DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Kyle Busch teaming with heavy hitter, Payton Freeman's rookie season over | Daily 3-24-2023
Packed show today, including details on Kyle Busch back in a dirt late model, a brighter future for Terre Haute, the Outlaws in action, and a weird situation at Bridgeport. Let's go!
It's Friday, March 24th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
We'll start your Friday off with a couple of late model news items from the past 24 hours. First, big time NASCAR guy Kyle Busch will be back in a dirt late model coming up in a few weeks. He's going to run Kyle Larson's late model show at Volunteer Speedway on April 6th in a Wells Motorsports ride as a teammate to Brandon Overton. This will be Busch's first time back in a dirt late model since he ran the Bristol Dirt Nationals back in 2021. He ran those races to prepare for the first NASCAR Bristol dirt weekend, and teamed up with Jonathan Davenport and Landers for those two starts. He finished 13th and 11th respectively. Busch is also a past winner of the Prelude to the Dream at Eldora. On top of that, Busch has been making sporatic starts in micro competition, including the past two years at the Tulsa Shootout. That Larson show at Bulls Gap is $20,000 to win on the Thursday before the Food City Dirt Race at Bristol for the Cup Series. It should draw a very healthy field of entrants, and we've already talked about the two week stretch of racing there in Tennessee that will pay big money.
Also yesterday, we found out that in the continued fallout over the GR Smith/Ashton Winger incident at Southern Raceway, driver Payton Freeman will not stay out full time with the World of Outlaws. Freeman was attempting his rookie run with the Outlaws, but that was happening in the GR Smith owned 22. Now that Freeman has split with Smith and returned to his family owned car after the fiasco, the team is not prepared to continue that pursuit. In a statement yesterday, the team said quote "We were going to be rushed to get the cars, motors and team assembled. We just want to do it the right way. We are still eligible for 2024 and will have time to have everything and everyone in place to do it the right way" unquote. The plan is to have the F1 back on track some time in April, with a full schedule still to come.
Before we move on to several other news items, I did want to talk about the World of Outlaws at Talladega and Magnolia this weekend. Talladega is on tap for tonight, with Magnolia the stop on Saturday. These are two tracks that teams will have limited notes on, as Talladega hasn't been on the Outlaw schedule since 2011, and the series has just a single appearance at the Mag, back in 2021. David Gravel got the last win at Talladega back in 2011, it was his first career Outlaw victory, and he enters the weekend as the series points leader. If you're curious, Sheldon Haudenschild has the lone Magnolia victory. So setups and notes will be a question mark, and this all comes on the heels of the introduction of the new sprint car tire. So things tonight and tomorrow should be pretty wide open. I'm not sure what we'll see in terms of a car count both nights. Besides the Outlaw regulars, I do know that Buddy Kofoid is coming, as is Bill Balog and Rico Abreu. After what we saw at Lincoln, Rico might be a guy to really pay attention to the next two nights with things possibly evened out a bit. Through these first six races, Carson Macedo and Logan Schuchart are the only guys with top ten finishes every night, and Macedo is currently riding a 12 race top ten streak that goes back to last season. Some guys who will be looking to turn things around this weekend include Donny Schatz, who we talked about on yesterday's show. Ninth in points and already 92 back. Gio Scelzi has just a single top ten so far this year, and he needs to get things going in a solid direction this first season out with the Outlaws full time. And Jacob Allen has been disappointing so far, with just a single top five and top ten finish, a third at Volusia on March 6th. His last nine Outlaw starts have resulted in finishes of 14th or worse eight times. He's way down in 15th in the standings currently. If you aren't in the area, watch both nights live on DIRTVision.
The USAC midget full time field continues to fill out, and yesterday, to no surprise, it was announced that Cannon McIntosh will chase the full schedule in 2023. He had already signed on to run the full Xtreme Midget slate, and he'll be one of a few who will now do both. He was fifth in the USAC standings a year ago, and has six career series victories on his resume. In the piece from Richie Murray, McIntosh made it clear they are out to win the title, but to do so, he'll have to take a big step forward in terms of his consistency. I don't want to directly compare him to Buddy Kofoid and that run in 2022, because what Buddy did was historic. But his average finish of 9.13 from a year ago just isn't going to get it done. He's going to have to get that into at least the sixes to have any shot at the championship. Last season, Justin Grant's five wins, 17 top fives, 25 top tens, and average finish of 6.8 were well clear of McIntosh. The mistakes and the mechanical gremlins will have to be all but eliminated going forward. The addition of McIntosh makes it nine total right now, joining Jake Andreotti, Jacob Denney, Logan Seavey, Chance Crum, Daison Pursley, Ryan Timms, Taylor Reimer, and Bryant Wiedeman.
The Terre Haute Action Track is officially back from the dead. We knew there was movement happening at the track and that something was in the works for the 2023 schedule, and the fair board announced yesterday their plans for this season. World of Outlaws full timer Bill Rose has been named the new promoter of the track, and they will host three USAC shows this year. The USAC Silver Crown cars will open up on April 16th at Terre Haute for the Sumar Classic. That show will also feature UMP modifieds. In May, we'll get the 53rd running of the Tony Hulman Classic for the USAC National Sprint Cars. And then later in July, the sprint cars will return for round five of Indiana Sprint Week. At this moment, these are the only three races planned for the year at Terre Haute. This is good news for a track that's been in limbo since the deal went sideways between Scott Ronk, Bernie Stuebgen, and the fair board during 2022. Hopefully things go a little easier for Rose than they have in the recent past for Terre Haute promoters.
Ahead of their upcoming shows at Attica to start their regular season, the All Star Circuit of Champions have named a new series director. That position had been open after the departure of long time series boss Eric Walls. But going forward, veteran racer Kevin Nouse will take the reigns. Nouse spent much of 2022 as an official for the All Stars, and his trackside role will continue in 2023, before transitioning to the tower to also race direct in 2024. In the meantime, long time scorer Ross Paulson will slide over and race direct, with Brad Hockaday taking over that timing and scoring role at most events. Ken Osborne, John Menear, and Steve Topper remain as tech officials, Erin Noel is back as pit steward and social media creator, and my guy Blake Anderson continues as the regular series announcer and Space Jam DJ. This transition won't hardly even be noticed by the fans in the stands, as this is a veteran group already that knows how to get this series up and down the road. The All Star season starts up again in two weeks.
If you're a northeast modified fan, we've got a bit of weird situation this weekend at Bridgeport. The Hoffman Memorial was supposed to go down on Friday and Saturday as a Short Track Super Series event. But because of weather, the Short Track Super Series has withdrawn their sanction from the weekend. The event isn't cancelled, at least not yet anyway though. Bridgeport has sacked Friday and Saturday, and they are going to attempt to race on Sunday, with all payout and rules stuff the same, just without the STSS sanction. Modifieds and sportsman are still on the slate, but the track is monitoring weather and conditions for that Sunday rain date. So keep an eye on this one if you were planning on heading to Bridgeport this weekend.
At Humboldt Speedway last night for the King of America opener for the USMTS Modifieds, 56 year old Terry Phillips topped the 62 car field for his 39th career series victory. Phillips was emotional in victory lane afterwards, announcing his retirement from dirt late model competition. He led all 35 laps in the main event, topping Jason Hughes and Ryan Gustin. With so much late model racing rained out this week, a few late model guys went ahead and jumped back in modifieds for this event, including Gustin, Johnny Scott, and Ricky Thornton Jr. will join the fun starting tonight. The USMTS competitors continue the fun tonight and tomorrow, with Saturday's big show paying $12,000 to win.
We've got a solid streaming weekend ahead if you can't get out to the race track. The World of Outlaws sprint cars on DIRTVision, the USMTS on RacinDirt, plus plenty of local and regional action. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
Have a good weekend out there, we'll see you guys back here on Monday.