DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
Dirt racing news, results, discussion, analytics. Sprint cars, late models, modifieds, you name it. From national series, to top local shows. Brought to you five days a week. Email the show at info@dirtrackr.com.
Icing down those Donny Schatz hot takes, Justin Grant goes full send in a Crown car | Daily 5-22-2023
Donny Schatz sweeps, but no, he's not winning the Outlaw title. Ricky Thornton Jr. swept too, and he could win the Lucas title. Plus people mad about restarts and rainouts and more. Let's go!
It's Monday, May 22nd, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
A weekend sweep in Ohio of the Outlaw shows had people talking about Donny Schatz being quote unquote back. It's certainly been a very off season for the ten time champion, and he was off to his worst start since 2005. From March 31st at Devil's Bowl to Haubstadt on April 29th, Schatz had finished outside the top ten in seven straight races. Since then though, that team has looked very different. Five podiums in the last six races, laps led in three of them, and the two weekend victories. Friday at Attica he came alive late in lap traffic, and took the lead from Rico Abreu right before the white flag. Afterwards, it almost seemed like he didn't believe it. He made a reference to a Kenny Woodruff quote about even monkeys fall out of trees sometimes, and then got choked up when talking about all the people and sponsors who support the team. And Saturday at Sharon, after starting on the pole and duking it out early with Carson Macedo, Schatz seized the lead for good on lap 11 and never looked back. It was very much shades of the Donny Schatz that had dominated the series for so long. Leaving the weekend, he's now fifth in the championship standings, 156 back. And that's quite the rise from ninth and 194 back following Haubstadt. I'm going to pick on him a bit here, but on Saturday night following the win, DIRTVision's Chase Raudman tweeted that Donny will be in the hunt for the championship come November. That's certainly an interesting take, but not one that will actually happen, and here's why. In order for Schatz to climb back into the championship fight by World Finals, he'd have to return to the same form we saw from him in seasons like 2018 and before when he was winning 20 plus races a year and running away with titles. At this moment, Schatz already has 11 finishes outside the top ten. For comparison, Brad Sweet had 10 all of last season, 13 in 2021, eight in 2020, and seven in 2019 while he was winning four straight championships. Schatz basically can't finish outside the top ten for the rest of the season. And on top of that, his current average feature finish is 8.95. To compete with the top guys, he's got to at least get into the fives. If we figure this season will go 75 races, over the next 54 straight races, he'd have to average a feature finish of 4.71 just to get to an average of 5.9 for the year. And that doesn't guarantee the championship. You're probably looking at needing to be mid fives or better, which means that 54 race stretch will have to be in the low fours or maybe even high threes for Schatz to get there. It's something we've seen from him before, but again, that was five plus years ago. It's not impossible, but I think highly improbable that happens. The top of the series is too strong right now, and 54 races is a long time to go without having any issues. Looking around the rest of the results, it was another strong weekend for Rico Abreu. Led laps and second Friday and fifth Saturday. He's now gone five straight races inside the top five. And Sheldon Haudenschild was good both nights, finishing fourth and third after three straight races outside the top ten. In the standings, both Dvaid Gravel and Carson Macedo finished ahead of Brad Sweet both nights, so they both made up ground. Headed to Attica this week, Gravel is 20 points back in second, and Macedo 30 back in third. I also saw there were some complaints about starts and restarts. Folks complained about Gravel's eighth to fourth jump at the start of the Sharon dash and Sheldon during the Sharon feature. And that was combined with Logan Schuchart being docked two spots post race because of jumping the final restart. Those are judgement calls from the tower, and camera positions at these tracks don't always give us a great view on DIRTVision. I think it's tough to say one way or the other whether these were the correct calls or not.
Jumping over to the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series, they were in Iowa for a weekend doubleheader between 300 Raceway and 34 Raceway. The narrative around dirt late model racing as a whole lately has been very much centered on Hudson O'Neal and the tear he's been on with the Rocket house car. He was leading both the Lucas and Flo series points, and he's won something like seven times already. But after wins both Friday and Saturday night, Ricky Thornton Jr. has seized control back of the Lucas standings. On Friday he got around Mason Zeigler on lap 13 and went the distance. And Saturday he was by polesitter Tim McCreadie on lap 18 and again drove away at the end. And in between, he was involved in a scary incident Friday night where his merch trailer unded up upside down while leaving the race track. He and his family were okay, but the trailer was not. With the Show-Me 100 lurking later this week, RTJ is back atop the Lucas points by 40 over O'Neal. Brandon Overton has stayed within striking distance as well in third. McCreadie lead his first laps of the season on Saturday, before making a mistake late and dropping from second to 12th. He's fourth, and in that final championship spot. The guy who continues to lose ground is Jonathan Davenport. He was in the hot pit both nights with issues, and has now gone four straight races with finishes outside the top ten. He's fallen to sixth in the standings. Hat tip to Mason Zeigler who had a strong week in Iowa, leading laps and finishing at least top eight all three nights. His all black car with the disappearing logos continued to be easy to spot, even if you can't read anything on it. Looking ahead, the two prelim nights at Wheatland don't pay points, just the big show on Saturday.
With the World of Outlaws late models, Ryan Gustin was the Friday winner at Marion Center. He got to the lead on lap seven and topped Shane Clanton and Brandon Sheppard. There were plenty of big movers in that one, including Nick Hoffman who went 12th to fourth, Bobby Pierce went 16th to fifth, Tanner English 24th to sixth, and Gregg Satterlee 18th to seventh. Dennis Erb Jr. was strong with the Flo series but needed a provisional to start the Friday feature after switching to a backup car before his heat race. He ended the night 14th. Headed to Stateline on Tuesday, Chris Madden has a slight four point lead over Gustin in the standings, with Kyle Bronson, Sheppard, Hoffman, Shirley, and Pierce all still in the fight. I know some folks were pissed the Saturday race at Port Royal was cancelled. Some claimed the weather was never bad enough, and others wanted a rain date. But I'm not going to question tracks and series when they cancel. If things look like they are going sideways, I'm good with whatever they decide. We don't need these places taking a loss when the weather is iffy. Also, hat tip to Nick Hoffman for super trucking to Muskingum County on Saturday night and picking up the $10,000 win after the rainout. He's been very solid so far in this first season of full time late model competition.
Weekend All Star wins went to Zeb Wise at Outlaw, and Cory Eliason at Weedsport. Zeb won in his first start back in the Rudeen 26 after sitting out with that concussion. That team made a crew chief change to Tyler Tessemaker after Florida and it's brought them to life. Zeb was second on Sunday and could be one of the better chances for someone to challenge Tyler Courtney. The Saturday race at Fonda was rained out, and that Sunday win at Weedsport went to Eliason with the Crouch Motorsports guys. Eliason was shot out of a cannon late, going fourth the win in just a few laps. It was his first All Star win since East Bay way back in February of 2022 when he was still driving for Rudeen. With weekend finishes of fourth and third, Sunshine now has eight top fives in 11 races, while Hunter Schuerenberg had a forgettable two races, finishing 16th at Outlaw and 21st at Weedsport after a late incident. The All Stars race four times this week, starting Thursday at Bridgeport.
The USAC midget season is finally off and running after three races over the weekend. Ryan Timms was your winner Friday on the small track at Belleville, Kansas. He topped Jake Andreotti and Zach Daum for his third career national midget win. Timms did not keep the speed up though, finishing 14th on Saturday and 15th on Sunday. That Saturday win went to Zach Daum who was the beneficiary of contact between Chase McDermand and leader Bryant Wiedeman on a late restart. Wiedeman had the field covered I think, but left the bottom open just a bit and McDermand tried to go. Jade Avedisian finished second, with Thomas Meseraul hard charging from 19th to third. Jade actually led the points going into Sunday at Sweet Springs, but a dominating win from Jacob Denney, plus good runs at Belleville, see the Ohio youngster at the top after the opening three nights. The midgets will be back again in a few weeks.
With Silver Crown series, we had a barn burner on Saturday night between Brady Bacon and Justin Grant. Big sliders from the two and a tight battle, but JG got a little too eager late and nearly wiped them both out. JG threw a slider at Bacon and two laps cars that started in turn three, and he tried to clear Bacon down the frontstretch, only the Macho Man was still there. The two came together, and JG ended up going for a ride. His night was done, and Bacon survived the incident to go onto the victory. Bacon was diplomatic afterwards in his victory lane interview, even though the move was pretty aggressive. Silver Crown is on the pavement at IRP on Friday for the Hoosier 100.
Other weekend open wheel winners included Dominic Scelzi with NARC at Petaluma. He handled the field and has pulled within seven points of Corey Day in the standings. The ASCS did have to pivot, but they got both Longdale races in, with Jason Martin winning his fourth straight Saturday, and Seth Bergman striking on Sunday. Bergman has a slight points lead headed to Lakeside and Lake Ozark this week. Freddie Rahmer won at Williams Grove, Dylan Norris won at Lincoln, Brian Brown took Knoxville, Bill Balog and Jordan Goldesberry won with the IRA, and Joe B. Miller and Aaron Reutzel grabbed POWRi 410 wins.
Other weekend late model winners included Cory Hedgecock bagging $20 grand with the All Stars at Beckley, Carson Ferguson was a Hunt the Front winner at Swainsboro, and Jason Feger and Ryan Unzicker were MARS winners.
That's it for the show today, make sure to take a peek at the streaming schedule at dirtrackr.com/watchtonight and like and subscribe to the show.
Hope you guys have a good Monday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow.