DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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High Limit in search of announcer; FAST gets Ohio Speedweek, but... | Daily 11-9-2023
Updates today on a still murky Ohio Sprint Speedweek situation, High Limit needs an announcer, Huset's adds more big money Outlaw shows, and more. Let's go!
It's Thursday, November 9th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
We did it friends! As of yesterday we have officially crossed over 25,000 YouTube subscribers, which was my goal for all of 2023! Not bad with still almost two months to go in the year. Thank you so much to everyone who has come along for this journey. I started the channel in 2020 as just another place for people to find the podcasts, as I thought that would be the focus. But over time, these videos have become way bigger than I could have imagined. We are at this moment north of 6.5 million total views, with 4.2 million of those having been just this year. As an added sign of the growth, Tuesday this week saw the most views ever on a single day in DIRTRACKR history, with the double Daily shows around the sprint car news garnering nearly 50,000 views. For some context, it took 14 months of shows before I even reached 50k total, and it was 18 months before I had a month with 50,000 views. And this week we had a single day with that many. As a little celebration for reaching 25,000 subscribers, I'm going to giveaway five prize packs featuring some DIRTRACKR stickers and some koozies. Comment below 25k if you want to be entered, and I'll reach out to you for contact info if you are a winner. Also, for 25K I'm discounting all merch at shop.dirtrackr.com 25% through Saturday night. That's good on everything in the store. Use code "25K" at checkout to take advantage. So thanks again for tuning in everyday. Plenty more to come in the future as this show grows. Here's to the next 25,000!
At Senoia in Georgia this weekend, we were supposed to have the Peach State Classic, which would have been the season finale for the FloRacing Night in America Late Models. But as of this morning, racing for Friday and Saturday is cancelled because of impending weather. Their show for tonight featuring local divisions is still on as scheduled. So with Senoia off, that means Bobby Pierce has locked up the 2023 Flo series championship from his house in Illinois. Just nine points separated Pierce and Hudson O'Neal, but now we won't get to see the two teams square off for the title. Pierce gets $75,000 for perfect attendance, and he becomes the second champion in series history joining Brandon Sheppard from 2022. I'm fully aware of how difficult it is to reschedule races, but no matter how you slice this, it sucks not to get to see this decided on the race track. November races are obviously sketchy anyway, but this one bums me out. And Senoia as a whole just has absolutely terrible luck with these big shows. So many races there have been rained out in recent years. I tweeted about this today, but I think if Senoia scheduled an ASCS sprint car race, the world just might end. This cancellation effectively ends the national touring season, with Lucas, the Outlaws, and Flo now all complete. There is plenty of regional racing still to come, plus the Dome in December, and the XR finale at All-Tech that had been rescheduled, and is now a one day, two feature show.
Back to the sprint car news that just seems to keep on coming. I did sit in on the High Limit press conference yesterday with Brad Sweet, Kyle Larson, and FloRacing's Phil Wendler. I'm not sure how I got invited, but I appreciate Brian Walker reaching out and Brad and Kyle answering the couple of questions I threw in. If you want to see that full presser, it's available on the FloRacing app, and the FloRacing YouTube channel. Ohio Sprint Speedweek was one of the topics brought up, and we now know that the FAST series and Aaron Fry will try and fill the speedweek void left by the High Limit acquisition of the All Stars. High Limit has effectively passed speedweek management to FAST, and the two sides will supposedly work together to make it all happen. In a post on social media, the FAST series shared that High Limit reached out to them about taking over. They plan to keep the scheduled dates the same, June 8th through the 15th, and that more details will be released by the PRI show in December, including purse info. The Dean Knittel Memorial at Portsmouth has been the speedweek finale, but it sounds like that won't continue as I'm hearing another track could be the final show. And the Knittel is now part of the High Limit schedule. Like I said on yesterday's show though, even with the FAST announcement on Wednesday, things still sound pretty messy at the moment in Ohio. It is my understanding that no tracks have signed on officially for speedweek just yet, and there are other efforts to both start sprint car series and maybe even a separate speedweek. The end of the All Stars has created a fairly large hole there, and several groups seem keen to try and make something happen to fill it. This situation will remaind fluid for a while.
On the High Limit side, we know they have begun bringing on new staff to help with their efforts to grow into a national series, and we've already talked about Mike Hess and Kendra Jacobs joining on. One area that I know many fans are curious about is who will be the High Limit sprint car announcer for 2024. The latter part of the season was handled mostly by Dillon Welch and Tony Bokhoven, and we know that Vince Welch was there in the beginning, but didn't finish. And Ben Shelton was involved as well, with Chris Wilner pit reporting. There was some hope out there that the series would bring Blake Anderson over from the All Stars, and Brad and Kyle did approach him about the deal. But in a social media post yesterday, Blake shared that his career is headed in a different direction in the sport, and that it won't be him on the mic. Unless something has changed in recent days, I've also been told that it won't be Bokhoven either, as he's deep in a mayoral race and plans to stay at Knoxville. So if that's true, I'm not sure where that leaves High Limit. Shelton is in deep on the late model side at FloRacing, plus his duties with MyRacePass. Chet Christner is out there, and he spent 2023 on the USAC side. They could also go after a guy like Tony LaPorta who did USAC in 2022, and who is currently doing a bunch of content work for the World of Outlaws. If it's not any of those guys, they may have to look towards elevating a local or regional announcer or announcers. It's another storyline to keep an eye on this offseason around High Limit.
Also on the show yesterday, we got into some schedule updates for the World of Outlaws, and I told you that Huset's and Jackson would play an even more prominent role in 2024. The Huset's part has been confirmed thanks to an announcement from the track. They will have six Outlaw dates next year, starting in June. June 19th and 20th will be the High Bank Hustle which will result in a $100,000 to win feature on Thursday. Then we'll get into the High Bank Nationals June 21st and 22nd, that will end in a $250,000 to win main event on Saturday. And as Brian Carter shared on Winged Nation, the Outlaws will be at Huset's for the Labor Day weekend, August 31st and September 1st, with Sunday night paying $40,000 to win. So plenty of big money will be payed out by track owner Tod Quiring just at Huset's, and I think we can say it's probably safe to assume that David Gravel will be back full time as a World of Outlaws driver in Quiring's Big Game 2 car next season.
Looking ahead to some sprint car shows this weekend, we've been talking about the $25,000 to win race at BAPS that's coming up on Saturday. The field there will include Logan Schuchart, Jacob Allen, Anthony Macri, Brock Zearfoss, Danny Dietrich, Garet Williamson in the Trone 39, Devon Borden, Justin Peck, Justin Henderson in the Kreitz 69K, and Lucas Wolfe among others. You can find full details on the event over at bapsmotorspeedway.com.
In Oklahoma, the POWRi 410 series ends it's season this weekend with a triple header. They'll be at Tri-State Speedway Friday and Saturday, then make the two hour drive to Tulsa on Sunday. Friday is $5000 to win, Saturday is $12,000 to win, and Sunday is $7000 to win. Ayrton Gennetten currently leads the POWRi 410 standings, with a commanding lead over Joe B Miller and Xavier Doney. Other names to expect include Blake Hahn, IRA champion Brenham Crouch, JJ Hickle, Noah Gass, Zane Devault, Aaron Reutzel, Cory Eliason, and Sam Hafertepe among others.
Alright, that's it for the show this week. Streaming schedule and lots of other good stuff at dirtrackr.com. Make sure to follow DIRTRACKR on Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok.
Hope you have a great Thursday out there, we'll see you back here on Sunday.