DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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EMERGENCY DAILY: Macri departs family owned 39M hours before Eldora Million starts | Daily 7-12-2023
Just hours before the Eldora Million, we've had bombshell news in the sprint car world. On this emergency edition of the Daily, we'll dive into what we know and what it could mean. Let's go!
It's Wednesday, July 12th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
There is a lot to talk about today, including that sprint car race that gets started tonight at Eldora. Before we dive in, 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. So be sure to visit our friends at Ohio's favorite train depot, The Whistle Stop, while in town for Eldora's historic week!
Alright, the story none of us were expecting this morning, but right before 8:30AM eastern time, Macri Motorsports posted to social media that driver Anthony Macri has chosen to step away from the 39M machine and that Lance Dewease will be in the car for the Eldora Million. That means Dewease in tonight and tomorrow, but we don't know yet what the plans are for even Friday and Saturday for the Kings Royal much less beyond that. Dewease told Jeremy Elliott that he got a call from car owner Nick Macri yesterday afternoon, and after talking it out grabbed a seat and jumped in the car headed for Rossburg, Ohio. There is supposedly an option for him to continue through the weekend, but Dewease said this is just a temporary thing, and that he will be back in the 69K soon. Maybe even as early as Saturday night at Port Royal. All we know publicly is that this move was made because of quote "internal issues", which isn't a great sign when the team is family owned. This isn't a typical driver-car owner situation gone awry, this is father and son type stuff. At this moment, mere hours away from the start of the Eldora Million, Macri has competed in 50 races this season, winning eight times, with 34 top fives, 38 top tens, and nearly $170,000 in earnings. He's won this season with High Limit, the All Stars, the Outlaws, in Central Pennsylvania, and he picked up a convincing PA Speedweek title. And that was the last time Macri raced in the 39M, back on July 4th at Port Royal to close out Speedweek. He went fourth to the win. Since then the team has focused on their preparations for Eldora and they would have been high on the list of favorites for the next several days. In his original Million seeding post, TJSlideways had Macri at P11 of the 80 plus entries. Macri didn't crack the top ten at Eldora back in May with the Outlaws during Let's Race Two, but he did run top five against the All Stars during Ohio Sprint Speedweek, finishing fourth behind Sam Hafertepe Jr., Buddy Kofoid, and Brent Marks.
Looking ahead over the next several hours and days, there are a lot of questions around this situation. Will Nick Macri be interested in continuing to operate and fund this team when his son isn't driving the car? They had made a significant move in the offseason to sign Joe Mooney as crew chief away from Kasey Kahne Racing, and no Macri really changes things for Joe as well. Those two really seemed to have found their footing together. Bringing in another driver like Dewease makes a lot of sense here, with all of the work I'm sure they'd put into getting the 39M ready for what is probably the biggest sprint car weekend ever, and maybe the biggest dirt racing weekend ever. He's a steady hand, can get around Eldora, and won't be rattled by the situation. But who knows what this looks like after Eldora. Clearly the 39M is a great ride, and anyone would be interested in driving it. Now that this news is out, I would be shocked if Nick's phone isn't blowing up with potential steering wheel holders. You also have to wonder how long it would be until Macri resurfaces. He's clearly one of the most talented drivers in all of sprint car racing, and there would have to be some sort of market for his services. Walkapedia floated the idea of a team pulling down a second car for Macri to run this weekend, which I think most of us would normally dismiss something like that just hours before we are set to get started, but A. it's Anthony Macri, and B. it's the Eldora Million. If you were well prepared enough as a team, he'd give you a really great shot at picking up some big cash. I'd love to see what some serious car owners phones look like right now. Are they reaching out to him, is he calling around trying to find something? I guess we'll see later today.
Drop your comments below on this situation. I wanted to do a bit of an emergency show, and I'll be back later today with some regularly scheduled programming. I don't want to gloss over a lot of the other stuff going on, because it's too big of a day around the sport. So we'll let this live on it's own, and if anything changes through the day, we'll add it into the normal Wednesday show.
We'll see you guys a little bit later on.
Hope you guys have a good Tuesday out there, we'll see you right back here tomorrow.