DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

Dirt racing news, results, discussion, analytics. Sprint cars, late models, modifieds, you name it. From national series, to top local shows. Brought to you five days a week. Email the show at info@dirtrackr.com.

This is the toughest era in sprint car racing's history, and it's not close | Daily 2-16-2023

Today on the show I'm picking a fight with the old guys over sprint car racing, plus we'll talk Wednesday racing at Volusia and sprint cars at Bubba. Let's go!

It's Thursday, February 16th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

I know there are a bunch of old guys that watch my show, some of you have been dirt racing fans for decades, and I sorta want to pick a fight with you guys today. On my Thursday show last week, I talked very briefly about guys going home in between races. I mentioned specifically Jonathan Davenport, but a guy like Donny Schatz has been able to use his private plane to fly back and forth for years. In the comments on that show, Mike mentioned that Steve Kinser never went home back in the day. And these arguments are my favorite. The "back in my day", "get off my lawn" stuff. My response was obviously that Steve didn't know better, and he also wasn't racing against fields as deep as they are now. There were a few other responses, but it's had me thinking about eras in sprint car racing since then. I want it clear that I'm not taking anything away from Steve Kinser. He's the King for a reason, 20 championships will never be topped. But, and acknowledging recency bias, sprint car racing right now is THE most competitive it's ever been. And it's not close. It is way more difficult now to win races and championships against the World of Outlaws field than ever before in it's history. And here's the evidence. First, in 45 seasons, the championship margin of victory was less than 100 points only nine times, but four of those have been the last four seasons. Also, in those 45 years, 31 times we've had at least one driver with 20 wins, but it hasn't happened since 2018. That's four straight years without a 20 win season for a full timer, which is the longest span the series has ever gone. Let's go a little deeper. In 2005, which was Steve's final championship year, he had 25 wins in 82 races, along with 62 top fives and 76 top tens. Epic stuff. But his closest rival, Jason Meyers, was 584 points behind at season's end. Just four wins, 27 top fives, and 61 top tens in 82 races. Steve had 34 more top tens then the next two drivers in that stat in Craig Dollansky and Donny Schatz. Last year, David Gravel actually had more wins and more top tens than Brad Sweet did, who won the title. And this is the part where all of you try and tell me that Steve was just that much better, but consider this. During that 2005 season, Steve was the only driver to make all 82 feature starts. Everyone else missed at least one, if not multiple. If you compare that to 2022, the entire top seven was in every feature all season long. If we look at why, I think the biggest reason is equipment. I do think in the past there were plenty of talented drivers, but if you had skills and were smarter, like Karl Kinser, you could build better cars and engines. Now though, everyone has access to the same stuff. Chassis, shocks, engines, wings, all of it can be bought off the shelf. Now the differences are much smaller, and it comes down to crews making better calls and drivers squeeking out every inch. Now that I've made my case, the comments are open. Tell me why you think I'm wrong.

Wednesday night at Volusia for DIRTcar Nationals, we got triple $5000 to win features for the late models, and the first program for the Super DIRTcar Series. The first late model victory went to Brandon Overton, who dominated the 20 lapper and topped Ashton Winger and Max Blair. Overton was fast Tuesday as well, but fell victim to a flat while running second. No such issues last night. In race number two, Tim McCreadie and Daulton Wilson fought it out through lap traffic, with TMac eventually getting away for the $5 grand. Wilson settled for second, with Devin Moran third. It was McCreadie's second win of the week. The third feature though turned into a bit of a mess with cut tires. I counted eight guys with flats, including two on Ricky Thornton Jr. Officials eventually found a piece of debris on the high side down the backstretch that appeared to be the culprit. Hannah Newhouse said they thought it was maybe left over from a big block crash. All the tire trouble gave the lead to Chris Madden who got away late to score the win over Boom Briggs, and a charging Hudson O'Neal who was one of the victims. I know that late model features are usually a little longer, at least 40 laps and up to as many as 100. But I really liked the frantic nature of the 20 lappers last night. Guys had to go and go now. All out for 20 laps is pretty fun to watch.

Starting tonight, the late model action flips from DIRTcar sanctioned to World of Outlaws. That should ramp things up a bit with more cash and points on the line. With just two races complete on the season, Chris Madden has an eight point edge over Nick Hoffman and Brian Shirley right now.

In last night's big block feature, Max McLaughlin rolled the highside on the start to the lead and never looked back. He topped Matt Sheppard and Stewart Friesen, but nobody ever really got close. It was McLaughlin's third career win at Volusia, and he's trying to win another big gator, which he did back in 2021. The big blocks continue through the weekend at Volusia.

At Bubba Raceway Park last night, the USAC sprint car competitors had a chance to get on track for practice after finishing up on Tuesday at Volusia. 28 cars were on the sheet as signed in, and it was Chase Stockon who went fastest. He topped Tom Harris and Justin Grant. Grant will be looking to start his title defense this weekend with some victories, and he's got wins at Bubba in each of the last two seasons. But we've got Jake Swanson coming in hot, Daison Pursley was a winner at Volusia, Emerson Axsom won two of three at Bubba a year ago, and Kevin Thomas Jr. and Brady Bacon are past winners. I really like how things are shaping up with this series to start 2023. You've got the vets in JG, Bacon, KTJ, Leary, you've got Logan Seavey in a new ride, we know he can win. And we've got the young guys in Axsom, Pursley, and Mitchel Moles who are all capable of winning. This feels like it could be a really competitive season for the non-wingers. Don't forget, this is one of the series we track in the analytics section over at dirtrackr.com. Currently 111 races in the database going back through the 2020 season, so plenty of data and analysis to pick through. Tonight's show is $5000 to win and we should have cars on track around 6:15PM ET time.

On the channel membership front, we've gone across 50, and I wanted to spotlight the new members lately who've actually pushed us to 53 now total. In the past week we've added Kent, Kevin, Jim, and DirtInfo. Thank you guys so much for the added support of what I'm doing here. If you aren't a channel member, and want to check out the program, it's a few bucks a month, and you can find the full details at youtube.com/dirtrackr/join or click any of the join buttons on the channel.

Looks like five shows today across the streaming services. DIRTVision has the first night of World of Outlaws late models from DIRTcar Nationals, which also includes the Super DIRTcar Series. There is also DIRTVision Now. FloRacing has 360 sprint cars from East Bay, the USAC sprint car opener from Bubba, and Flo 24/7. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.

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