DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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PIVOTAL win for Toyota's sprint car program goes BUST with Buddy Kofoid at Huset's | Daily 6-26-2023
David Gravel is $250,000 richer after Saturday night at Huset's, but I'll tell you the big thing that really stood out to me from that race coming up, plus Ricky Thornton Jr. stays lava hot, Justin Sanders picks up a signature win, the Outlaw late model championship battle tightens, and more. Let's go!
It's Monday, June 26th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
There is a lot to get into today, but before we do, a quick note from today's show sponsor MSP Mounts. You guys have heard me talk about these action camera mounts before, but now they are even better. Owner Dan McCarron and MSP recently rolled out a new version of their industry leading camera mounts that now come with a stainless steel swivel ball. That swivel ball is what allows you to capture virtually any angle while driving your sprint car, midget, late model, modified, ATV, side by side, or anything that has a bar where these can be attached. And on top of that new, improved swivel ball setup, these mounts are incredibly easy to use. You can take this thing out of the package, spin your GoPro onto the universal mounting point, and have it on your race car in a matter of moments. No tools necessary. Grab one angle for hot laps, another for heat races, and still another for the feature. Great for content creation or research to make your racing program better. And just for my DIRTRACKR watchers and listeners, Dan has offered up a coupon code for 10% off your order at mspmounts.com. I think this is the only place where Dan has made such a deal, I don't think there are coupon codes available for these mounts anywhere else. Use code "DIRTRACKR" at checkout to take advantage, that's D I R T R A C K R at checkout at mspmounts.com.
Saturday night at Huset's Speedway, we saw the largest ever winner's payout in the history of the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series, and when it was all said and done, it was David Gravel who took home the big money. He started fourth, and was in the right place at the right time when leader Buddy Kofoid's engine expired in a big way with just ten laps left. Gravel led the rest of the way following the restart, and topped Rico Abreu and Kyle Larson. It was a big win for Gravel for several reasons, not only that it was for $250,000, but it also happened at his car owner's race track, and in front of all of their sponsors and partners as well. Most weekends on the road, Gravel's Big Game two machine is splattered with Huset's Speedway logos, so this was obviously an important score for that group. This was a show-up points week only for the Outlaw regulars, so no possibility of movement in the standings meant guys could just go race and not worry about any consequences. I certainly don't want to take anything away from what Gravel and Cody Jacobs were able to accomplish on Saturday night, because reliability is certainly a super power. But the thing that really stood out to me was the massive missed opportunity for Toyota and their sprint car engine. Buddy Kofoid had a comfortable lead with ten laps to go, and even Gravel said afterwards that he was probably on his way to the win. In this journey for TRD to get involved more heavily in sprint car racing, and at a moment where it seems like Kofoid is set for a much larger schedule with TRD power under the hood, this would have been a signature victory for both the powerplant and their young, very talented driver. They were on the podium two of the three prelim nights, led laps, and this would have been the chance to really show what both Kofoid and the engine could do. But instead, their hopes went up in smoke as the car trailed oil all the way back to the infield. And let's be honest here, sprint car engines break. They produce a lot of horsepower, and that means big booms sometimes. We saw earlier on Saturday, Brad Sweet the victim of a sour engine. But I think this one will sting for a while, knowing what was on the line and what this would have meant. Kofoid vaulted to the top of the sprint world, topping the best in the business, and TRD with a fantastic selling point as they get ready to roll out public sales. Now, they are left to figure out what went wrong and try and get ready for the rest of the month of money. The Outlaw teams have the week off to regroup, with the season continuing Friday at Cedar Lake.
At Lernerville on Saturday night, it was more of what we've come to expect from this Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series season. Big money on the line, and Ricky Thornton Jr. again rising above the rest of the competition. After a stumble in the first prelim feature, RTJ bounced back to win the second, and started outside front row next to Jonathan Davenport. In the Firecracker 100 main event, JD was in control early, but the racing got good near half way. Davenport was under attack from both RTJ and Hudson O'Neal, and all three were credited officially with leading laps. As the laps clicked off though, Thornton seized control and stretched away from the field. I believe at the end, only the top six cars remained on the lead lap. Thornton won the big show for the third straight week, and really, if he doesn't get penalized at Wheatland, we'd be looking at six straight big Lucas wins for the 20RT, going back to 300 Raceway on May 19th. So that's now 10 Lucas wins in 26 races, 19 top fives, and almost $250,000 in prize money. O'Neal settled for second, with Davenport third. Outside of a tough weekend at the Show-Me 100, it's been an incredible season for O'Neal, he's just run into the buzzsaw that is RTJ right now and continues to lose ground in the standings. Things have turned around though for Davenport and the Landers team. They had four straight races outside the top ten between Fairbury and 34, but since then have eight top six finishes in nine races, three wins and they are climbing back towards that all important top four int the standings. Davenport is around Moran for fifth, and closed the gap to Tim McCreadie in fourth, after McCreadie suffered mechanical issues early in the race and ended up 26th. We'll see this coming weekend at Muskingum County if anybody can slow that 20RT down.
Out in Washington at Skagit for the Super Dirt Cup, Justin Sanders picked up the first real signature win of his sprint car career, leading every lap on Saturday night to not only bag $62,000 for the win, but also an additional $20,000 for going green to checkered out front. The race payout included an additional $500 for every lap led. He was solid out front for most of the show, but Zeb Wise did make a run at him late in lap traffic, ultimately coming up short and finishing second. Corey Day, who won both prelim features, finished third. And you can call me a homer, but I think Tanner Holmes was really impressive. For the entire trip up north for the NARC sprint cars, Holmes never finished worse than ninth, he led laps at Skagit, and was right in the mix all weekend. Back to Sanders though, it was just a little over a month ago that we heard him say on the Swindell SpeedLab YouTube channel that he'd never won anything big before, but he can't say that anymore. And he was pumped afterwards, doing some insane donuts, and then getting emotional during his victory lane interview. I'll be curious to see if this confidence boost equates into better runs elsewhere, like with High Limit the rest of the season.
Besides Lucas, the World of Outlaws Late Models were also in action this weekend with two nights at 81 Speedway and a Sunday stop at Off Road Speedway in Nebraska. On Saturday night, Dennis Erb Jr. handled the field over the second half of that race to score the $30,000 win, topping Nick Hoffman and Tanner English. Erb had a tough start to his season as he looks to defend his Outlaw title, but they have been better lately, scoring wins with the Flo Night in America Series and now this first Outlaw win of the year. Last night, Bobby Pierce kept pace with Brandon Sheppard all race long, eventually taking over the lead on lap 26 and driving on to his fourth series win of 2023. Sheppard finished second after mechanical issues left him out of the show on Saturday at 81, and Shane Clanton was third. What's really notable here though, is the championship has become incredibly tight. Chris Madden had weekend results of 14th and 9th, and that brought Pierce and Hoffman right to him. With a bunch more midwest races on tap this week, Pierce is only four points back, and Hoffman only six out. I've been saying it all year, but don't sleep on the Outlaws.
In Pennsylvania for Speedweek, tonight's race at Lincoln has been pushed to Thursday because of the forecast, so no racing tonight. Anthony Macri won the first two races of speedweek over the weekend. Saturday night it was a barn burner at Lincoln with Danny Dietrich and Brent Marks in the mix all the way to the end. And Sunday at BAPS, Macri topped Justin Peck and Tanner Thorson. Several contenders had issues yesterday, including Marks, so Macri leads Peck and Dietrich in the speedweek points with still seven races to go.
Other open wheel winners this weekend included Brady Bacon with USAC at Wilmot. Their Sunday show at Angell Park was rained out. Emerson Axsom still leads Jake Swanson for the championship. Cannon McIntosh was the POWRi Illinois Speedweek champion after winning three of four nights. Thomas Meseraull was the other winner, taking Saturday at Macon. Joe B. Miller was an IRA winner at Fairbury, Alex Sewell grabbed his first ASCS win, and Brody Roa was a CRA winner at Bakersfield.
In other weekend late model action, Jason Feger grabbed two of the three Summer Nationals wins and snagged the weeklong $10,000 championship. Week three starts tomorrow at Springfield. Trey Mills and Neil Baggett were Hunt the Front series winners at Whynot, Cory Hedgecock was a $10,000 crate winner at 411, Kyle Hardy won $9100 at Winchester, and McKay Wenger was the Saturday winner at Fairbury.
That's it for the show today, check out the website and streaming schedule over at dirtrackr.com, and grab some DIRTRACKR swag over at shop.dirtrackr.com.
Hope you guys have a good Monday out there, we'll see you right back here tomorrow.