DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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He retaliated... Against the wrong guy | Daily 7-6-2023

Coming up, what happens when you retaliate against the wrong guy in a dirt race, plus news and results from the past 24 hours, and it's Q&A time! Let's go!

It's Thursday, July 6th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

We'll kick today's show off with a dirt racing version of C'MON MAN. Back to Monday night at Waynesfield Raceway Park, the non-wing Buckeye Outlaw Sprint Series was in action for a 30 lap main event. Series points leader Ricky Lewis started from the tenth position, and ended up driving through the field to pickup the victory over Luke Hall and Kody Swanson. In the process though, Lewis made some sketchy moves and drew the ire of several competitors. One of those moves involved a poorly timed slide job near half way on third running Paul Dues. The two made contact, which then sent Dues off the backstretch. The caution was thrown as Dues rejoined the race track, and the driver was clearly upset about the way he was raced. Under the caution, Dues decided to retaliate against the offender, eventually spinning out the black race car, and ending up with his front bumper through the driver side opening. The only problem was, Dues wrecked the wrong guy. Instead of going after Ricky Lewis, he wiped out Landon Simon, who was not involved in the original incident. Simon was obviously upset about the whole thing and was eventually restrained by series and track officials. Simon posted to social media later on that Dues' car hit his arm and had his head pinned against the seat, which I think would have most drivers pretty upset. Lewis ended up taking the win, and Dues was DQ'd for the night. In response to everything that happened, the BOSS series issued a statement yesterday following a complete review of the night. Ricky Lewis has been placed on probation for the next three races for his actions driving through the field. And Dues is suspended for the remainder of the 2023 BOSS and FAST season. I think both are the right call, and regardless of who Dues is as a guy and what went down, you cannot use your car as a weapon like that. And it's made even worse by the fact that Dues ended up going after the wrong driver and car. He's lucky Simon wasn't seriously hurt. Paul Dues, c'mon man. The BOSS series is back at it on Saturday at Atomic, you can watch it live over on The Cushion.

Last night's Summer Nationals show at Red Hill ended up being postponed because of weather. They will try again on Monday, July 10th. The series is headed for Macon Speedway tonight, and things are full go there after a recent storm damaged the facility. Tonight is the 43rd running of the Herald and Review 100 at Macon, and their busy weekend continues Friday and Saturday with USAC sprint cars. And unfortunately, Macon isn't the only recent example of a track damaged by storms. I got alerted to this via an email last night, but Eagle Raceway in Nebraska is currently cleaning up and repairing their facility after a Tuesday storm knocked a light pole into the grandstands. Track owner Roger Hadan told local news WOWT that he thinks it's about $80,000 in damages. They do have a plan in place for some temporary lighting and repairs, and still hope to race this coming Saturday night.

With the Super DIRTcar Series on Wednesday, Matt Sheppard went to victory lane in the previously postponed 75 lapper at Orange County Fair Speedway. Larry Wight led early from the pole, and Brett Hearn was out front for a bit as well, but Sheppard got to the lead on lap 44 and was in control the rest of the way. Hearn settled for second, with Wight in third at the checkered. With Mat Williamson down in 14th on the final rundown, Sheppard was able to extend the championship lead to 35 now. I don't know if it was as bad as it looked on DIRTVision, but Orange County looked dusty last night. It's a shame, because we had a good battle out front for a lot of that race. The Super DIRTcar Series is back July 11th at Big Diamond.

In some race track news, the future for Pennsylvania's Pittsburgh Motor Speedway has been in doubt for a while as the Miley family worked through selling the track. In the last week, a deal was closed with Pittsburgh area businessman Blair Cress Jr. purchasing the speedway. Cress supposedly has a local landscaping and tree service, but according to a release from the track, he does plan on continuing to operate it as a racing facility. The deal is effective immediately and PPMS has racing this coming Saturday. To see more details, head over to ppms.com.

Up at Deer Creek Speedway tonight, the Gopher 50 weekend gets going for the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. Thursday and Friday are $5000 to win prelim programs to help setup Saturday's action, which results in a $50,000 to win main event. Like we talked about back on Monday, Ricky Thornton Jr. continues to lead the Lucas standings, with Hudson O'Neal, Brandon Overton, and Tim McCreadie currently holding down the four locked in championship chase spots. Chris Madden and Jonathan Davenport were prelim winners at this event a year ago, while Brandon Overton is the defending winner. With the Outlaws off this weekend, you should see quite a few of those teams tow up for this event and join the Lucas regulars. That will include names like Bobby Pierce, Chris Madden, Brandon Sheppard, and more. RTJ has currently won four straight features, and seven of his last eight. Tonight's racing can be watched live on FloRacing if you can't get there.

Question and answer segment

Thanks everyone for the questions, we'll do this again in the future. That's it for today's show. Make sure to hit up that streaming schedule over at dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.

Hope you guys have a Thursday out there, we'll see you right back here tomorrow.