DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Longhorn picks Brandon Sheppard for house car, hot World 100 wraps | Daily 9-6-2023
Longhorn Chassis picks Brandon Sheppard for their house car program, and today we'll talk about why that just makes a ton of sense. We'll also talk World 100 entries and paint schemes, and more. Let's go!
It's Wednesday, September 6th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
Before we get into things, today's episode is being supported by Metro East Drone and Ian Maue. If you've watched races on FloRacing and DIRTVision and have caught those moments of overhead footage, or experienced the drone chasing the cars around the track, odds are you were seeing Ian Maue at work. He's a Part 107 certified drone operator from the FAA, and he can handle all sorts of different video and photo needs. He's based in St. Louis but can travel nationally for projects, including providing video for live streaming events, aerial photos or fly-throughs for your business or real estate, and he can provide still shots from past events. Any kind of FPV coverage you can think of, he can do. If you want an idea of the types of work he's capable of, I'm going to link below to a fly around video he did from the Gateway Dirt Nationals that is really incredible. Even if you don't need drone service, go check that video out anyway. It's worth your time. Ian will be at the World 100 this week at Eldora flying for Flo, so if any late model teams need photos or video content, he's available for extra projects. Ian can be reached by email at metroeastdrone@gmail.com, you can visit metroeastdrone.com, and find @metroeastdrone on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Appreciate Ian's support of DIRTRACKR.
We'll start today off with the big news from yesterday that Longhorn Chassis has their house car team locked up for 2024 and beyond. The dirt late model chassis builder signed Brandon Sheppard and Sheppard Riggs Racing to a quote "multi-year deal" that will begin in January of 2024. This news comes a few weeks after Longhorn announced they would no longer utilize Tim McCreadie and Paylor Motorsports as their house car program. They will still support McCreadie and Paylor, and that team will still run Longhorns out full time with Lucas next season. Sheppard Riggs Racing will now be split between their shop in Illinois, and the Longhorn space in China Grove, North Carolina. There is an interesting note too in that release about the World 100. Sheppard won't be driving a B5 machine out of the SRR stable, but instead he'll be in Kevin Rumley's R&D car, with Rumley crew chiefing. They did get a chance to shake down the car last night at Elkin before heading to Eldora. When this move away from McCreadie was announced, there was obviously a lot of speculation about who could be the next house team, but Sheppard makes a ton of sense here. Having had so much success behind the wheel of the Rocket house car, he's uniquely qualified to help lead the development efforts for Longhorn going forward. Besides his intimate knowledge of Rocket and it's cars and processes, he's also been apart of all of those test sessions, plus he's spent the last year acclimating to the Longhorn and tweaking to get things where he wants them. So he can be a valuable asset when teams want to flip. In a recent Road to Eldora piece from FloRacing, Longhorn's Steve Arpin talked about Mark Richards and knowing they are in a constant battle with Rocket. He said quote "I want to obsolete ourselves rather than being obsoleted by someone else." This move to Sheppard as the house car driver feels like a big step for them in that direction. A quick question for my dirt late model audience, as my knowledge probably doesn't go back far enough, but have we ever seen this before? One driver ending up as the house car driver for two main chassis building rivals? Let me know in the comments below.
The World doesn't start until tomorrow, but Eldora has been keeping the pre-entry list updated and right now it shows 88 cars. It was pointed out to me yesterday that Tim McCreadie is not listed amongst the World 100 entries at eldoraspeedway.com, but everything on the Paylor Motorsports social media points to him being there. It's also on the schedule on McCreadie's website, so at this moment I don't have any reason to believe he won't be there. One other interesting note, Brandon Overton's number on the list is 4, and not his usual 76. Something to keep an eye on, maybe with a special paint scheme.
And I don't normally do the paint scheme thing on this show, but there have been so many good ones released for this year's World, I wanted to share some of them.
Let me know which ones are your favorites so far.
Moving on to some other news and notes.
As of yesterday afternoon, we know the full picture for the 2024 XR Super Series schedule. Six events are planned for the super late model tour, with the season opening February 24th at what is now known as Ultimate Motorports and RV Park in Elkin, North Carolina. The former Friendship Motor Speedway will kick things off right after Speedweeks conclude down south. Round number two will be at Volunteer Speedway in Tennessee, and that event was huge in 2023 with a big crowd. Race number three will be at Ogilvie Raceway in Minnesota which hasn't hosted national late models since the Outlaws were there in 2019. It has been part of XR's Northern Storm. July 13th will see a return to Kokomo Speedway in Indiana that has provided good racing now a few different times for XR. Round five will be at 300 Raceway in Iowa on August 31st, as the 47th Annual Yankee Dirt Classic will now be an XR event. And the season will close October 26th with a race at the newly-reconfigured and back-to-life Pennsboro Speedway. No word yet on purse money or any other details, so stay tuned to xrevents.com for more in the future.
At the Super Nationals on Tuesday, Devon Jones took down the IMCA Sport Compact win and picked up $1250. We also had more guys lock themselves into good starting positions for the hobby stock and northern sport mod main events. The Wednesday schedule at Boone includes a bunch more qualifying action, with the stock cars, modifieds, hobby stocks, and northern sport mods all on track. You can find more details over at imca.com.
If you want some sprint car racing tonight, the Gold Cup weekend at Silver Dollar Speedway opens with a 360 Sprint Car Challenge Tour night. The Pacific Sprint Cup pays $6900 to win, and after tonight only three more races will be left to settle the championship. Justyn Cox currently has control, but Kaleb Montgomery and Dylan Bloomfield are within striking distance. There should be a sizeable field on cars on hand, and I heard we might see Willie Kahne's car back in action after it debuted on Sunday at Grays Harbor. If you missed that story, check out yesterday's Daily show. Tonight's racing can be watched live on Flo or CaliDirt.tv.
In dirt racing podcast land this week, Winged Nation has Brent Marks, Gavan Boschele, and Trey Starks. Passing Points has Andrew Deal, Quicktime has Zeb Wise, Dunewich on Dirt has Hunter Weaver, and there are new episodes of The Dirt Reporters, the Dirt Nerds, Dirt Track Confessions, and Dirt Track Weekly. To see all the shows and episodes, head over to dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
That's it for today's Daily. Make sure to stop by dirtrackr.com today and see all the latest news, plus check out the analytics section and today's streaming schedule.
Hope you guys have a good Wednesday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow.