DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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MILLIONS more to come, who are sprint car racing's TOP EARNERS? | Daily 8-4-2023

There has been a lot of money available for sprint car teams in 2023 so far, and with more big cash coming next week at Knoxville, we'll look today at earnings to date for the top 150 410 drivers and compare them to 2022. Let's go!

It's Friday, August 4th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

I've been asked a few times lately if DIRTRACKR merch will be available at any big events coming up, and unfortunately the answer is no. I'm still waiting on those millions to start rolling in to get a big time merch trailer. In the meantime though, that's why I've made shipping free for orders of $20 or more at shop.dirtrackr.com. You can't get it at the track, but you can get a shirt, or stickers or koozies and have them sent right to you in just a few days. The last few late model shirts in stock are on the site for just $10, I'm down to three sprint car stickers, and there are plenty of the two logo shirts ready to go. Get some cool stuff and show your support by buying any time over at shop.dirtrackr.com.

We are just days away at this point from the 62nd Knoxville Nationals, with things getting rolling next Wednesday night. The 360 Nationals are going on now through Saturday, the Outlaw teams are at Pevely for the Ironman 55, but the focus starts to shift on Sunday with the Capitani Classic. Those four days next week are incredibly lucrative for the sprint car teams, with Knoxville paying the winner $185,000 from a total purse of nearly $1.2 million. It will pay $15,000 to just start the main event. With all that money still to come, and some big paydays already handed out this year, I wanted to dive into the season earnings so far for 410 sprint car racing. We did something similar back in May when the year was about a quarter complete. There continues to be more and more cash pumped into the system for the drivers and teams, and the big one this year was obviously the Eldora Million. Between the two days of the Million and the two days of Kings Royal, Eldora paid out two million dollars total. We also saw a $750,000 total purse from the High Bank Nationals at Huset's. And that's on top of the seven completed High Limit races and some pumped up purses at a lot of Outlaw shows. Looking at the numbers, thanks to Bill over at sprintcarratings.com, the obvious leader is Logan Schuchart. He tops all drivers with $1.173 million in earnings for the year. Barring an insane run from somebody like David Gravel, that is likely not to be topped this season. Gravel is second at $536k, with Carson Macedo, Rico Abreu, and Donny Schatz completing the top five. Looking at the top 150 drivers, they have completed 4,451 races in 2023, with just shy nine million dollars earned. The full group is averaging right at $2000 a night. Comparing that to all of 2022, the top 150 earned $11.2 million during 6,624 races, and averaged about $1700 a night. With the money set to be earned over the next week, this year's total will be right around that $10 million mark. During last season, Brent Marks was the highest earner, and he averaged $7700 per race, but at this moment, we've got three guys north of $10k a night. They are Schuchart, Gravel, and Kyle Larson. Larson has only made 17 410 starts this year, but has earned $234k, thanks to seven victories. He's averaging nearly $14k a race. That's only bettered by Schuchart for obvious reasons. Gravel is sitting at nearly $11k per night, with his numbers being boosted by the $250,000 Huset's win. Donny Schatz's nearly $300k was helped out mightily by the $175,000 Kings Royal win. Without it, he'd be outside the top 15 in earnings, and averaging around the same per night as guys like Freddie Rahmer, Brian Brown, and Trey Starks. He'll still be a favorite for the win next Saturday night though, and a repeat of 2022 would push him into the top three. One driver who has taken a big leap this season is Rico Abreu. Already eight wins in 43 starts, and over $300k in winnings. In 2022, he averaged about $2800 per race, but this year it's over $7000 per race. Other guys who have taken big steps in average winnings per night include Justin Sanders, Carson Macedo and Corey Day. Guys who have gone the wrong direction include Sheldon Haudenschild, Lance Dewease, Jacob Allen, and Brent Marks. Marks' 2022 numbers were helped by taking $276,000 out of the Eldora weekend last July. Looking at all of this, you can see how just one big win can change a season and really alter the perceptions. One more macro number for you from the list, in 2022, we had 28 drivers crack $100k in winnings for the year, and right now we already have 21. Cory Eliason and Corey Day will join that list in a matter of days, and guys like Aaron Reutzel, Parker Price Miller, Lance Dewease, and Jacob Allen shouldn't have a problem getting there either. If you want to see a lot of this for yourself, check out sprintcarratings.com. Bill does a really nice job over there tracking all sorts of numbers and stats.

Alright, let's talk some racing from last night and what to check out coming up this weekend. At Cedar Lake, Bobby Pierce stayed hot, leading all 25 laps of the first USA Nationals prelim feature. It was Pierce's third win in five races, and his fifth straight top two finish. His championship lead is now triple digits over Chris Madden heading into Friday. Brandon Sheppard and Ricky Thornton Jr. joined him on the podium. Tonight is the same setup with prelim night two, and tomorrow is the big show.

At Knoxville, Aaron Reutzel started his march towards defending his 360 Nationals crown from a year ago by winning the first prelim night. He went fourth to the victory and topped Sam Hafertepe Jr and Scott Bogucki. Pole sitter Colby Copeland led 14 laps before settling for fifth. I was going to say something today about how impressive it was for Bogucki to go 15th to third last night and how he probably deserves more opportunities than he's gotten. But just a little bit ago he was DQ'd from the event for illegal modifications to his engine's cylinder heads. He was 11th in event points after last night, and now gives that up and his winnings. So, so much for that. Some surprises last night included Blake Hahn, Ayrton Gennetten, and and JJ Hickle missing the feature. Rico Abreu finished 18th after needing a B main transfer, and Tony Rost had a tough luck night. After earning a feature transfer in his heat, his engine expired before he could get off the race track. Then, in the rush to bolt in a fresh piece, he didn't have time to add tearoffs to his helmet, and ran the entire feature struggling to see. 57 cars are entered tonight, including Daryn Pittman, Anthony Macri, PPM, Kasey Kahne, Brian Brown, Zeb Wise, Justin Sanders, Brady Bacon and plenty more. Tomorrow night's main event pays $20,000 to the winner.

At Pevely, the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars begin two nights of racing with the Xtreme Midget Series for the Ironman 55 weekend. Gravel leads Sweet by eight points right now, with Macedo trailing by 48. Saturday's 55 lapper pays $20,000 to the winner, and this will be the last championship shuffling for the Outlaws until after the Nationals. Knoxville is show-up points only for series full timers. Recent winners at the Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55 including Brad Sweet earlier this year, and Sweet took the Ironman a year ago. Macedo and Haudenschild have wins there as well going back to 2021. After Saturday night, it's then all about Knoxville.

Elsewhere this weekend, there is plenty of local racing, plus the USMTS modifieds, series like the Iron-Man and Comp Cams late models are in action, and there is the $35,000 to win Wood Tic at Merritt on Saturday. Kyle Busch is racing at that one in between NASCAR commitments at MIS. He'll drive a late model owned by Brandon Thirlby.

That's it for the Daily this week. Thanks for tuning in, and hit that subscribe button if you don't already. Also, don't forget to check out the streaming schedule at dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.

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