DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Slide or be slid: the rising aggression in dirt racing | Daily 4-18-2023

More thoughts today on the growing level of aggression we are seeing in dirt racing, plus we'll look ahead to tonight's FloRacing Night in America show at Eldora. Let's go!

It's Tuesday, April 18th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

In light of yesterday's show about the issues over the weekend between David Gravel and Carson Macedo, and just the general state of dirt racing right now, I wanted to talk today about how aggressive racing has become. This is something we've discussed before, and I honestly believe it's been a major problem for guys like Donny Schatz. Schatz very clearly races by a code, he's not going to break that code, and he's going to be highly offended when people break the code racing against him. If you want a high profile example, go rewatch the 2016 Knoxville Nationals feature. Donny was furious with Jason Johnson after that one. In my comments yesterday, and a lot of the comments on social media on Friday night, a big theme of them is the reputation that Carson Macedo seems to have right now about the way he races. And there is no question, he is aggressive. I certainly won't disagree. He is known to make big moves and throw some sketchy sliders, and it's clear that some fans and some of his competitors aren't a big fan of it. But if you look at sprint car racing right now as a whole, throw in non-wing stuff, midget racing, and you could really go deeper than that and add other divisions, it's all just been ramped up. We've seen plenty of short sliders recently in dirt late model racing. And Carson Macedo is not the only guy who's ever fed another driver a right rear, and he won't be the last. If you want to talk about the Outlaws specifically, you can certainly find examples of every driver doing it. And especially when it comes to the front runners, the victims are often lap cars. With as closely matched as the racers are right now, and with how quickly these races move, guys have to go, and they have to go now. And when leaders are working lap traffic, there might only be a chance or two through a 30 lapper to have a decent enough shot of making that move. I think that, combined with some high profile younger guys right now becoming contenders, plus the evolution of Kyle Larson, and more money than ever being on the line are all big factors. And I'm not advocating for or against it, it just is what it is, and I'm pointing it out. If you watch any Formula 1 at all, all of this feels very similar to what we see from a guy like Max Verstappen. Especially in open wheel cars, you can't afford to make contact. The consequences are just too negative. And a guy like Verstappen forces his rivals into a choice. He's going to lunge for the gap, and you are either going to give him the spot, or you'll both crash. Sort of a mutually assured distruction situation. Most times it works out in Max's favor, but there are a few instances of guys not relenting, and big crashes then being the result. And that's what we are seeing often in a lot of these dirt races. A guy is going to throw a slider that's probably a bit over his head, and just hope that the other guy piles on the binders in time. He's giving the slidee that choice. If you want to see an example, watch what David Gravel did to the lapper of Brock Zearfoss the corner before the Macedo incident at Pevely. Zearfoss avoided the contact, but then gassed up to turn back underneath Gravel, which then aided in the setup that led to the 41 and 2 getting together in the next set of corners. At the highest levels, these run-ins doesn't usually result in crashes because guys are that good and they can anticipate the move. At lower levels, with younger and less experienced drivers, disaster often ensues. As a competitor, it's important to remember that you're often going to get raced like you race others. So if your bag of tactics includes short sliders, you should expect some measure of short sliders to be coming your way as well. And that leads me back to the larger point I was making on yesterday's show. Who was at fault or why doesn't really matter to me. What I thought was more intriguing was the fact that it spilled out publicly. Even with all the different characters racing right now across these big series, these types of incidents are usually handled either on track or away from attention. So was Friday's issue between Gravel and Macedo a one off, or is it the start of more to come. We'll just wait and see. But it's clear right now that if you want to win these races, you are either going to have to be the slider, or find ways to defend the aggressive moves that are no doubt coming your way.

Looking ahead to later today, the FloRacing Night in America Series kicks off it's 2023 race season tonight at Eldora. The 13 race, mostly mid-week, late model series will award close to a million dollars in purse money plus up to an additional $137k in point fund payouts, with the champion guaranteed at least $50,000. If they have perfect attendance, they'll get $75,000. As of yesterday, seven drivers are expected to run the full schedule, and they are defending champion Brandon Sheppard, Hudson O'Neal, Ricky Thornton Jr., Bobby Pierce, Mike Marlar, Tyler Erb, and Garrett Alberson. Following tonight's racing at Eldora, the series will then move to Brownstown tomorrow, and then race five times in May before going quiet for the summer. The final six nights will take place in September, October, and November. Other tracks on the schedule include Spoon River, Lincoln, Marshalltown, Davenport, Florence, Fairbury, Tyler County, 411, Tri-County, and Senoia. It's interesting to look back at 2020 and see the origins of this series. Michael Rigsby, Ben Shelton, Dustin Jarrett the folks at Flo started running some midweek races to get something going again during the pandemic, and it spawned not only this series, but also the High Limit Sprint Car Series as well. Tonight and tomorrow are both $23,000 to win and are expected to draw plenty of heavy hitters. Kyle Larson will be back in the Rumley six fresh off his victory at Volunteer Speedway, and he'll be up against Hudson O'Neal, RTJ, Jonathan Davenport, Brandon Overton, Bobby Pierce, BShepp, Devin Moran, Tyler Erb, and plenty more. And a lot of these guys will again be in action tomorrow. Larson did win this race a year ago, and I think he'll be a heavy favorite tonight. This is the first race night of the season at Eldora, and they did hold a test and tune over the weekend, although I couldn't find any details on who was there outside of a single photo on the Eldora Facebook page that showed some late models and open wheel cars. It will be a good week to be a late model fan, as tonight kicks off six straight days of late models on track. Flo the next two nights, Outlaws on Thursday, plus a bunch of stuff over the weekend. Hot laps are scheduled tonight for 6PM, with racing at 7:30. As you probably already realized, the racing is live on Flo if you can't get there.

As I was looking into stuff for tonight's late model show at Eldora, I took a peak at Kyle Larson's late model stats so far for 2023. He's made ten starts, has two wins, an average finish of 6.4, and just two finishes worse than sixth. He had a 13th at Volusia and a 28th at Bubba Raceway Park. Also, in the past six months, going back to October of 2022, Larson has made 12 dirt racing appearances, and 11 of those have been in a dirt late model. I think we can officially call Larson a late model guy now. Don't @ me.

Four things today on the streaming schedule. FloRacing has the Flo Night in America late models from Eldora, plus FloRacing 24/7. And DIRTVision has outlaw karts from Millbridge and DIRTVision Now. To see the full daily streaming schedule, head over to dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.

Hope you guys have a good Tuesday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow.