DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Hoosier trying to curb sprint car tire advantage ahead of rollout | Daily 3-1-2023
On the show today, Hoosier is trying to be fair with the new sprint car tires, the Outlaws fill their TBA, High Limit sets their father-son announce team, and a lot more. Let's go!
It's Wednesday, March 1st, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
We're going to jump around to a bunch of stuff today. Lot's of little news bits and pieces from the last few days, so let's get you guys up to speed.
Coming up this weekend, the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series is headed back down to Volusia for another weekend of racing, and then after that they will head up north to Port Royal in Pennsylvania on March 10th and 11th. This is all part of the new look spring calendar for the Outlaws that doesn't include a trip to California. That Port Royal weekend though is also notable because it will be the first for the new sprint car tires from Hoosier. The New D12A left rears will be mandatory going forward, as will the D15A and medium right rears. This update starting percolating out around PRI and we've talked about it a few times here on this show. In order to keep things fair for all competitors, and to avoid teams testing the new tires in advance, Hoosier announced earlier this week that teams will be limited on how many tires they can get and where and when they can get them. Hoosier Tire Mid-Atlantic in Maryland will start distribution on March 8th and 9th, with sales happening all day. They will also distribute on Friday afternoon, March 10th, at the track. Teams are allowed to get six D15A right rears, two medium right rears, and eight D12A left rears. There will also be small additional allocations of all available per night through the weekend. Once they get through the opening weekend, tire distribution should return to normal channels going forward. It sounds like the area race tracks have all agreed to not allow any testing, and the World of Outlaws are discouraging other tracks to avoid test sessions to keep the opening weekend as fair as possible. Since this is racing, I'm sure some teams and drivers will complain about the process, but they wouldn't be race drivers if they didn't complain about something. This seems to me to be about as fair a way as there is though to make this happen. You can see the full info sheet from Hoosier with all the details on Port Royal's Twitter and Facebook pages.
A couple other World of Outlaws slash World Racing Group notes for you. It appears as though the TBA weekend for the Outlaws in October will be at Devil's Bowl Speedway. Lanny Ross Edwards was on the RaceonTexas podcast and talked about it. So Devil's Bowl getting a second Outlaw weekend for 2023, along with the shows this spring. There have been a lot of question marks and rumors about the future of Devil's Bowl, but for the time being, it seems as though the track is continuing to operate. Hat tip to my guy Vince on this one.
Also, the World of Outlaws Late Model Series have just postponed their weekend ahead at Smoky Mountain Speedway. Because of storms and wet weather, they have pushed it back to March 16th. You can find full details over at worldofoutlaws.com.
Out in California, their 2023 dirt racing season is off to a wet start, and the Silver Dollar Speedway has already cancelled their upcoming weekend. The track in Chico, now run by Brad Sweet, Kyle Larson, and Colby Copeland, was supposed to have 360s and Dwarf Cars Friday and Saturday, but not anymore. It's been wet and cold and the photo posted to social media with the announcement showed a drenched race track. They will try again in a couple of weeks with 410s during Mini Gold Cup. Looking elsewhere around the state, Hanford will give it a go next weekend, March 11th, with the Dave Helm Memorial, and we are still about three weeks away from the non-points High Limit opener at Tulare.
And speaking of High Limit, we already knew that Dillon Welch was going to call their races in the announcing booth this season, but yesterday on the LoudPedal podcast over on FloRacing, we found out that Dillon's dad Vince will join him for the 12 race schedule. Dillon is a common face and voice in dirt racing, having announced for USAC and competed in midget competition, while Vince is well known for his time across the NASCAR series with Fox. Vince had been the main play-by-play voice for the truck series and also was a pit reporter and appeared on other NASCAR shows before departing the network after the 2022 season. Dillon has made his own name in recent years at the higher levels, pit reporting for MRN and NBC Sports for NASCAR and other series. Pretty neat deal to have a father-son duo in the broadcast booth, and I do like this direction for High Limit. It adds a little something extra to their shows having two familiar voices calling the action.
If you're an XR fan, we've documented their new look schedule for the XR Super Series and the new point fund for 2023. They are also working on a bunch of other, call them technical changes across their properties. They announced the addition of a yearly option for XR plus subscribers. So you can now choose $39.99 a month or $199.99 a year. Changes to websites are rolling out and some new app stuff is in the works as well. The first XR Super Series event of 2023 is later this month at Volunteer Speedway. With well paying races and that new point fund, you should see a healthy group of dirt late model racers take on these events.
We are still about two months away from the start of the USAC midget season, but the Xtreme Outlaw Midgets get rolling here next week and I wanted to point out a few recent news items. First, yesterday it was released that Daison Pursley will run the full USAC midget slate with Reinbold Underwood Motorsports. We saw this same pairing back in January at the Chili Bowl, and now they've extended to include the full USAC season. This will be Daison's first full midget season since 2021. He did run 10 shows last year as he worked back from that neck injury. Pursley has also signed up for the full USAC sprint car season, running an entry for KO Motorsports. On the Xtreme side, their full timer field continues to grow with the recent additions of Lil Bundy, Ethan Mitchell and Cannon McIntosh. They join Chase McDermand, defending series champ Zach Daum, Jade Avedisian, Gavin Miller, and Kyle Jones as drivers to officially announce their full time intentions. The 36 race Xtreme schedule kicks off next weekend, March 10th and 11th, indoors at the Southern Illinois Center in Du Quoin.
Around the other dirt racing podcasts this week, Winged Nation has Freddie Rahmer and Anthony Tate from Volusia. Passing Points has new episodes with Blake Hahn and Ross Wece. Ohio Dirt has Brett Lane, Quicktime has Lance Dewease, Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks has Rylan and Brinton Gray, All Gas No Brakes has a bunch of interviews, including Tony Adair, Zack Mitchell, and Dewayne Keith. Hoogie's Garage has Bill Rose, and there are new episodes of the Dirt Reporters, and Dirt Track Confessions. To see the full list of shows and episodes head over to dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
It's a quiet day on the streaming services with just DIRTVision Now and FloRacing 24/7 playing all day. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
Have a good Wednesday out there, we'll see you guys tomorrow!