DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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The first rule of Paul Silva is YOU DON'T TALK ABOUT PAUL SILVA | Daily 8-16-2023

If you're a sprint car fan, you've heard his name plenty, but how much do you really know about Paul Silva? We'll dive today into Kyle Larson's secretive crew chief and car owner. Let's go!

It's Wednesday, August 16th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

Today's show is being supported by the Dirt Classic coming up at Lincoln Speedway in a couple of weeks. For the first time ever Lincoln Speedway’s Dirt Classic will take place over two days and feature a total purse of over $99,000! The $10,000 to win kick-off to the Classic on Saturday, September 2 will be followed by the $20,000 to win and $1,000 to start Dirt Classic on Sunday, September 3. This marquee unsanctioned event will kick-start the month of money in Central PA and you can't go to them all if you don't go to the first one! In just 9 years, the Dirt Classic champions list boasts some of the biggest names in sprint car racing – Hall of Famers Stevie Smith, Tim Shaffer and Lance Dewease all have Dirt Classic wins on their racing resumes. Other Dirt Classic champions you might have heard of include Brian Montieth, Justin Peck and Kyle Larson. Last year the title went to one of the hottest drivers in the country, Brent Marks. Make sure you're there to see who takes the 10th annual event and the one of a kind titanium trophy. Two-day reserved seats are on sale right now at dirtclassic.com for $60. Here's where it gets good for you. The $60 price for a two-day reserved seat is $5 cheaper than the price you'll pay at the gate on race day. That's cool. But, for my audience, Lincoln and the Dirt Classic are hooking you up with an even sweeter deal. If you use code "DIRTRACKR" at checkout, you'll get another $5 off your two-day ticket. So buying in advance and with the promo code gets you $10 off the gate price. They didn't stop there though. For everyone that uses the promo code, they will enter you into a drawing to get a Dirt Classic prize package that includes a Dirt Classic t-shirt, event poster, and a chance to get your photo in victory lane with the winner on Sunday. So an additional $5 off, and the drawing for using the promo code. Very sweet deal. You can buy now over at dirtclassic.com. Big thanks to them for hooking you guys up and supporting the show.

Coming off their second Knoxville Nationals together, I wanted to talk today about Kyle Larson's car owner and crew chief on the sprint car side, Paul Silva. Whenever you talk about Larson on a show like this, there always seems to be a smattering of comments about Silva, how good he is, how good his cars are, and that he should get more credit. You also seem to see the recurring thought that Larson only wins because he's in good cars. But what those people don't understand, is the guys with good cars want good drivers. So obviously the best drivers are going to be drawn to the best teams, and vice versa. But for this discussion, I'm not going to talk about Larson, I want to focus on Silva. He's one of the top sprint car minds of this generation, and there is probably an argument to be made that he could be the top mind. The hard part though about the comparisons with him, is he just doesn't compete as much as some of his contemporaries. He's decided a scaled down schedule with a driver like Larson is much more to his liking, versus chasing championships and 100 races on the road each year. It makes trying to measure him against guys like Ricky Warner, Philip Dietz, or Eric Prutzman a little more difficult. But even with his number of races being much smaller in recent years, his resume is still packed. Since 2016, Larson has 78 wins in 223 sprint car starts, mostly in Silva's 57. Larson did make some scattered starts over that period in his own cars. That win list though includes a Kings Royal, Knoxville Nationals twice, and two Chili Bowls together. But if you think that Silva has only won with Larson in the car, think again. In more than five seasons as Rico Abreu's crew chief, that pairing won something like 70 races together across 360 and 410 competition. And with Shane Stewart as the driver, Silva wrenched his way to an ASCS National title and four straight 360 Knoxville Nationals wins. The guy just knows how to make a sprint car go fast. On top of all the success though, Silva himself is an interesting character in the sport with, I think, a bit of a mystique surrounding him among the fans. First, the guy basically refuses to speak publicly or in interviews. I know, because I've tried. When we hosted the Open Red podcast, requests to get Paul on the show were met with silence. You won't see talking head videos, or profiles on him from the media, and anything you can find about the guy is usually second hand. In the last day or so, I reached out to a few folks who know Paul to get some insight, and had one of them politely decline to really even tell me anything at all. Silva is so not interested in the spotlight, that even some around him won't talk about him. On top of that, I've had a hard time even finding photos of him that I could use for this show. Most of the regular photographers I get shots from don't have much with Silva, and it's not uncommon for his conversations at the track with Larson to be behind closed doors or away from the pit area bustle. Paul does have a Twitter account, but in 2023 he's only tweeted seven times, and three of them are retweets. Another element of Paul's legend is how he uses money with his operations. With a driver like Larson, I think some assume that Silva is flush with cash and spends a lot to go fast, but it really seems to be the opposite. There are plenty of stories of Larson racing on used tires, he doesn't have a big fancy truck and trailer setup, and Shane Stewart is quoted in a story from Jeremy Elliott saying Paul could stretch a dollar. One source who did talk to me about Paul said that he's definitely tight with money, but spends where it needs to be spent. Instead of trying to throw money at his cars, Silva gets performance out of his equipment with his knowledge and experience. Other generations of sprint car racing had Karl Kinser, or Jimmy Carr, or Scott Gerkin, or Davey Brown. But as I was told yesterday quote, "this generation has Paul Silva." Part of me wishes he'd talk more and that we knew more about him, but part of me also loves that one of the greatest sprint car minds we've seen has no interest in the spotlight. He's a fierce competitor with a dazzling resume and a history of making guys go fast, and doesn't seem to need or care about public acknowledgement. He just lets his race cars do the talking for him. Drop me a comment below, let me know your thoughts on all of this.

At Huset's Speedway last night, Rico Abreu went fifth to the win, getting by race long leader Robbie Price on a late restart to earn his second High Limit Sprint Car Series win of 2023. It was his second win in three races, sixth top five, and seventh top ten of the season. Buddy Kofoid finished second, with Price down to third at the end. It was an impressive and unexpected night for Price in the Sides Motorsports 7S. Without that late caution, he might win that race, which would have been huge considering Price has yet to lead laps in World of Outlaws competition, where he is a full timer. In 130 Outlaw starts back to 2017, Price has just two top fives. It took last night's feature a little while to settle in, with several guys getting involved in early crashes, including Kokomo winner Justin Peck, and Ryan Timms' tough sprint car year continued with two incidents. Kyle Larson started down in 17th, and got all the way to sixth at the end, but Rico's win did close up the championship battle. Just 33 points separate them right now with three races still to go. High Limit goes quiet now for over a month, with the next race being September 26th at Lernerville.

Last night's Super DIRTcar Series show at Fulton Speedway was rained out, so the big block modifieds will try again tonight at Land of Legends. You can watch it live on DIRTVision.

If you want some modified racing of a different type tonight, the USMTS begins their 25th anniversary weekend at Mason City Motor Speedway. The event runs through Saturday, with the finale paying $25,000 to the winner. This one is live on RacinDirt.

If you want other dirt racing content this week, Winged Nation has Kyle Larson and Doug Johnson, Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks has Damion Gardner and Sean Buckley, Dunewich on Dirt has Taylor Wood, and there are new episodes of The Dirt Reporters, the Dirt Nerds, Dirt Track Confessions, and Dirt Track Weekly. To see all these shows and new episodes, head over to dirtrackr.com/podcasts.

That's it for the Daily today. Looks like eight shows on the streaming schedule, so make sure to hit that up today as well over at dirtrackr.com.

Hope you guys have a good Wednesday out there, we'll see you right back here tomorrow.