DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Rico and Ricky peaking heading into LUCRATIVE sprint car summer | Daily 6-5-2023
Today on the show Rico stays rolling, I'm here for a Macri/Marks rivalry, and more from the dirt racing weekend. Let's go!
It's Monday, June 5th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
I feel like we keep talking about him here and there as he's piled up good finishes this season, but we need to start putting Rico Abreu in that top echelon of sprint car drivers in the country right now. He's been on another level in 2023 and that continued over the weekend with another podium run Friday at Dodge County with the All Stars, and a dominating victory in the Rayce Rudeen Foundation race Saturday at Plymouth that scored him $26,000. At this point in the season, Rico has made 23 winged sprint car starts between the Outlaws, All Stars, High Limit, and a local show at Selinsgrove. In that stretch he has four wins, 14 top fives, 19 top tens, and an average finish of 5.74. The only drivers who have won more purse money than Rico at this moment are David Gravel and Carson Macedo, but they've each made six more starts. And only one guy has made more money on a per race basis than Rico, and that's Kyle Larson who has three wins in seven starts. And we haven't even gotten into the richest part of the schedule yet. In the coming weeks we have more High Limit shows and the High Bank Nationals at Huset's, and that's before we get to the Eldora Million and Kings Royal, and into the month of money all the way to the Knoxville Nationals. With Ricky Warner on the wrenches, this team has really found it's stride and Rico is having a season like he's never had before. In recent weeks since finishing 11th with the Outlaws at Tri-City, Rico has 12 straight top five finishes in 410 competition, that includes two wins and nine podiums. He's always been a guy capable of winning and running well, but I don't think anyone would have put him in the same conversation as the guys at the top. I think that's changing though, because we've never seen this version of Rico before. And it's not like he's running out of the way races against soft competition. He's gone toe-to-toe with the best all season and very regularly come out on top. If he was running full time as an Outlaw, he'd be only a handful of points behind David Gravel in the standings in fourth, and very much in the thick of the championship fight. If there was somewhere to do this, I might be putting some cash on Rico to win both the Million and the Knoxville Nationals, especially since those are both tracks he's won at before, and Rick certainly has had a bit of success at those tracks himself. It could be a big next couple of months for Rico and that team.
The other storyline to come out of Saturday night at Plymouth was the run-in between Brent Marks and Anthony Macri. Late in that feature, with Marks up top and Macri on the bottom, Macri let his car drift high in one and two to try and slow Marks' pace and the two made contact. Marks didn't appreciate the move, and just a lap later threw a nasty slider of his own at the 39M. Again things got touchy, and apparently some words were said between the two sides after the race. Marks made mention of it in his podium interview and there is clearly no love lost between these two guys. Headed into this summer, I think I'm in on a world where we've got a rivalry going between Brent Marks and Anthony Macri. Besides Rico's victory, Cory Eliason led them all Friday at Dodge County. It was his second All Star win of the year and he continues to show seed in the Crouch 11. With Ohio Sprint Speedweek coming up, Tyler Courtney extended his lead in the All Star standings with a pair of weekend top fives. Speedweek kicks off Friday at Attica.
With the Outlaws, David Gravel was able to capitalize on River Cities taking rubber late in the Friday feature to top James McFadden. JMac led 26 of 35 laps, but settled for second, with points contenders Brad Sweet and Carson Macedo finishing third and fourth. With a fifth on Saturday night, McFadden now has three straight top five finishes and that Roth team looks like they are out to prove something after that failed tire test. On Saturday at Ogilvie, it was all Carson Macedo out front. He led flag-to-flag for his third Outlaw win of the year, topping Logan Schuchart and Donny Schatz. Sweet and Gravel ended up playing catch-up during the main event, trying to bounce back from getting collected in an incident with Tim Estenson. Sweet drove back to sixth, while Gravel was the beneficiary of a timely caution that kept him from being trapped in the work area and ended up 11th. With seven straight top fives, including two wins, Macedo has taken the points lead headed to Knoxville this week. He's got 10 points on Sweet and 22 on Gravel. I feel like this thing is just going to keep swinging back and forth all season.
On the late model side, the Historic 100 at West Virginia ended up getting cut short. They got the Friday race in, with Ricky Thornton Jr. getting around both Jimmy Owens and Daulton Wilson to score victory number six on the year. The Saturday show was eventually postponed, with track and series officials looking for a suitable makeup date. RTJ now has a 165 point lead in the Lucas standings over Hudson O'Neal, with Brandon Overton hanging around in third. Tim McCreadie has three straight seconds and holds down the final championship four spot in fourth. Lucas is back in a few weeks at Smoky Mountain.
The World of Outlaws Late Models didn't have weather issues, and got all three of their shows in. We talked Friday about Bobby Pierce winning Thursday at Farmer City and putting himself right in the mix of the championship battle. He followed that up with a podium Friday at Tri-City and an eighth on Saturday at Paducah. He might have won that Paducah show had it not been for a cut tire. The Tri-City victory went to Kyle Bronson after a really great battle with Brian Shirley and Nick Hoffman. And then Shirley was the beneficiary of Pierce's issues Saturday at Paducah, assuming the lead and driving away to the win. Bronson and Madden joined him on the podium. In 19 total Outlaw shows this year, including split field features, we've now had 13 different race winners. That's pretty cool. With a couple weeks off now, Chris Madden remains the points leader, with a now three way tie for second between Bronson, Hoffman, and Pierce.
The focus now shifts to the Dirt Late Model Dream at Eldora, which we'll talk about more later in the week.
In other action, it was a big weekend for Zach Daum. He picked up a new ride with the 7U team after they sat Kyle Jones down following Millbridge. Daum promptly went to Wayne County and won both Xtreme Outlaw Midget shows. They were his second and third career series wins after taking down the championship in 2022. Xtreme is off until later in July, and Cannon McIntosh continues to lead the championship standings.
A busy stretch for the midget competitors continued last night with the opening of Indiana Midget Week at Haubstadt. Jacob Denney stayed hot, winning his second straight race, and having to hold off Buddy Kofoid to do it. Kofoid is back with Keith Kunz this week and will be a factor every night he shows up. Indiana Midget Week moves to Circle City tonight, and we'll see if Denney can extend his points lead over Daison Pursley.
At Knoxville, the Friday show was rained out, and Saturday it was Jake Swanson slipping by Brady Bacon in the final two corners to bag the USAC sprint car win. It was series win number three on the year for Swanson, and he hasn't been off the podium in his previous five races. Brady Bacon leads the sprint car points headed to Eastern Storm next week. Brian Brown was the Knoxville winged 410 winner.
The Western PA Speedweek title went to AJ Flick, as he won Friday at Lernerville, with Dave Blaney taking Saturday at Sharon, and Mark Smith winning Sunday at Tri-City. Seth Bergman won with the ASCS at Outlaw Motor Speedway, their second show of the weekend was rained out. Go figure. Colby Copeland was a NARC winner at Placerville, Ayrton Gennetten grabbed a MOWA win at Tri-City, Dominic Scelzi won with the Sprint Car Challenge Tour at Placerville, Freddie Rahmer took both the Grove and Lincoln, Devon Borden won at Port Royal, and Kraig Kinser was a FAST series winner at Montpelier.
Other weekend late model winners included a pair of crate victories for Cory Hedgecock, Wil Herrington won the Hunt the Front series race at Cochran, Brian Rickman was a Comp Cams winner, Rick Eckert won at Port Royal, and Darrell Lanigan was a $10,000 crate winner at Latrobe.
That's it for the show today, make sure to check out today's streaming schedule over at dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
Hope you guys have a good Monday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow.