DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Anthony Macri, please pick up a white courtesy telephone | Daily 8-28-2023

Today we are going super nerd with some World of Outlaws qualifying numbers, plus Anthony Macri, could you please pick up a white courtesy telephone. Let's go!

It's Monday, August 28th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

Back on Friday we a new edition of The Slider hit email inboxes, with a piece from Spence Smithback about whether or not inverts are fair. You can read that piece and sign up to get The Slider for free over at dirtrackr.com/theslider. We've now done 13 issues, which is pretty good for just starting this thing in late June on a whim. If you'd like to contribute to a future edition, drop me an email at info@dirtrackr.com. I do pay for submissions, and you can get your work in front of a growing audience that is approaching 2100 email subscribers, plus those pieces have done several thousand page views at dirtrackr.com as well.

I don't know about you, but is anyone else wondering at this moment where Anthony Macri is? We haven't seen the Concrete Kid in basically two weeks, since he last ran with the High Limit series at Huset's. He missed the field that night, finishing 16th in the B-Main driving the Indy Race Parts 71. Before that, he had a solid week at the Knoxville Nationals, making the Saturday night main event after a fourth on his prelim night, and he was seventh at the Front Row Challenge. On top of that, he was the leading point scorer for the full speedweeks, and named Mr. Sprint Car, which bagged him an extra $6000. But with Tyler Courtney back in the Clauson Marshall 7BC, Macri has effectively been left on the sidelines, and we could potentially not see him until the September 26th High Limit race at Lernerville. After his departure from the 39M, Justin Sanders obviously filled the seat for several weeks, earning top fives and top tens in Outlaw, All Star, and High Limit competition. Knoxville for them wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible. Call it respectable. Sanders didn't really wow anyone I don't think over the full stretch, but he was very solid up through the Jackson Nationals. This past weekend, the full Macri squad was back in Central PA, with Lance Dewease running Friday and Saturday in the car, with Joe Mooney at the helm. Ryan Hand had been crew chiefing sort of the sister team while Mooney and Sanders were out on the road. Dewease was third at Williams Grove, and then went 21st to 12th at Lincoln on Saturday after a heat race crash and needing a B-Main transfer. They were quick though, as Dewease was fast time in qualifying. I would assume at this point that Dewease will continue getting starts in that car, as Justin Sanders will have a busy west coast schedule coming up between Outlaw shows and the fall NARC races in the Mittry car. Back to Macri though, I think it could be pretty crazy to see the Tuscarora 50 happen without him in a car. He's so good there, and has won the event in the past. Looking at his total season, eight wins in 63 starts, and really if you go back to the 39M, it was eight wins in 50 starts. According to sprintcarratings.com, only like six drivers have more 410 wins this season than Macri does. I would have figured he wouldn't have had trouble finding rides, especially in PA, but either the calls aren't coming, or he's not interested in what's been offered. He's clearly talented, but I don't remember a situation in recent years where a guy like Macri fell out of the spotlight so quickly. As we work this later part of the season, he'll definitely be a driver involved in the game of musical chairs, I'm just not sure right now where I see him fitting in. Drop me a comment, let me know what you think about Macri's current predicament.

Since we are talking Central PA, Danny Dietrich was your winner Sunday at BAPS, topping Devon Borden and Mark Smith. It was Dietrich's second win in seven races, and his sixth total of the year.

Also Sunday, not technically dirt racing, but Davey Hamilton the Silver Crown Series winner at World Wide Technology Raceway. He topped Bobby Santos, and Smackdown winner Justin Grant. Logan Seavey maintains the Silver Crown championship lead, with Kody Swanson only seven points back. Nobody else really within striking distance of that fight. Swanson has the most wins, but Seavey has seven top fives in eight races. The Crown cars are back Saturday at Du Quoin for the Ted Horn 100.

On this show, I've been on the record several times that I think this current version of the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series is the toughest and most competitive we've ever seen from top to bottom. There are plenty that don't agree with me, including one that I had a recent back and forth with in Facebook messages. We had to agree to disagree. But there are a lot of numbers that I've pointed to to explain my position. We've talked about no 20 win seasons since Donny Schatz had one in 2018. Right now, David Gravel leads the Outlaws in wins with 10, but barring an epic run to the finish, he won't get there this season. Also, in the history of the series, it's only happened nine times where a champion won by less than 100 points, but four of those occasions have been in the last four years. Brad Sweet's four titles were all won by margins of 80 points or less. The jury is still out on 2023 obviously, but it could happen for a fifth straight season. This morning I went super nerd on some numbers from the analytics database over at dirtrackr.com to see if my theory still holds in another area. It's hard to judge the speed of the cars just based on finishing positions, but where we can look at things is in qualifying. How tight are these fields from the pole down through the order. It's a great measure, because cars are on track alone, and the track is usually pretty juiced up, so we can get a solid look at what cars are capable of on straight lap time. I figured looking at the difference between the top 15 cars would give us a good look, as that would include all the top teams, and we'd avoid outliers down at the bottom. So I did an average of the time difference between the 15th fastest car and the pole speed over the course of each season I have, which goes back to 2017. And wouldn't you know it, a clear tightening of the fields. In 2017 it was about six tenths on average between 1st and 15th in time trials. But in 2023, it's down to just a bit over four tenths. And that average difference dropped every year over that span. Just for good measure, I also did top five, top ten, and top 20. They aren't quite as perfectly linear, but all show significant downward trends from 2017 to today. Top five is down a tenth, top ten is down around a tenth and a half, and top 20 is down three tenth. How this plays out over a longer period, I don't know, because I don't have the data. But we do know that over the past seven seasons at least, that the gaps have closed up quite a bit. When I dig into these numbers, I think some view it as me taking shots at some of the older guys, or trying to diminish their accomplishments, but it's not that at all. Kinser, Swindell, Blaney, Lasoski, and on and on all were incredible in their times, and this doesn't take away from that. Nobody will ever come close to 20 championships. But fields these days are incredibly deep, and there is a lot of evidence to show that.

Alright, that's it for the Daily today. Outside of iRacing and the 24/7 stuff, the streaming schedule is pretty quiet today. If you want to see it though, head over to dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.

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