DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Lincoln track surface leaves drivers reeling, new Hoosier tires debut, and Rico's broken car | Daily 3-20-2023
Today we are talking sprint car tires and track conditions for the Outlaws at Lincoln, plus other weekend results and more. Let's go!
It's Monday, March 20th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
There wasn't a ton of dirt racing that happened over the weekend with so many weather related issues around the country, but we did get a few shows in. I want to start first with the World of Outlaws at Lincoln. The Friday show at Williams Grove was lost to rain and cold temperatures, so that pushed the debut of the new Hoosier sprint car tires to Saturday at Lincoln. From my own perspective, I thought the day was pretty entertaining on the new rubber. The feature was good, the heat races were wild, and I know a lot of the drivers talked about the tires seeming to have a bit less grip. And I think that's why we had a few issues in heats. Those low grip levels seemed to catch a few guys out, like James McFadden and Sam Hafertepe, who both had basically solo spins. The drivers and teams will definitely have some work to do in the coming weeks to get their packages better for the new tires, but it didn't seem like anyone was super critical of them. I honestly felt like the bigger story on the day was how quickly the track went away during qualifying. Especially from the start of the first flight towards the end. I tweeted about this on Sunday, but the massive fall off really hurt those guys who had draws further down the order. I went back through the dirtrackr.com analytics database, and I had the six previous Lincoln Outlaw shows in there. Of the six, five had split field time trials, and of those, the 2017 race actually saw flight B have a quicker fast time than flight A. The other years, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 the quick times in each group were separated by anywhere from one to three tenths. So things are usually very even at Lincoln. But not Saturday. Carson Macedo's flight A quick time was 1.23 seconds quicker than Freddie Rahmer's in the second group. And the big fall off really hurt guys like Donny Schatz, who had later draws and were killed by the fall off. After Brandon Rahmer scratched from the feature, we started the main event with 30, which included five Outlaw full timers taking provisionals. They were Schatz, Sheldon Haudenschild, Kasey Kahne, James McFadden, and Brock Zearfoss. Schatz, Sheldon, and Kahne were all qualifying victims, and McFadden and Zearfoss had heat race issues. Of the drivers that finished in the top ten in the feature, only Logan Schuchart, Justin Peck, and Brent Marks came from outside the top ten in qualifying. And all needed good heat race runs to get into transfer spots. After I tweeted about it on Sunday, World of Outlaws race director Mike Hess replied about qualifying and said quote "Early start time and a sturdy wind sucked all the moisture out of 1&2. Always try to hot lap a track to make it consistent but didn’t accomplish that yesterday. Of course more hot laps may have led to a worse track in the feature. It’s a fine edge sword to balance on" unquote. In the feature, Brad Sweet was on the pole, and he was out front for the first 22. Rico Abreu tracked him down in lap traffic and grabbed the lead on lap 23. Rico was unbothered from there, driving away to his 10th career Outlaw win. Rico had contact earlier in the race with a spinning Freddie Rahmer and it sounded like they knocked the jacob's ladder out of it. Lots of wondering if maybe that helped a little bit with Rico's handling towards the end. Sweet ended up second, with Devon Borden coming through in third for his first Outlaw top five and podium finish. Further down the field, there were several scratches from the C-Main, with Ryan Timms done for the day after a flip in his heat race, and Lance Dewease put it in the box after a disappointing 10th place heat race finish. I did think it was interesting too that Rico said in victory lane he was unaware of the compound change until race day. Good thing Ricky Warner knew what was going on. Later this week, the Outlaws head south for stops at the Talladega Short Track and Magnolia Motor Speedway. David Gravel continues to lead the points by 12 over Macedo, with Schuchart, Sweet, and Buddy Kofoid completing the top five.
Not far away from Lincoln on Saturday, the Short Track Super Series got their 2023 season back rolling again with a stop at Selinsgrove Speedway. Mike Maresca started on the pole and led wire-to-wire for his second career series victory. It was a nice $5000 pay day for Maresca on a chilly Central PA day. Billy Pauch Jr. and Matt Stangle completed the podium. Last year's championship sweeper in Matt Sheppard was never really a factor. He suffered a flat tire at one point, but did battle back to finish eighth. Both Andy Bachetti and Ryan Godown had issues and ended up with DNFs. The modifieds will continue their season this coming weekend with a stop at Bridgeport for $6000 to win. As for Selingsrove itself, we updated you back on Friday on the situation there with the new promoting group. If you want to follow their new Twitter account, find them @SelinsgroveSDWY, and the new website is selinsgrovespeedway.net. It sounds like some other social media stuff is in the works as well, so stay tuned.
Out in California, Justin Sanders won a 360 sprint car thriller at Placerville over Shane Golobic. Golobic led at the white flag, but Sanders was able to beat him back to the checkered in a drag race. The margin of victory was 26 one thousands of a second. Colby Copeland finish third in that one, while Cole Macedo was 12th in what I think was his first appearance in the Tarlton 21, after a mid race spin.
And in a rare USAC CRA appearance, Justin Grant won at the Perris Auto Speedway topping Brody Roa and Max Adams. The CRA competitors were supposed to be at Tulare on March 25th coming up, but that event has been cancelled, and they will instead try to race that day at Hanford. We'll see if the facility can be ready in time.
The only super late model race over the weekend that got completed was the Carolina Clash at Lancaster Speedway in South Carolina. Ben Watkins led all 40 laps in that one for the $5000 score. He topped Daulton Wilson and Gray Parton.
And finally today, the IRA Sprint Car Series is still a few weeks away from their season opener at 34 Raceway on April 7th. But they are in for a big season, with a large group of full timers ready to battle it out. Loren Kelly and Box3 Media have the list right now at 17 teams declaring their intentions to chase the 410 sprint car series all year. Right now, the list includes defending series champion Jordan Goldesberry, Danny Schlafer, Jake Neuman, Scotty Neitzel, Russel Borland, Kyle Schuett, Jeremy Schultz, Tyler Tischendorf, Austin Hartmann, Dave Uttech, Kris Spitz, Scott Conger, Hunter Custer, Josh Schneiderman, Jack Vanderboom, Preston Ruh, and Travis Arenz. A year ago, the championship fight came down to the final weekend, and we could definitely see a tight battle again. You can see more on the IRA at irasprints.com.
It's a quiet day around the streaming services, just FloRacing 24/7 and DIRTVision Now today. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
Have a good Monday out there, we'll see you guys tomorrow.