DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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High Limit makes announcer change, Brandon Sheppard breaks through | Daily 5-1-2023

High Limit makes a big change, Brandon Sheppard is headed in the right direction, and more from the dirt racing weekend. Let's go!

It's Monday, May 1st, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

We'll kick your week off with the news from Saturday that the High Limit Sprint Car Series will sound a little different when they head to Kokomo this week. Through the opening two nights of this inaugural season, father-son duo Dillon and Vince Welch have handled the announcing for the new sprint car series from Brad Sweet and Kyle Larson. But going forward, Vince is out, and Tony Bokhoven from Knoxville is in. We found out about this because of a tweet on Saturday evening from Bokhoven announcing he'd be at Kokomo. So Bokhoven and Dillon in the booth, with Chris Wilner continuning as pit reporter. It had been a struggle for Vince getting rolling, including learning the names and keeping up with the pace of action. Vince had a long career calling NASCAR shows with Fox Sports, but the transition to dirt racing is not an easy one. I do think that with more time Vince would have picked it up, but that doesn't really matter now. Nothing official from anyone else about the move, including who initiated it, but I did hear through the grapevine that maybe it was mutual. You certainly won't have to worry about Bokhoven knowing names and who's in which car with his long history at Knoxville. He is continuing in his role at Knoxville, and these High Limit shows will be in addition to his regular gigs. Going forward, we'll see how Dillon and Tony get along in the booth. Them developing a chemistry will be important for this to work out. I don't know that I think a series really needs two guys on the call, but I do applaud Brad and Kyle for being willing to pivot. That High Limit show at Kokomo was initially scheduled for tomorrow night, but because of weather they have shifted it to Wednesday. We'll talk more High Limit later in the week.

Over to some racing topics. The new look MARS late model series was in action for three nights this weekend, and I wonder if maybe we'll look back at these three races as a pivotal moment for Brandon Sheppard and his 2023 season. Friday night at Brownstown was a slider fest, especially early, with Tyler Erb eventually coming out on top for the win, beating BShepp. Saturday at Fairbury was typical Fairbury, and again Sheppard fell one spot short with Shannon Babb taking the victory. Sheppy was definitely a victim of lap traffic in that one, and still almost got Babb at the end. Sunday though at Red Hill, Sheppard charged to a dominant flag-to-flag win, beating second place Tanner English by nearly four seconds. It was Sheppard's first win of 2023, and first in the Longhorn Chassis out of the Sheppard Riggs Racing shop. He said in victory lane afterwards that it's been a process to get the car to fit him, and that it's way different than what he'd been used to. Meaning, the Rocket chassis in the Rocket house car versus the Longhorn now. That Sunday field at Red Hill was not a Lucas or Outlaw field of cars, but it was a win, and a dominant one at that. That little bit of a confidence boost from the victory and three straight top two finishes may be just what that team needs going forward. The B5 squad is currently fifth in the Outlaw standings, with four top tens in seven starts, and a $50,000 to win show at Mississippi Thunder looming this weekend.

With the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars over the weekend, we had stops at Tri-City Speedway and Tri-State Speedway. Friday night at Tri-City, it was David Gravel leading the second half of the show and rolling to his 80th career Outlaw win. Both he and Brad Sweet continue to edge closer to Stevie Smith for 10th all time in Outlaw victories. It was Gravel's fourth win of the season, and his first since Volusia in March. It was definitely what he needed after the DNF at US36 Raceway early in April. Parker Price Miller had a nice late charge to the podium, and early race leader and pole sitter Logan Schuchart finished third. Things did not go well for Gravel on Saturday though at Haubstadt. He was out early after his rear end seized up, and he's now fallen to third in the points standings, 48 behind the leader. That Haubstadt show was led early by points leader Carson Macedo, but he lost the lead right past half way to Sheldon Haudenschild. It looked like it was the 17's race to lose, but out of nowhere, Brady Bacon put on a late clinic and drove by Sheldon in lap traffic to score his first career Outlaw win. Sheldon settled for second with Sweet third. Bacon usually only makes a handful of winged starts a year, and his last Outlaw top five came at Haubstadt way back in 2017. So I doubt anyone had him penciled in for a victory. The second place finish for Sheldon was a nice bounceback from Friday. He caught the wall while trying to chase down the leader and ended up crashed. The work area did a great job to replace the front end and wing and get him back in the mix. I was also impressed with Tyler Courtney on Saturday night. He got trapped in the work area after early damage, but got lucky when a quick caution flew on the ensuing restart. He drove back through the field to finish in the top five. As for James McFadden, that team raced both nights while waiting for their appeal to happen for the failed tire test penalties. Ninth on Friday, but out early on Saturday. Not what they wanted, and there are some not so great rumors out there about the future of Roth Motorsports as a whole. Hopefully they are not true. In that Haubstadt feature, we did have Parker Price Miller DQ'd under a caution, and it was supposedly for hitting Hunter Schuerenberg. PPM was apparently not pleased for some stuff that had happened before, and wanted to show his displeasure. Race director Mike Hess then sent the nine car to the trailer. Headed to Eldora now for Let's Race Two, Macedo leads Sweet by 12 in the standings, with Gravel 48 back. Schuchart and Buddy Kofoid complete the top five. Macedo now has 21 straight top ten finishes with the Outlaws and six straight top fives.

Other weekend sprint car winners included Gavan Boschele and Max Stambaugh in 360 action at I-75, Brody Roa was a USAC CRA winner at Kern County, and Dominic Scelzi topped Corey Day in NARC 410 action at Antioch. Those two were having a great battle in traffic late in that one, but a caution with just a few to go kind of robbed us of a great finish in that one. With four races complete, Day topps Justin Sanders in the NARC standings.

Other weekend late model winners included Ethan Dotson with Comp Cams on Friday, Chris Simpson and Chad Simpson split the MLRA weekend at Lake Ozark. Tony Jackson Jr. tried to go after Logan Martin in that Saturday show and had to be restrained by officials. The entire Spring Nationals weekend was lost to rain.

And with the USMTS, the Saturday race at Hamilton County was rained out, Tom Berry Jr. won the Friday show. Dan Ebert leads the series standings headed to Lakeside Speedway this week.

Before we close out today. I've had an affiliate link in the video description below for a while for Eargasm Earplugs. I used mine over the weekend during the Charlotte NHRA show, and they work really great. Most ear protection is just meant to cover or plug your ear from any sound, but these actually filter the sound around you. Almost like just turning down the volume a bit. I wore these in the grandstands even when the nitro cars were running, and it's nice because you get the protection, but I could still have a conversation without removing them. A set of these earplugs is certainly not cheap, and I get why some would not be interested. But if you are at the track a lot, or maybe work in a loud environment, I'd check these out. And I can help with the cost a bit. If you use code "DIRTRACKR10" at checkout, you'll get 10% off your order. You can grab a pair over at eargasm.com or click the link below.

Just FloRacing 24/7 and DIRTVision Now on the streaming schedule today. To see the full list of daily offerings from the streamers, head over to dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.

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