DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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TMez schools us on midget racing costs, rental fees for big teams in new video | Daily 8-20-2023
Thomas Meseraull teaches us about what it costs to go midget racing, Bobby Allen blames the tires, David Gravel digs a hole, and more from the dirt racing weekend. Let's go!
It's Sunday, August 20th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
Back on Friday I sent a new edition of The Slider email newsletter, with this one featuring an interview with sprint car driver Bud Kaeding from writer Jordan Wilman. You can see that piece and subscribe over at dirtrackr.com/theslider. More than 2000 dirt racing fans have already done so, and it's free to subscribe. Also, if you'd like to contribute to a future issue, drop me an email at info@dirtrackr.com. I'm open to pitches for whatever you are interested in.
Alright, we'll definitely talk some about the racing from Saturday, but I do want to point you to a few interesting things to start your Sunday. The first is a video posted to YouTube on Saturday by racer Thomas Meseraull. TMez has gone hard on YouTube the last year or two, and it's worked out for him. He's up to 16,000 subscribers and he's amassed nearly 2.5 million video views. He's gone vlog style and you get to see his adventures across midget and non-wing sprint car racing. Friday at Wayne County, he did a little walk around the pit area and talked about the current state of midget racing, especially when it comes to the costs associated. The thumbnail says "Daddy's Money" on it, and TMez has made it clear in the past that he's not a fan of some of the young drivers who come into midget racing with big bankrolls behind them. I kinda thought initially he'd spend the whole video bemoaning that based on the thumbnail, but instead he gave us a lot of really good information. He talked about how in the beginning of his career, his dad spent $20,000 to get a midget, and probably $50,000 a year to operate it, and obviously we know now that it's dramatically more expensive these days. As he was walking around the pits and passing by the Keith Kunz Motorsports trucks, he also talked how he's heard it costs around $300,000 to rent one of their cars for a season. That's definitely more than the $5000 a night to rent a car from other teams that he talks about, but for that amount you get the full deal. Good cars, good crew guys, a packed schedule, and Keith's notebook to go fast. And for young drivers who have bigger aspirations, it's a chance to get noticed within the sport and hopefully move up. Instead of families buying and running their own operations, they can write the check to KKM and go racing. TMez even admitted at one point that he was jealous of those drivers that get that opportunity. As for making money via apparel sales, he talked about how it's not really worth it to bring his trailer to a race unless he can sell at least $1000 worth of merch to cover his expenses of getting the trailer to the track. At $25 a shirt, that means 40 sales, which is no easy guarantee. There was also a point towards the end where he stopped to talk to Zach Daum, and in that conversation Daum said it costs $90,000 these days for a brand new, race ready midget, with somewhere between $45k and $65k being the engine, depending on whether it's a Toyota or SR11 or whatever. Those are eye-opening numbers, especially when you realize this is not big time sprint car or late model racing with better purses, but midget racing. I appreciate the transparency from TMez and Daum in the video, and if you want to watch it for yourself, which I encourage, I'll link to it in the video description below.
The other thing I want to draw your attention to today, was a tweet from sprint car hall of famer and team owner Bobby Allen. On Saturday, Bobby posted a lengthy note to Twitter where he talked about how he thinks the new Hoosier sprint car tires are leading to more big crashes this season. He says the cars are harder to control on the tires, and that, combined with the top often being the dominant lane leads to big sliders and thus more crashes. He says at the end of the post that drivers agree and will back him up, although I haven't heard anyone else comment on this idea publicly. It's certainly a possibility, and Bobby is deep in it everyday with the Shark cars. If anyone in the sprint car community is watching this, I'd love to know your thoughts here, whether you do it in the comments below, or to me privately.
Moving on, lets run through the racing from the last few days. At Batesville last night, it was Dale McDowell who took down the Topless 100 and $50,000 with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. It was his second career win in the event, and he bested Jonathan Davenport and Ricky Thornton Jr. to do it. The track did take rubber and go single file, especially late, which was a bummer. In the championship chase fight, a 17th to ninth performance for Brandon Overton was not good enough for him to keep that fourth and final spot. We've been talking about this, and after last night Overton is now on the outside looking in. Tim McCreadie's fifth place finish moved him into fourth, and he's got just five points on Overton. TMac, Overton, and Devin Moran are separated by just 60 points with Georgetown and Port Royal coming up this week.
A quick sidenote about Jonathan Davenport, he won the SRX show last Thursday night at Wheatland in his first ever series start. Pretty wild show with a bunch of sliders and JD and Clint Bowyer going at it.
At Jackson last night, Carson Macedo picked up his second straight Jackson Nationals win. They did some track work ahead of the feature and unfortunately it made the track narrow for much of the 35 lapper. It started to widen a bit late, and a caution with five to go for a slowing Ian Madsen really saved it. The final run to the checkered saw a great battle between Macedo and Brad Sweet, with each leading laps, but Sweet ultimately settling for second. James McFadden won both prelim nights and led the field to green, but ended up fourth after coming off the bottom at one point and letting Macedo by. Things in the Outlaw championship have shifted in Sweet's favor after the three nights, with David Gravel having a disastrous weekend. A blown tire Thursday led to a 24th place result. He rebounded from a Friday feature crash to finish 11th, and was 13th on Saturday. Headed to North Dakota this coming weekend, Gravel has fallen to third, 60 points out, with Macedo up to second, 50 back. 25 race nights still remain in 2023, but now Gravel has a hole to dig out of. If Sweet does go on to win his fifth Outlaw title, this could be the weekend that decided it.
With the All Stars, Tyler Courtney doesn't appear to have lost anything having sat out several weeks with that back injury. He came roaring back on Friday at Outlaw, leading all 35 laps and scoring the win over championship rival Zeb Wise. Sunshine was fast again last night, ending up second behind winner Danny Varin at Utica-Rome. Varin is a local favorite in the northeast, and he led flag-to-flag to score his first ever All Star victory. Zeb finished third, and Stewart Friesen went 11th to fourthin a rare 410 sprint car start. Headed to Selinsgrove tonight, that All Star owner championship battle is tight, with just two points separating Rudeen and Clauson Marshall.
In Illinois Friday and Saturday, it was a good time to be Logan Seavey. He was second on Friday in the Jason Leffler Memorial behind winner Tanner Thorson, but Saturday was a complete sweep of USAC action. He started the day with the Silver Crown win at Springfield in the Bettenhausen 100. A late move around the top of Shane Cottle got him the lead and he drove on to the win. He backed it up later that night, dominating the USAC midget feature, leading all 30 laps. He only trails Kody Swanson by 16 points for the Silver Crown championship, and he's well out in front for the midget title, leading Jacob Denney now by 114 points. He posted some of his fitness tracker data to Twitter, go check that out today if you're curious.
Other weekend winners included Tanner Mullens bagging $25 grand with the USMTS at Mason City, Brent Marks and Devon Borden split 410 wins at Port Royal, Ricky Weiss was a $20,000 winner at Richmond Raceway, Carson Ferguson and Jimmy Owens split the weekend at East Alabama, and Freddie Rahmer went 10th to the win at Lincoln.
That's it for today. Hope you guys have a good rest of your Sunday, we'll see you back here tomorrow.