DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Jacob Allen OUT of the Knoxville Nationals mere hours before event starts | Daily 8-9-2023
We are mere hours before the start of the 62nd Knoxville Nationals, and the driver changes just keep coming. We'll talk about those, plus what's happening today at Knoxville, and Tuesday results. Let's go!
It's Wednesday, August 9th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
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The 62nd Knoxville Nationals open tonight with the first of two split field prelim nights. The traditional format is in play, with qualifying, eight car inverted heats, then C, B, and feature, with drivers earning points all night long. The top 16 in combined points from Wednesday and Thursday will make Saturday's feature. Everyone else will try again during the Hard Knox Friday night. Features these next two nights are $12,000 to win and a $1000 to start. Tonight's field is 52 cars as of this morning, and includes names like David Gravel, Aaron Reutzel, Parker Price Miller, Justin Peck, Corey Day, Donny Schatz, Sheldon Haudenschild, Gio Scelzi, Brent Marks, Zeb Wise, Justin Sanders, James McFadden, and plenty more. There are some rain chances around the area today, so we'll have to wait and see how that affects the schedule. Things look like they should clear out though by the evening. If you want some early favorites to pay attention to, Donny Schatz is trying to go back to back and win his 12th Nationals. The TSR 15 has been pretty quiet since winning the Kings Royal, with a best finish of 7th over the past six Outlaw races, but you never count out Schatz at Knoxville. David Gravel, Brad Sweet, and Kyle Larson all have Nationals wins since 2018, and all are fast enough to win it again this week. Logan Schuchart won the Million this year, and in 2022 charged from the B-Main to the podium. And Rico Abreu comes in red hot, having won the All Star feature at Knoxville, and charging from 24th to third in the 360 Nationals. Speaking of the 360 Nationals, TJSlideways says that 19 of the 32 360 Nats winners have gone on to make the feature of that year's 410 Nationals, so that's a good sign for Brian Brown. Nobody has won both though in the same year, with Shane Stewart and Brownie having the highest 410 finishes after 360 wins. Stewart was second in 2011, and Brownie second in 2014. Both of those were Schatz wins. Around the track today, Donny Schatz's champions pole will be revealed at 4:30 local time, and then Tony Bokhoven's pre-race show will get going at 5. Hot laps are scheduled for 6:45.
In terms of all of the sprint car driver changes, just for good measure we've had a few more in the last 12 hours or so. First, Australian driver Cody Maroske announced on his Facebook page late last night that he'd parted ways with the Running Boxer Farms 101 car. They were scheduled to race tonight, but Maroske shared that he and the team owner had had a difference of opinion. In nearly 30 starts since May, Maroske had one top five and three top tens in scattered 410 starts across the Outlaws, All Stars, and a bunch of local shows.
And then literally minutes ago as I write today's show, Shark Racing shared to social media that Jacob Allen is out of the 1A for the Knoxville Nationals and Chase Dietz will instead pilot the car. Allen was on the entry list for tonight's prelim action, but now it will be Dietz in the field, who was not originally scheduled to compete this week. Allen sat out the second night of the Outlaws at Williams Grove a few weeks ago and posted to social media that he just needed a mental health break. He returned to the series in the next event at Weedsport, and ran both shows this past weekend at Pevely during the Ironman 55. Allen is a multi-time feature starter at the Knoxville Nationals, including last year when he won his prelim night and finished fifth in the big show after starting 11th. As we've documented here before, it's not been a great season for Jacob thus far, especially after what we saw from him in 2022. There is no reason to speculate or wonder what happened, or why, or the timing. Dietz is a solid pickup to fill the seat, although I don't think he's ever raced at Knoxville before. I can't seem to find where he has any races there in the past. The Shark cars are fast though, and Dietz has plenty of experience at big half mile race tracks in Pennsylvania, including Port Royal and Williams Grove. Hopefully this is the last of the driver changes this week. It's starting to wear me out.
Alright, let's move on.
The Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series opened Appalachian Midget Week last night at Clyde Martin Memorial Speedway. Championship leader Jade Avedisian led the field to green, but her night went south on lap 10 when she biked up in turn three and turned over. The KKM guys and the work area did a fantastic job to get her going again, but it was all for naught. Just a few laps after the restart, she was done for good when she flipped again after contact with Ayden Hare. Out front, Chase McDermand was able to get the lead after Jade's issues, and he drove on to series win number three of the season. Zach Daum and Taylor Reimer finished second and third. With Jade's issues, Cannon McIntosh retook the points lead with the series headed to Action Track USA tonight. I feel like this championship could continue going back and forth as we work this second half of the year.
It's been a bit of an up and down last few months for Nick Hoffman, but last night with XR's Workin' Man Series, he picked up his fourth victory of the season. He led the final ten laps after Tanner English got over the cushion late and gave up the lead. It was Hoffman's second Workin' Man win of the year, and Ricky Weiss and Tyler Erb joined him on the podium. Hoffman has been running full time this season with the World of Outlaws Late Models, and has been really impressive in this first full year in a late model. In series competition though, he hasn't had a top five since June 27th, and has fallen down the championship order a bit. This win should be a boost for that team though. The next XR Workin' Man race is September 15th at Mountain View Raceway. The national late model focus will shift to Florence Speedway this weekend with the $75,000 to win North/South 100 for the Lucas competitors.
With the Short Track Super Series last night, Matt Sheppard went back-to-back at New Egypt for the $6000 win. Anthony Perrego led early, but the 9S got around him on a restart 17 laps in and led the rest of the way. Perrego ended up second, with Stewart Friesen going ninth to third. Sheppard took over the south region championship lead with the win as well. The Short Track Super Series is back in a few weeks at Georgetown.
I got caught up with the other stuff happening for yesterday's show and forgot all about the iRacing stuff from Monday. I did want to double back to it, because there were a few notable things that happened. The iRacing World of Outlaws Late Models were at Knoxville and we had our first winner that wasn't Evan Seay or Blake Matjoulis. Logan Rumsey picked up the win after starting on the pole, but it was Seay who actually led the most laps. The two made a little bit of contact with nine to go, and it allowed Rumsey to slip by and drive on to the win. Seay settled for third, but with Matjoulis missing the feature completely, the points lead has been extended. Matjoulis tumbled to fourth, with Rumsey now second. I do wonder if Seay had words for Rumsey in the moment or afterwards, as he has shown to have a short fuse. Maybe series competitor Nathan Waddell, who watches this show, could clue us in down in the comments today. So five races down and five to go. Next week they take on Pevely on Monday night at 9PM eastern.
On the other dirt racing shows this week, Winged Nation has AJ Flick, Eric Arnold, and Austin McCarl. Hoogie's Garage has Isaac Schreurs, Dunewich on Dirt has Michael Brown, and there are new episodes of The Dirt Reporters from Dirt on Dirt, Quicktime, Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks, Dirt Track Confessions, and Dirt Track Weekly. To see all of these shows and new episodes, visit dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
That's it for the show today. There are four items on today's streaming schedule, so check that out over at dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
Hope you guys have a good Wednesday out there, we'll see you right back here tomorrow.