DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Dirt late model racing's continued push for BETTER and FASTER | Daily 8-23-2023
Dirt late model technology is constantly changing, and today we'll look at just how much the cars have changed inside the last several years. We've also got Tuesday results, and some sprint car tickets to give away. Let's go!
It's Wednesday, August 23rd, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
Today's show is being supported by our friends at Lincoln Speedway and the Dirt Classic. Lincoln Speedway’s two-day Dirt Classic weekend is right around the corner and features a total purse of over $99,000! The $10,000 to win kick-off to the Classic on September 2 will be followed by the $20,000 to win and $1,000 to start Dirt Classic on Sunday, September 3. This marquee event is unsanctioned and will kick start the month of money in Central PA so keep an eye out for driver announcements as there is sure to be a great field of cars on hand for this one. If you want to grab your reserved seats in advance, head over to dirtclassic.com, and when you checkout, make sure to use code "DIRTRACKR" with your order. Buying those seats in advance gets you $5 off the race day price, and the code gets you another $5 off. That's a sweet deal. Using the code also gets you entered into a drawing for a Dirt Classic prize pack. Special for today though, they are letting me give away two reserved seats for the event to one of my viewers. Like we did before, please only enter if you actually plan on attending the event. To get in on this, you gotta be subscribed to this YouTube channel, also head over to dirtrackr.com/theslider and subscribe there, and comment Dirt Classic below. I will annouce a winner on tomorrow's Daily show. Thanks again to Lincoln and the Dirt Classic for getting involved with the show.
About a month ago, I did an episode where I talked about how secretive things are in the dirt late model world with chassis setups and parts and pieces. I'll link to that episode below if you missed it. But the idea of technology and innovation is one of the things that draws me to dirt late models. I know some race fans rail against the engineers and wind tunnels and data acquistion, but I like that aspect of the sport. The teams are in a box for sure with the way the rules have changed, and we don't see the insane designs from decades ago with the huge spoilers and massive side boards, but the evolution continues anyway. And that evolution is pretty wildly visible. I went to DIRTcar Nationals down at Volusia for the first time in 2014. I'd been an employee of World Racing Group for less than a year at that point, and DCN always worked with my schedule because I could hit up Volusia for a few days or a week, and go right into Daytona stuff with whatever NASCAR teams I was working for at the time. Over the years, I think I've done DCN maybe six or seven times, and I have photos I took from a lot of those trips. As a sidenote, it's an interesting look at my photography skills, from 2014 just using a phone, to 2016 when I first had a DSLR camera I sucked with, to 2019 when my skills really started to round out. This whole idea of the late model evolution though came to me yesterday as I was looking at some of those photos I took in 2014. Wandering around the Volusia pit area, I have photos from that week of Josh Richards, Scott Bloomquist, Tim McCreadie, Don O'Neal, Shane Clanton and others. And it's wild just how different the cars looked then. And it was only what nine years ago. Looking at my sprint car photos from that same event, you can't tell any difference. If you swapped out paint schemes, you basically wouldn't be able to tell what year it was. But that is not true of the late models. Things have changed, visibly, and in a big way. To give you a nice side by side comparison, I have two shots to show you of Bobby Pierce. One is from photographer Josh James. It's at a Lucas race at Paducah in 2015. The other is from my guy Paul Arch, it's Pierce at Marion Center earlier this season. Look how different the bodies are. The 2015 version is chunky, sort of bulbous, and the rise on the nose is much sharper, from the front skirt up to the air cleaner. The 2023 car though is much sleeker, cleaner, and sharper. The roofline is very different, the rear quarter has a completely different shape, and the rear spoilers have changed as well. There have been other videos done that you can find on YouTube about the massive changes that dirt late models have undergone through the years, especially from the 70s and 80s until today. And the differences are staggering. But inside of the past ten year window, the progression has continued and it's something you can actually see. Even when we are in a period where the rules have stayed somewhat similar. Things are changing all the time, and as I talked about a month ago, a heavier focus from the media and streaming players on late model tech would be great to see. I watched a video yesterday where Ricky Thornton Jr.'s crew chief Anthony Burroughs talked about how half way through the season they can't use the stuff they did during speedweeks on the car, because the sport has already moved past it. The speed of the development is nuts, and it's why we see the swings we do with who's fast and who isn't. Pierce and RTJ have certainly figured something out this year, while guys like Tim McCreadie and Brandon Overton are looking for speed. And in six months or a year, it could all swing a different direction yet again.
Moving on. Up at Ransomville last night, we saw something with the Super DIRTcar Series we don't witness very often. And that was somebody running down Matt Sheppard. The 9S was out front early, but on lap 51, Erick Rudolph drove by to take the lead and he went on to the $7500 win. Sheppard and Mat Williamson rounded out the podium. Rudolph is a hometown guy there at Ransomville, and this was his second series win of the year. Not much change in the championship, as Sheppard still leads Money Mat by 60 points. The big blocks are back in 10 days for Mr. Dirt Track USA at Lebanon Valley.
Speaking of Matt Sheppard, he's going to make his Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series debut tomorrow at Georgetown Speedway. He'll drive a car owned by NASCAR team Niece Motorsports as a teammate to Ross Chastain. If you might remember from a few weeks ago, Chastain drove one of Sheppard's big blocks at Utica-Rome with the Short Track Super Series, and now it looks like the favor is being repayed. Sheppard made a few late model starts at the end of 2022 with Big Frog Motorsports at All-Tech Raceway in Florida, and he knows how to get around Georgetown. As for Chastain, he tried to run a Lucas show earlier this season, but it was rained out. He did make an appearance with XR's Workin Man Series at Cherokee back in May, finishing 9th in the B-Main.
In Western Sprint Tour speedweek action last night, it was Landon Brooks who went to victory lane at Coos Bay Speedway. He topped night one winner Dominic Scelzi and Logan Forler. Tonight, they'll drive the miles east to Roseburg to take on Douglas County.
Every Wednesday, we spotlight other podcasts for you to check out. I'm very much of the mind that a rising tide raises all boats, so I like spotlighting other creators, similar to what we've done with The Slider email newsletter. This week, Winged Nation has James McFadden, Danny Varin, and David Gravel. Open Red has Chase McDermand and Jason Reed, Hoogies Garage has Tanner Holmes and more, Dunewich on Dirt has Cale Deese, and there are new episodes of Passing Points, the Dirt Nerds, Dirt Tracks and Rib Racks, Dirt Track Confessions, and Dirt Track Weekly. To see all these shows and episodes, jump over to dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
That's it for today. Don't forget to hit up today's streaming schedule for what to watch tonight. You can find it over at dirtrackr.com.
Hope you guys have a good Wednesday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow.