DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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How this team beat the best for a million dollars, with 1/3 of the budget | Daily 7-14-2023

Logan Schuchart and Shark Racing are the first million dollar sprint car winners, and I'll tell you why this big victory means something more and why it's different compared to the rest of the top names in the sport. Let's go!

It's Friday, July 14th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

We'll get into the Eldora Million here in a second, but I first wanted to say a quick thanks for 20,000 subscribers. We went across that number yesterday, which is super amazing. 25K is the goal for the year, and we are well on our way. If for some reason you aren't subscribed, please hit that button. It's free. Also, big thank you to all of you who are channel members and have stepped up with added support. The help really means a lot to me and what I'm doing here. Making money isn't easy, and I understand what it means for you to contribute some of your hard earned cash to back this deal. If you want to check out the membership program, hit the Join button on this video or the channel. It's a few bucks a month, and you get added perks like loyalty badges, custom emojis, 10% of DIRTRACKR merch all the time, and a free decal for signing up. Alright, let's get into today's show.

Logan Schuchart, after a dominating performance at Eldora on Thursday night, can now claim that he's won the richest paying race in the history of dirt racing. He started on the pole, was able to sustain a few early challenges from Brad Sweet and Carson Macedo, and then drove on to the million dollar win. He officially led all 50 laps, and had a muli-second lead at the checkered flag. By the time it was over, I believe he'd lapped up to 11th place. Macedo finished second, and although he didn't win, still bagged the biggest payday of his career, scoring $100,000. Brad Sweet, David Gravel, and Rico Abreu completed the top five. Buddy Kofoid was the biggest mover, transferring in from the night's B main, and going 20th to seventh. Six cars did not finish, including Cole Duncan who was out on lap one, plus the five cars involved in a big crash on the restart following the 20 lap break. Aaron Reutzel got caught out by the big bump into turn one, and spun in front of the whole field, collecting Kyle Larson, Spencer Bayston, Gio Scelzi, and Lachlan McHugh. All were done for the night. Larson was definitely one of the favorites on the night, but his million was over before he really even had a chance to get going.

Back to Shark Racing though and Schuchart's victory. The overwhelming storyline after last night's score is one of a team who went from rags to now riches. Barely surviving their first year out with the World of Outlaws in 2014, stories of one hotel room and guys sleeping in the trailer, to now sprint car racing's first million dollar win. And all of that is true, no doubt about it. I think it's important to note though that these guys didn't hit the Powerball. They survived and perservered to become one of the smartest and scrappiest organizations in all of dirt racing. Even from where they started way back in 2014, nobody was surprised last night that Logan was the winner. 37 career Outlaw wins, including four at Eldora. One of those came just back in May. He's won prelim shows at the Knoxville Nationals, bagged the Jackson Nationals, and is a nightly contender on tour against the toughest in the game. Logan is as talented as they come, and this squad has figured out their own path to success led by the philosophy and tactics of Hall of Famer Bobby Allen. In December of 2022, I did a daily show where I dove into the expenses for a World of Outlaws team, and did a full breakdown and projection of the costs to compete. I'm sure many of you have watched that video, because as of right now, it has more than 65,000 views. My original projection was in the $600,000 range, and it was pretty quickly pointed out to me that some teams at the top of sprint car racing are probably spending more than a million dollars a year. Where this all ties together though, was one specific comment I had on that video. And that comment was from Logan Schuchart. He dropped in to say they spent about $4000 a night to race, so about $320,000 for a year depending on the number of races. He mentioned they have two crew guys for each car, and him and Jacob are basically their own crew chiefs. You may have even heard or read about that in the last 12 hours. In a world where the top guys are spending maybe triple what they are, Shark Racing has found a system that that allows them to compete at the highest levels, but for a lot less cost. These guys are the Oakland A's in Moneyball, finding performance where others don't. These guys are value investors buying stocks that are underappreciated and low priced and holding onto them for massive profits. This world is an arms race very often, and who can buy and build the next great thing. But Shark knew they couldn't compete that way, so they found a different path. And to me, that's what's most impressive about what they did last night, and what they've done over the past nearly 10 seasons.

Looking at some other notes from last night. As there always is in big races with big fields, there were some names that were left out of the festivities. Sheldon Haudenschild crashed in his heat and had to race in one of the night's C-Mains. He got through that and was battling for a feature transfer in the B, before bad luck struck again. An incident with Cale Thomas where the two collided ended his bid for a million dollars. He'll try and bounce back the next two nights during the Kings Royal festivities. Other guys with early exits included Parker Price Miller, recent All Star winner Sam Hafertepe Jr., Danny Dietrich, Hunter Schuerenberg, Zeb Wise, Shane Stewart, and Lance Dewease in the Macri 39M. According to Jeremy Elliott and Dewease, Lance will stick around the next two nights and continue driving the Macri car. There was some chance that he'd return to Central PA to run Port Royal with Don Kreitz. Some guys I thought did a very solid job last night included CJ Leary, who made the big show even though his winged resume is limited. Cory Eliason and the Crouch guys bounced back from their crash the night before to put it into the feature. and Justin Whittall went seventh to third in his heat to make the main event.

Looking ahead, the Kings Royal starts tonight, so all of these guys will be right back at it today. Tonight is the traditional Knight Before, and the Kings Royal is Saturday for another $175,000 to win. I believe tonight is for full Outlaw points, so that will be a subplot as well. You watched the previous two nights live on FloRacing, but tonight and tomorrow will move over to DIRTVision.

Alright, elsewhere this weekend there is a lot of racing going down. The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series is at Tri-City Speedway tonight and Lucas Oil Speedway on Saturday. $12,000 to win and $15,000 to win. The big thing to keep an eye on is that battle for fourth between Tim McCreadie, Jonathan Davenport, and Devin Moran. And really, if Brandon Overton struggles in the coming weeks, he could be at risk as well. Ricky Thornton Jr. and Hudson O'Neal are pretty secure in first and second. The World of Outlaws Late Models have a pair of $15,000 paydays coming up betwee Ponderosa and Brownstown. We'll see if Bobby Pierce can continue to extend his championship advantage over Chris Madden and Ryan Gustin. The USAC midgets are at Fairbury, Nebraska tonight and tomorrow. Logan Seavey is the points leader, and Bryant Wiedeman is coming in off his first career series win. Buddy Kofoid and Mitchel Moles won at this track a year ago. The Summer Nationals continues through Sunday to close out their 2023 season. Ryan Unzicker won last night at Butler in the late model, with Tyler Nicely the modified winner. They've got Hartford tonight, Oakshade Saturday, and Wayne County Sunday. The Super DIRTcar Series is at Weedsport on Sunday for the $10,000 to win Hall of Fame 100, that will also earn another driver a guaranteed starting spot at Super Dirt Week. Matt Sheppard is the championship leader. The IRA is at River Cities tonight and tomorrow racing against the NOSA teams. Mark Dobmeier won last night at I-94 after Brenham Crouch had a late flat tire. And the USMTS drivers will race a doubleheader tonight at Ogilvie before Saturday's Mod Wars finale after rain screwed up their Thursday plans.

As is always the case, there are other races and shows I'm forgetting or leaving out, not on purpose, but just because there is so much. Make sure to stop by the streaming schedule over at dirtrackr.com/watchtonight to see what else you can get into over the next few days.

Hope you guys have a good weekend out there, we'll see you right back here on Monday.