DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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What is the future for Donny Schatz and Tony Stewart amid difficult season? | Daily 7-4-2023

What is the future for Donny Schatz and Tony Stewart Racing in the midst of a very difficult season. We'll talk through that, plus Monday results and more. Let's go!

It's Tuesday, July 4th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

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Alright, let's get into today's show. I wanted to talk a bit about what's happening with Donny Schatz right now on tour with the Outlaws, and go stream of consciousness about what the future is for the Tony Stewart dirt racing empire. It's not a secret that Schatz is not where we've come to expect him to be. His last championship season was 2018, and it's been a slow, steady decline since then. Second in 2019, third in 2020, and fourth each of the last two years. We've seen the continued rise of Brad Sweet over that span, plus David Gravel and now Carson Macedo. At this moment with 36 races complete in 2023, Schatz sits fifth in the standings, 260 points behind Sweet, and he's got Sheldon Haudenschild and Gio Scelzi nipping on his heels. It wasn't all that long ago that the ten time champion was winning 20 and 30 races a season, and now he struggles on a nightly basis to find the top ten. An eighth place finish last Saturday night at Cedar Lake broke a streak of five straight race nights where he was outside the top ten, which included a B-Main exit during a Huset's prelim night. During Schatz's last championship season, his average finish was fourth, he had 22 wins in 72 races, and 67 top ten results. That's 93% of races where he was inside the top ten. This current version of Schatz is nowhere near that level of performance. He does have a pair of victories this year, but has only finished in the top ten in half the races, and his average finish is 9.57. We haven't seen an average finish like that from Schatz since way back in 2002, when it was just his sixth full time season, and he ended up seventh in the standings. It would also be several more years before he would join Tony Stewart Racing, as he was still driving his family owned car then. His frustration has been evident at times this year, which included rare public comments to FloRacing's Kyle McFadden back in March. He said quote "My job is to drive the car and do what I can, give feedback. Some days I'm giving feedback and they look the other way on it. At some point, that's got to change" unquote. Besides that, there are lots of race fan theories about why the team has struggled, including blame for the Ford engine development program. But I'm guessing it's not that simple, that an engine change would fix everything. Things looked like they were maybe turning around in the month of May, with a strong swing through Ohio and Pennyslvania, but in recent weeks the team has seemed to regress again. I say all of this, because it makes you wonder how much longer Schatz will be somewhat okay with all of this. He's currently 45 years old, which might not sound young, but Steve Kinser was still winning races and championships into his 50's. In the right situation, you have to believe that he could still get it done. He's had a great setup over the years driving for TSR, they've got big time sponsors, and Schatz flies in and out in his own plane. But if Schatz doesn't see a path forward, I wonder if he would look to move elsewhere. There are probably only a few teams that could make such a signing, but I think Schatz would be a valuable free agent. Which brings me to TSR specifically. Tony Stewart shut down his own 14 car a few seasons ago, and right now seems to be much more focused on the drag racing program, with his top alcohol schedule, and their nitro team featuring his wife Leah Pruett in the top fuel car, and Matt Hagan in the funny car. TSR was competitive right out of the gate, both the nitro teams are in the thick of the championship battle, and Stewart has had success in his dragster. Smoke does still own the All Star Circuit of Champions sprint car series and Eldora Speedway as well, although there have been persistent rumors about the future of the All Stars and Stewart's ownership of it. I don't personally see Stewart moving on from Eldora, he's been such a great steward of the track and it's place in the sport. But I do think a scenario is possible where his ownership of the All Stars ends, maybe Donny Schatz decides to leave, and and then TSR's dirt racing program becomes no more. I don't have any specific knowledge here, this is just speculation on my part, but I don't think it's hard to put some stuff together here. Stewart's support of dirt racing has been significant over the years, and he's done some stuff behind the scenes that most folks will never know about. It would be a significant loss if he were to make some of these changes. Obviously only time will tell, and nothing ever stays the same forever, but I honestly hope I'm wrong about these ideas. Drop me a comment, let me know your thoughts about where things stand right now with Donny Schatz and Tony Stewart.

Moving on to some Monday night racing. Brady Bacon was dominant last night at Lincoln Park Speedway, leading all 40 laps from the pole, and scoring his 50th career USAC National Sprint Car win. Only two other drivers have reached that mark in their careers, they are Tom Bigelow and Dave Darland. The Macho Man has had an up and down season, and is trying to climb his way back into the championship fight. A flat tire with 12 to go hurt Emerson Axsom last night, as he ended up finishing 15th, and lost the points lead back to Jake Swanson. So Swanson now leads by just three over Axsom, and Bacon is 32 out in third. Next up for the USAC sprint cars is two nights later this week at Macon Speedway. That track is currently trying to clean up and fix their facility after it was damaged in a recent storm. They've got Summer Nationals Thursday, then USAC Friday and Saturday.

And speaking of Dave Darland, on the night where Bacon gets win fifty, Darland went fifth to the victory at Kokomo in the sprint car last night. He topped Colten Cottle and Cole Bodine in that one. The crowd was pumped, and it's nice to see Darland winning after the health issues he had a few years ago.

At Tazewell last night, Dale McDowell picked up a dominant win as well, leading all 75 laps of the Spring Nationals show and taking home $21,000. He topped Jimmy Owens and Ricky Weiss. Carson Ferguson was already crowned the Spring Nationals champion. The Southern Nationals series from Ray Cook starts July 14th at Beckley Motor Speedway.

And the Summer Nationals closed out week three on Monday with a first ever stop to Lake Cumberland Speedway. Tyler Clem led 34 laps from the pole, but Ashton Winger got by him in lap traffic and led the final six laps for the win. It was Winger's fourth win of the season, and it secured him the week three Summer Nationals championship. Blake Brown was a first time winner on the modified side. Because Lake Cumberland was pushed back a day, there is no rest for the teams today. They are right back to it with the start of week four at Tri-City Speedway. After tonight, they will go to Red Hill, Macon, Farmer City, Highland, and Haubstadt through Sunday.

The one race we did not get last night was the Pennsylvania Speedweek finale at Port Royal. The show was rained out, but they are trying again tonight. $15,000 to win and we'll see if Anthony Macri can close out for the week long championship. It's live on FloRacing if you want to tune in.

That's it for today's Daily. There are some shows out there on the streaming schedule today, so go check that out at dirtrackr.com/watchtonight. Also, catch today's Winged Nation from MRN. I'm filling in again with Steve Post and Shane Stewart and Brad Doty are on the show as guests. It premiers live at noon eastern, and can be watched on the Winged Nation and MRN Facebook pages, and at youtube.com/wingednation.

Hope you guys have a good fourth of July out there, we'll see you right back here tomorrow.