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A fire, crashes, double duty, and April Fools pranks from the dirt racing weekend | Daily 4-3-2023
Double duty at two different race tracks, unfortunate events for two Port Royal racers, and more from the dirt racing weekend. Let's go!
It's Monday, April 3rd, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
So Saturday was April Fools day, and I saw this social media post, and I figured it wasn't true even though I wanted it to be true. Ricky Thornton Jr. posted a photo on his Facebook account of a sprint car, no decals, and said he was going to run the Million at Eldora. Obviously on April 1st you can't believe anything you see on the internet, but man it would have been cool. Later on, after I tweeted about it, it was revealed that the photo was actually of Billy Dietrich's car from a few years ago. It's a shame, because Ricky Thornton Jr. at Eldora for the Million would have been really fun. Oh well, I guess we'll just have to keep dreaming. On the flip side, RTJ did pick up a win over the weekend, going to victory lane on Friday night with the MLRA at Wheatland. He got the lead from Dillon McCowan on lap 14 and never looked back. It was a $5000 win, and not surprising to see nearly 50 cars in attendance with the complete lack of super late model racing we've seen. On Saturday night with the MLRA, it was all Jonathan Davenport. He went quick time, won his heat, and led every lap of the feature. Nice bounce back for those guys who had an up and down speedweeks down south, and a tough trip to Boothill a few weeks ago. Hat tip to all those guys at Wheatland too, not a single caution in either feature over the two nights of racing.
Elsewhere around the country, we did get to see a bunch of other racing, and there were some interesting stories. Thanks to a heads up from my guy Ross Wece, and some great social coverage from Loren Kelly and Box3 we got to follow Joe B. Miller do something you don't see every day. Lots of drivers do double duty on the same night, running multiple divisions. But how often do you see a guy do double duty at two different race tracks? Joe B. ran his winged micro at Doe Run Raceway, and his 410 sprint car at St Francois about nine miles away. So he spent the night driving back and forth between the two race tracks and almost pulled off the sweep. He went third to first in the sprint car feature, topping Steve Short and Kyle Bellm, and was leading in the micro feature when the oil filter o-ring blew out. Hell of an effort though, and about what'd you expect from a guy like Joe B. who is not afraid to race all sorts of cars. Very cool story.
In a not so cool story from the weekend, two different competitors had issues on Saturday after leaving Port Royal's show. Sprint car driver Mike Wagner's truck and trailer were involved in a multi car incident on the way home, but it sounded like everyone was okay. The tractor definitely had some damage, but the trailer looked alright. Hopefully they can get everything ready to go again soon. Also, late model driver Andrew Yoder had his entire trailer go up in flames as they were making their way home after a ninth place finish in the super late model feature. They managed to get the car out of the trailer, but it's pretty heavily damaged. The trailer itself, and everything inside are a complete loss. Glad to see everyone escape that one okay, that was a scary looking fire. There is a GoFundMe setup if you'd like to help them get back going again. Search for Andrew Yoder at GoFundMe.com. So far they've raised about $11,000 of a $15,000 goal.
At Port before the chaos, Lucas Wolfe took advantage of late trouble for leader Jason Schultz, slipping by Danny Dietrich on the restart and bagging the victory. I believe it was Wolfe's first sprint car win since a victory at the Grove in 2021. Drake Troutman won the day's late model main event.
Down at Devil's Bowl over the weekend, we did get both World of Outlaws nights in. Not quite the record car count that Johnny Gibson talked about late last week, but still a very healthy 31 entries each night. Friday it was Brad Sweet getting by pole sitter Brent Marks on lap 10 and driving off to his second straight series win. Marks settled for second with Jacob Allen third. On Saturday night, passing was pretty tough, as the track was super fast in the feature and never really widened out. James McFadden jumped to the lead at the start and never looked back, leading all 30 circuits for the $20,000 score. It was JMac's second victory of the season, and a nice turnaround from needing a B-main transfer the night before. It's definitely been a rollercoaster year for McFadden so far. Two wins and five top tens in five races, but also results of 18th, 13th, 22nd, 21st, and 13th. I think he's as talented as anyone running a sprint car right now, he just needs to find some consistency out there. Some other notes from the weekend. Buddy Kofoid was fast again, with two top fives. He was McFadden's closest competition Saturday after sitting on the pole. He remains in the top five in the Outlaw standings. Carson Macedo's top ten streak is still alive, now at 16 straight races with Devil's Bowl finishes of seventh and third. As for Brad Sweet, he started off the season slow with a 19th place finish in the opener at Volusia, but they have been strong ever since. His last five races have ended up in two wins, two seconds, and a fifth. If he keeps this up, it could be a monster year for the NAPA 49. And behind the top runners, it was a disappointing weekend for Donny Schatz and Sheldon Haudenschild. Neither driver was in the top ten either night. Both continue to lose ground in the standings and are outside the top five. David Gravel takes a 26 point lead over Sweet into this week's races, with US36 on tap for Friday and 81 Speedway coming up Saturday.
With the Spring Nationals over the weekend, Joseph Joiner was a winner Friday at Buckshot Speedway. He topped Dillon Tidmore and Ross Bailes. It's a good thing Hunt the Front started their own series, since Joseph can't seem to win anywhere else. I'm sure those commenters raced over to the HTF YouTube channel to apologize in their comment section. Saturday night, it was Brandon Overton outdueling Ashton Winger for the $10,000 score. Winger and Carson Ferguson ended up on the podium. If you watched that one, I need someone to explain to me how Sam Seawright spins out of the ballpark in turn two, but yet somehow got to keep his second position on the restart afterwards. He threw a slider, then had to take evasive action for a spinning lap car, but I don't know that I agree with him getting the spot back. Strange rule there.
Other weekend late model winners included Kyle Bronson in a crate car at Cochran, Ricky Weiss and Tyler Bare got wins at Bristol, and Joseph Joiner won again on Saturday at Whynot.
Other weekend open wheel winners included Parker Price Miller at Atomic on Sunday in their special pop up event. He topped Cap Henry and Cole Macedo in that one. Devin Moran ended up 20th of 24 starters. And Chase Johnson was the CRA winner at Mohave Valley over Brody Roa and RJ Johnson.
And finally today, Cayden Carter and Tyler Wolff were weekend USMTS winners at Ark-La-Tex Speedway. The modified series is off now for a few weeks, with Jason Hughes emerging out of the weekend as the points leader over Terry Phillips and Dan Ebert.
The streaming schedule is quiet today, just FloRacing 24/7 and DIRTVision Now. 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 back here tomorrow.