that we'll lose yet another race track when East Bay finally shuts it's gates.

At Volusia over the weekend, it was a similar story with a Thursday/Friday sweep. The Thursday feature for the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars was pushed to Friday because of rain, and David Gravel took advantage of a sour engine for Anthony Macri to take the lead under a caution and drive away to the win. Gravel was again the beneficiary of trouble for Macri in the Friday feature. Following a caution for a Macri incident, Gravel took the lead from Buddy Kofoid on lap 22 and led the rest of the way for the sweep. As I said earlier, the Saturday show was lost to rain and will be run during the March weekend coming up in a few weeks. In the way too early points standings, Gravel leads Kofoid right now by eight, with Logan Schuchart, Sheldon Haudenschild, and Carson Macedo completing the top five. Not a great first two nights for Macri, but also for Jacob Allen, Donny Schatz, and Gio Scelzi. All three drivers failed to score a top ten, which was a bit surprising. Brad Sweet won the All Star opener on Tuesday, then was sixth on Wednesday. His two Outlaw finishes though will definitely leave that team wanting more, with a 19th in the Thursday show, and a sixth on Friday night. Back to Gravel, we know that 2 team was experimenting with some stuff the first two nights, but whatever package they went with for the final two features was definitely the right choice. Fourth to the win, and third to the win, and not a lot of competition it looked like. The sprint cars will be back to Volusia in about three weeks to kick off a reworked spring schedule that will now does not include a trip to California.

With the modifieds at Volusia, we did get to see a Travis Pastrana victory. He was one of the feature winners on Thursday, in just his third career modified start. Kyle Strickler wrapped up the big gator championship, while Lucas Lee won the speedweeks title for the year between North Florida, East Bay and Volusia.

Tonight, after having Sunday off, DIRTcar Nationals restarts with a whole new group of racers. Tonight and tomorrow are DIRTcar sanctioned late models, with two USAC sprint car special events that are non-points. Wednesday is another round of DIRTcar late models with the Super DIRTcar Series joining in. And then Thursday through Saturday are World of Outlaws late model nights with three more big block shows.

Across the state at East Bay, the All Stars are back in action tonight. They'll run today and tomorrow, before going quiet until Attica in April. Don't expect any Outlaw teams to be in the field the next two nights, but you will probably see some others come race who weren't at Volusia. East Bay will even the playing field a bit, and the risk for motor trouble is dramatically decreased. Last season it was Tyler Courtney and Cory Eliason who picked up East Bay victories, with around 40 cars both nights. I think both of those guys are solid win picks, as is Buddy Kofoid with the speed he showed at Volusia.

Four shows on today's streaming schedule between DIRTVision and FloRacing. DV has late models and USAC sprint cars from Volusia and DIRTVision Now. Flo has the All Stars from East Bay and FloRacing 24/7. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.

Have a good Monday out there, so you guys tomorrow!