DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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An update on Carson Macedo's crash, plus who's running the Hell Tour | Daily 6-14-2023
Coming up today, a bit more on Carson Macedo's crash and when we might see him racing again, plus Tuesday results for USAC and the Super DIRTcar Series, and the Summer Nationals get rolling tonight. Let's go!
It's Wednesday, June 14th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
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Last Saturday night at Knoxville, we were all witness to Carson Macedo's scary crash in the World of Outlaws race that included a nasty hit to the outside wall and the car bursting into flames after it came to a rest. As we talked about back on Monday, Macedo was initially knocked unconscious, but later walked with some help to the ambulance. And after a short stay at a local hospital, was released in the early hours of Sunday morning. In the aftermath there has obviously been plenty of discussions and thoughts from various folks about what happened, and the response to it. We've seen Brad Doty and Brian Brown debate fuel tanks and bladders, calls for traveling safety teams, and questioning of the fire bottle systems that were mandated across the sport. If you didn't see the replays or the various screenshots, the installed fire bottle was ejected from the car while it was flipping, so it was clearly not in place to aid with fire suppression. I think onboard fire suppression is absolutely necessary, but there is work to be done on the mounting situation for the bottles if they aren't staying in place during crashes. There is a lot to review for sure, and hopefully it will lead to positive change. I don't know what the answers are to some of these questions, but you'd hope the smart technical people around the sport will speak up in the right places. A lot did go right though for Macedo to come out of an incident like that and be on his way home in a matter of hours. Jeremy Elliott reported yesterday that there is some chatter out there that Macedo could return to the seat as soon as this weekend at Beaver Dam, despite his quote "fractured rib and minor burns." The JJR 41 is in the thick of the World of Outlaws championship battle right now, but hopefully a move like this means his health is good, as that is the most important thing.
On a related note, Justin Peck did return to racing this past weekend after his crash at Bridgeport. He finished fourth at Lincoln Speedway on Saturday, and will supposedly join Ohio Sprint Speedweek at some point coming up, before returning to Pennsylvania for their speedweek which starts on Friday, June 23rd at Williams Grove.
Before we move on to some racing, I've got a sprint car ride update. Ian Madsen recently stepped back from racing the TKS Motorsports car around the midwest, and this past weekend it was Kaleb Johnson in the car. Going forward though, the 2KS Albaugh ride will be filled by Chase Randall. The car will continue to race weekly at Knoxville and in other events that don't interfere with Randall's schedule aboard his own nine machine. Randall will debut in the car this Friday night at Jackson Motorplex.
Over to some results and racing from Tuesday night. Jake Swanson stayed absolutely rolling with the USAC National Sprint Cars, grabbing a flag-to-flag win at Grandview Speedway. His win from pole was the second in a row, third in four races, and sixth straight podium result. He already has as many top fives this year as he had in all of 2022. The win saw him take the championship lead in the standings with Kyle Cummins just one point back headed to Bridgeport tonight. Brady Bacon is back to third after he suffered a tire failure before half way and could only get back to 14th by the end of the feature. Behind Swanson's win, Emerson Axsom was second and Robert Ballou third. I've been asked a few times lately about Kevin Thomas Jr., and it would appear as though his ride in the Michael Dutcher owned 17GP has gone sideways. We haven't see him since Circle City in the sprint car, and he tweeted on June 10th that he was going to Eastern Storm to help out for the week and run the Silver Crown race at Port Royal. He said in that tweet that he didn't have a sprint car ride and was going to bring a seat and suit with him in case anyone had a second car he could run. KTJ had six top tens on the year, but his last three races were all finishes of 12th or worse between Terre Haute and Circle City. I don't know specifically what went bad here, but this has been a common theme for KTJ's career. When he's hot, he looks like the best in the business. We saw that late last summer when he won three times in five races, which probably could have been four times in five races. But when things aren't right, he can struggle. He did run during Indiana Midget Week and we'll see what else he can put together in the coming weeks and months. Tonight's USAC show at Bridgeport can be watched live on FloRacing.
At Albany-Saratoga last night, we had a very different looking podium in the Super DIRTcar Series show. Chris Hile started on the pole, but it was Anthony Perrego who led early on. Hile got back by Perrego past half way after running as low as fourth at one point. Perrego later ended up out of the race after what looked like maybe engine issues. Out front, Hile's 5H threw sparks all the way to his first career series victory. Matt Delorenzo went sixth to second, with Adam Pierson in third. New points leader Matt Sheppard was sixth after a trip to the work area, and Mat Williamson ended up eighth. Stewart Friesen missed the night's main event after a spin and issues in the night's first B-Main. The big blocks were scheduled to be at Airborne Speedway tonight, but that race was postponed yesterday because of a poor forecast. They are working on a makeup date. Next up for the Super DIRTcar Series is a July 3rd stop at Land of Legends.
For the late model fans out there, the 38th edition of the DIRTcar Summer Nationals gets going tonight at Peoria. The series is back to a traditional Hell Tour look with 28 races in 33 days coming up. This season, instead of an overall points champion earning a big check, the point fund will be paid out weekly, with the standings being reset to zero to start each of the five weeks. That will hopefully help with the car count issue, since nobody will need to run the entire thing to make some money. According to a release from the series, some names to expect during this first week include multi-time champions Bobby Pierce and Shannon Babb, Ryan Unzicker, Jason Feger, Frank Heckenast Jr., Dennis Erb Jr., Brian Shirley, Ashton Winger, Joseph Joiner, and more. Week one will continue through Sunday with stops at Kankakee County, Tri-City, Fairbury, and Sycamore. On the Modified Nationals side, things will be wide open with Nick Hoffman now a full time late model competitor with the World of Outlaws. One other series note here, with Ruben Mireles now the lead announcer for the Outlaws, you'll hear veteran Chris Stepan on the mic all month long. If you can't get to these Hell Tour shows, they will all be live on DIRTVision.
Around the other dirt racing podcasts this week, Passing Points has Talin Turner, Quicktime has Tyler Swank, Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks has Eli Holden, All Gas No Brakes has Hudson O'Neal, Reece O'Connor and more. Dunewich on Dirt has Gray Parton, and there are are new episodes from the Dirt Reporters, the Dirt Nerds, Dirt Track Confessions, Hoogie's Garage, Dirt Track Weekly, and Non-Wing Worldwide. To see all the shows and episodes, hop over to dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
That's it for today. Don't forget about the streaming schedule over at dirtrackr.com if you're looking for something to watch tonight.
Hope you guys have a good Wednesday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow.