DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Let's talk about that Bobby Pierce, Hudson O'Neal finish | Daily 7-10-2023
The scoring loop said Bobby Pierce won, but some armchair officials saw things differently. We'll dive into the Lucas Deer Creek finish today, plus talk weekend results, some sprint car ride news, and tonight's XR Super Series show. Let's go!
It's Monday, July 10th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
It is Eldora Million week, action gets rolling on Wednesday and we'll be talking about it plenty over the next several days. If you are going to be at Eldora for the Million and Kings Royal coming up, be sure to visit our friends at Whistle Stop Bar and Grill located just south of the track, six miles down 118, in Ansonia, Ohio. Once you leave Eldora and head south, it's a straight shot there, you literally don't have to make any turns, as the Whistle Stop sits right on 118, which is Main Street in Ansonia. If you get to the train tracks, turn around, you went too far. The Whistle Stop have been huge supporters of dirt racing with partnerships with Sheldon and Jac Haudenschild, Rico Abreu, Chris Windom, Cap Henry, the Dirt Nerds, Eldora Speedway and now DIRTRACKR! They offer indoor and outdoor dining for breakfast, lunch and dinner or you can order online at whistlebarandgrill.com and take back to the Eldora campground. They've got a really big menu, and I'm sure everyone in your group can find something good to eat. So be sure to visit our friends at Ohio's favorite train depot, The Whistle Stop, while in town for Eldora's historic week!
We closed out last week talking about drama between Ricky Thornton Jr. and Hudson O'Neal at Deer Creek with Lucas, and we'll start this week with more drama at Deer Creek with Lucas. If you missed it, Saturday night in the $50,000 to win weekend finale, we had a photo finish between O'Neal and Bobby Pierce. O'Neal had taken over out front just before half way from polesitter Chris Madden, and he controlled the show down the stretch. Pierce had moved up from 10th to get into the mix, and Brandon Sheppard was in pursuit as well. Late in the race, Pierce was able to reel the Rocket house car in, with both drivers absolutely beating down the boards on top. On the final lap, O'Neal slipped up in one and two and caught the wall pretty hard, which allowed the 32 machine to close. Into three, Pierce made his move, sending in a big slider and clearing O'Neal on the other side. Out of four, O'Neal then dipped low for the crossover, and it was a drag race back to the finish. Initially, Dustin Jarrett and James Essex on the mics did not call a winner. Pierce celebrated immediately, but it was basically 10 minutes before we had an official announcement that Pierce was the victor by 0.002 of a second over O'Neal. It didn't take long though for the video dissection to begin, and for some folks to be up in arms about the result. Based on a FloRacing camera that isn't quite aligned with the flag stand, some are saying it's clear that O'Neal was the winner. But in the aftermath, internet sleuths have discovered that the scoring loop that was used to call the race for Pierce is actually before the flag stand. And I think this situation brings up a lot of interesting points. In my opinion, if the scoring says Pierce, then it's Pierce. That's the whole reason we use electronic timing and scoring and transponders, so we can avoid judgement calls. We obviously don't have a painted start/finish line on dirt tracks, and I think talk of theoretical lines, or imaginary planes is not worthwhile. We need a hard and fast way to make these calls. If it isn't the scoring loop, then how do we decide where exactly the finish line is? Is it the front of the flagstand? The middle? The back? It all feels too ambiguous, and I don't like ambiguous. Especially when there is no visible line, and no cameras pointed directly down the line to make an eyeball judgement. And my thoughts on this are exactly how the Lucas officials made the call. Series director Rick Schwallie told Dirt on Dirt that they had video to look at, which was too close to call, and they didn't have a shot from a photographer that was straight on. He said quote "so the most techincal thing we have is the transponder system, and that says 32, and the transponders were in the same spot on both cars, so 32's the winner" unquote. Seems fairly cut and dry to me. Are there better systems and better ways to do all of this, yeah, probably. But in this instance, with the tools available, this was the right decision. I also saw chatter about the transponders themselves, and their mounting location, but Lucas did check both cars and they were satisfied with where they were located. It's funny how nobody talks about things like transponder location until a situation like this pops up. These types of calls on photo finishes have been argued before, and there are plenty of race tracks around the country where the scoring loop and the flagstand don't line up, which has spurred some of these situations. Some of those examples are fairly significant gaps between the loop and the stand. I was sent illustrations of both Red Dirt Raceway and Tri-State Speedway in Oklahoma where the loops and the stands are pretty far apart, and it's not uncommon for that to be the case. I don't think that should necessarily be an issue, but I do think it's important that the loops are marked somehow, so the fans and competitors can understand where exactly the line really is. I had one series official send me a lengthy email, with some fantastic explanations of a lot of this, and he said that flag stands are no longer the start/finish line in our sport, but rather they have just become a signal stand, with the line elsewhere at some places. And I think that makes sense, and is fine as long as that line or loop is clearly marked. I think that would go a long way towards avoiding some of the backlash like we saw on Saturday. A couple of other points here that I think are important. On Twitter yesterday, I got asked about the photo systems used for horse racing and how viable they would be for a case like this. Roger Slack, who used to run Eldora, jumped in and said they had a chance to buy a used system like this several years ago for Eldora, but it came with a price tag of over $50,000 and it didn't include some necessary parts and pieces. So clearly that probably isn't an option for most race tracks. I also think it's worth noting that neither O'Neal or anyone from the Rocket side seemed particularly upset about the call. O'Neal was much more bothered by the fact that he felt like he threw the win away with some of his mistakes. Feel free to use the comment section below to weigh in on all of this. Ricky Thornton Jr. maintains the Lucas points lead, even though he was 14th in the Saturday feature after needing a B-Main transfer. Tim McCreadie still holds that all important fourth position, with Jonathan Davenport 85 points back. Lucas is right back to racing tomorrow night at Davenport Speedawy in Iowa.
Before we move on and get into a bunch more stuff from the weekend, I did want to give you a DIRTRACKR swag update. We did a big drop last week with new hats and shirts, and I'm down to just a single graphite Flexfit left, it's a small medium. I do still have some black Flexfits left in the large/XL size. I also dropped the price on the old t-shirts, the sprint car and late model ones down to just $10 if you want one. The sizes in those are limited though as stock is low. And as of Saturday there are some fresh sticker options available. I've restocked the sprint car stickers, and added two new car versions, one is a midget and one is a modified. They are all $5 each and will ship free if that's all you want. Check out all the DIRTRACKR merch, including hats, shirts, stickers, and can koozies over at shop.dirtrackr.com.
With the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars over the weekend, the Friday show at 34 Raceway was rained out. I know some folks were upset about the plug being pulled there, but as I've said before, I'm not going to criticize tracks and facilities for their decisions on weather affected days. No matter what they do, it's bad for everyone involved. On Saturday, the Outlaws headed to Wilmot Raceway in Wisconsin, and after sitting on the pole, Carson Macedo got by early leader Donny Schatz on lap 16 and led the rest of the way for his fourth win of the season and first in over a month. Macedo obviously had that terrible crash at Knoxville back in June, and it was good to see him and that team score again. Plus it was just Jason Johnson's birthday this past Friday. Brad Sweet went fourth to second, and Sheldon Haudenschild 10th to third. Headed to Attica on Tuesday for the Brad Doty Classic, Sweet's championship lead over David Gravel is now 12, with Macedo 50 back.
Around the Outlaw shows we did get some sprint car ride news as well. Roth Motorsports announced that Buddy Kofoid will continue with the team through the end of the season. They'll run a pick and choose schedule, including the big events like the Million, Kings Royal and Knoxville Nationals. Crew chief Dylan Buswell will continue to lead that effort. Obviously not a surprising move here, and this was an announcement we were expecting. As for Hunter Schuerenberg, we know he's running the Million and Kings Royal this week with Swindell SpeedLab, but he may have found a more permanent home with Kevin Newton. Newton has been running some himself this season, but Schuerenberg was in a second winged car for him with the Outlaws at Wilmot. If you don't know Newton, you may have seen his sponsorships lately around the sport. He's the CEO of Honest Abe Roofing which is based in Terre Haute, Indiana. They are on the side of Logan Seavey's non-wing sprint car, and they are a partner of USAC's this season. Schuerenberg ran with Newton as well during the recent IRA show at Fairbury and it sounds like this pairing could continue.
Over to the All Stars, our two main points contenders split the weekend wins, with Zeb Wise flat dominating at Ransomville, winning by 11 seconds over Kerry Madsen and Chris Windom. And Tyler Courtney led all 35 laps Saturday at Sharon to score the Lou Blaney Memorial win over Windom and Zeb. The points battle did close up just a little bit, with Zeb gaining eight points on Sunshine with the two weekend podiums. It was 68 points between them, now it's 60. The All Stars are quiet this week, but will follow up the Kings Royal and Million with a Tuesday stop at Lernerville for the $25,000 Don Martin Memorial Silver Cup. If you're curious, Zeb and Sunshine both better this season, in terms of average finish and a lot of the main stat categories. Chris Windom has taken a big step forward as well, and seems to be paying off the move that Lane Racing made. And Kerry Madsen had two top fives in his first All Star races with Vermeer.
At Macon Speedway Friday and Saturday, I thought the USAC National Sprint Cars put on some really great shows. Mitchel Moles was the Friday winner, and Brady Bacon bounced back Saturday to win after crashing in the Friday feature. Bacon's Friday crash was strange to me, watching him slide high out of two and catch the wall at the opening. We also had Justin Grant hitting an infield push truck and the safety workers needing several minutes to untangle them. It was a good thing it was just show-up points only the two nights, as Grant and points leader Jake Swanson had weekends to forget. The sprint cars are back July 21st at Gas City to begin Indiana Sprint Week.
Other weekend sprint car winners included Matt Covington and Jason Martin splitting the ASCS victories at Dodge City. They are still separated by 58 points in the championship, with everyone else triple digits back. The National Tour continues this coming weekend with stops at Thunderbird and Batesville. Out in California, Chase Johnson started ninth and picked up the NARC win at Petaluma, even surviving contact with a slowing lap car. That same lap car did end Dominic Scelzi's night, after he led 18 of the 30 laps. Justin Sanders and Corey Day were also on the podium. Brian Brown won Saturday at Knoxville, Danny Dietrich and Devon Borden took wins at Lincoln and Port Royal, and Christopher Thram won Sunday at Huset's.
Weekend Summer Nationals winners included Brian Shirley Friday night at Farmer City, Ashton Winger won Saturday at Highland, and Dylan Thompson picked up a stunner on Sunday at Haubstadt after leader Shannon Babb was impeded by a lapper in the final two corners, allowing Thompson by for the win. Jason Feger was the week four champion. Josh Rich picked up the Iron-Man win at Hilltop, Frank Heckenast Jr. was a DIRTcar winner at Fairbury, Tyler Carpenter won Saturday at Tyler County, and Drake Troutman was a $10,000 winner on Sunday at Brushcreek.
If you want some racing tonight, the XR Super Series late models are headed for Dubuque Speedway for $20,000 to win and $2000 to start. With two races complete, Hudson O'Neal leads that championship over Mike Marlar and Dale McDowell. Coming off the Deer Creek weekend with Lucas, it looks like a lot of big names are expected at Dubuque, including Bobby Pierce, Ricky Thornton Jr., O'Neal, Marlar, Brandon Overton, Brandon Sheppard, Chris Madden, Devin Moran, Jonathan Davenport, and a whole lot more. The last time a big touring series was at Dubuque was 2018, when BShepp picked up the win over Chris Simpson and Jimmy Mars. Simpson does have a recent MARS series win there, in August of 2022. Racing starts tonight at 6:30 with hot laps. If you can't get there, you can watch the action live on XR Plus. If you need an XR subscription, click the link below in the video description, or the XR links over at dirtrackr.com. That helps me out and gets you all of their action including the upcoming Northern Storm tour.
That's it for the Daily today.
Hope you guys have a good Monday out there, we'll see you right back here tomorrow.