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YouTuber to the World of Outlaws: Tanner Holmes gets the call-up | Daily 8-15-2023

Tanner Holmes gets a big shot, High Limit races tonight, Davenport loses a key crew member, and the Danimal is back. Let's go!

It's Tuesday, August 15th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

We'll just dive right into it today with the big sprint car ride news from yesterday. I think there were like 20 comments on yesterday's show after the news broke of people talking about it, which is pretty cool. But if you missed it, Tanner Holmes will be behind the wheel of the Shark Racing 1A machine for the remainder of the 2023 season. He will fill the void left by Jacob Allen deciding to sit out for a while. Holmes will kick off his tenure with the team tonight at Huset's with the High Limit series, then race Jackson this weekend, go to North Dakota, and trek west at the end of the month. He will then race in the car with the World of Outlaws all the way to World Finals. This situation with Jacob and the 1A started back at Williams Grove a few weeks ago when he decided to sit out the second night of the Summer Nationals. He then returned to the car after the Grove running Weedsport and the two nights at Pevely. Last week though, the team announced just hours before the Knoxville Nationals was set to begin that Allen would not race the biggest event on the calendar, and that Chase Dietz had been tapped to run the car for the week. It was not an easy Nationals though for Dietz, with him in B Mains on both Wednesday and Friday, and Saturday ending with a D Main exit. We wondered last week what this would mean for Jacob and the team going forward, and now we have clarity, at least for the rest of 2023. Holmes told Jeremy Elliott yesterday that Bobby Allen had approached him at Knoxville on Saturday about the ride, and that they had never spoken before that. Holmes and his family owned 18T were getting set to return home to Oregon after Knoxville, but as of yesterday they were already parked at Huset's. I know a lot of you have watched Tanner for a while, but it's wild to see someone that started vlogging his racing adventures as a kid on YouTube now getting a World of Outlaws chance. Going back a couple of weeks, Holmes was impressive at the 360 Nationals, finishing 12th in his prelim, and running top five in the big show before power steering issues took him out of the night. And he was seventh in a Saturday C-Main this past weekend. In 25 total 410 starts this season, Holmes has six top fives and 10 top tens, which includes a top five at the Super Dirt Cup at Skagit, top tens in weekly competition at Huset's, and some solid finishes with the All Stars. He's going to face a bunch of tracks he's never seen before, but the Outlaw run down the west coast will be a chance for him to shine at places he has plenty of laps. I think Skagit could be a particularly good place for him, and he's been fast at a bunch of the California tracks. If you don't already, make sure to hit up Tanner's YouTube channel, I'll link to it below. I have no doubt he'll be taking his audience along for the ride for this big leap through the end of the year.

For his first time in the car, Holmes will be facing a stout field tonight with High Limit. The series dropped a pre-entry list last night that includes 40 cars, but could expand beyond that. Kerry Madsen is not on the list, but is expected to race. The list does include the names you'd expect like Kyle Larson, Rico Abreu, Justin Peck, Anthony Macri is in the Indy Race Parts 71, Justin Sanders in the 39M, Corey Day in the 14, and Buddy Kofoid. Outlaw drivers on the list include Noah Gass who ran well at Huset's in weekly competition earlier this year, and Robbie Price in the Sides 7S. There are plenty of midwest cars as well, like Austin McCarl, Justin Henderson, Riley Goodno, Tim Estenson, Kaleb Johnson, and Mark Dobmeier. Some notable drivers missing who I thought we might see include Brent Marks, Zeb Wise, the NOS 7BC car, and Brian Brown. As has become the case with High Limit, I think it will be difficult to pick against Larson tonight, although I know Rico is really pushing to try and close the championship gap, and Peck is coming off the Kokomo win. We'll see if anyone else can rise up and challenge Yung Money. It looks like it will be a nice day there near Sioux Falls for racing, but if you can't get there, watch it live on FloRacing.

Before we move on, wherever you watch or listen to this show, make sure you hit that subscribe button. Either here on YouTube, or where you get podcasts. I don't want you to miss out on any future episodes, and we are working towards the 2023 goal of 25,000 YouTube subscribers on the channel. Subscribing is free, and always will be.

In some interesting dirt late model news from Monday, Jonathan Davenport and Lance Landers crew member Vinny Guliani announced via social media that he has stepped away from the 49 team. Guliani has spent the last three seasons as part of that crew, and has been a crew chief in the past as well. Vinny was actually a past Conversations guest of mine, back when he was in charge of Kyle Strickler's team. He's going to run his own business going forward, supporting Longhorn and Bilstein teams and as a dealer for several suspension brands. After what was an incredible 2022 season where he earned over $2 million, Davenport's Lucas season started pretty slow in 2023, but that team has been much better since May with Cory Fostvedt in charge. Multiple wins and they've put themselves solidly into position for the Lucas championship chase. Good luck to Vinny in his new direction.

At Brewerton Speedway last night, the Super DIRTcar Series kicked off a three-race week. At the end it was Mat Williamson driving by Matt Sheppard on the high side coming to the white and driving on to the victory. Sheppard and Tim Sears Jr. were on the podium. There were fireworks though between Williamson and Danny Johnson, who led laps early. Williamson gave Johnson a little hipcheck into turn three at one point, and The Doctor did not take kindly to the move. He showed his displeasure under a later caution, including a bit of contact, and then after the race there were words between the two sides. In a video posted to social media, you can hear Johnson saying to Williamson's team quote "you are not finishing the race Wednesday night, I guarantee it." So if you are tuning in tonight for the big blocks at Fulton, that will definitely be something to watch for. Sheppard still leads Williamson for the Super DIRTcar Series championship.

With the iRacing World of Outlaws Late Models, we had a first time winner last night at Pevely. Kendal Tucker started fourth, and held off championship leader Evan Seay on a late restart to score the win. Logan Rumsey and Blake Matjoulis finished down the order, so Seay was able to extend his points lead with four races still to go. Kaden Honeycutt was the night's polesitter, and he's a guy with an interesting real world racing resume. He's made starts in the NASCAR Truck Series, in pavement late models, he's got wins on dirt in a crate late model and factory stock, and he was impressive in his Chili Bowl debut this year, finishing 14th on his prelim night, and 9th in a Saturday C-Main. You love to see the versatility. The iRacing late models are back next Monday night at 9PM eastern.

That's it for the show today. Hope you guys have a good Tuesday out there, we'll see you tomorrow.