DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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No Lucas for Brandon Overton? John Trone hires Australian sprint car driver | Daily 1-23-2024
The Trone 39 sprint car has a new driver, we'll talk new late model chassis brands, season plans for several fringe Lucas possibles, and USAC's announcer situation. Let's go!
It's Tuesday, January 23rd, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
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We'll start this Tuesday off with a little sprint car driver news. In Central Pennsylvania, it's been a difficult few years for the Trone 39 machine, with several drivers in and out, including Chase Dietz, Cameron Smith, Troy Wagaman Jr., and Kyle Moody more recently. For 2024, John Trone did not have a driver for his car, and he didn't mince words with Jeremy Elliott about the current crop of available drivers in the region. In a piece posted at sprintcarunlimited.com, Trone was quoted as saying "I didn't have anybody around here that I felt comfortable putting in my car who was capable of winning more than one race or two. It was time for a change." So for this season, Trone went around the world to Australia, and grabbed Callum Williamson. The Perth Motorplex regular has been really impressive this winter, going toe-to-toe with Brad Sweet and Rico Abreu during Western Australia Speedweek. And that's where Trone and crew chief Kevin Frey spotted him. Williamson will start racing in Central PA in May, and race through the summer, including stops at big shows like the Kings Royal and Knoxville Nationals. That also means appearances with both High Limit and the Outlaws. Looking around, I don't believe that Williamson has raced yet in the US, so he'll be facing a steep learning curve having run mostly around Western Australia at places like Perth and Bunbury. Williamson is among a group of drivers down under right now who I think can definitely compete over here. We've seen Lachlan McHugh make the trip to the states, and I also think Jock Goodyer is another ready to make some noise. Trone did tell Jeremy that we could see other drivers in the 39 before and after Williamson's stint.
Back on Sunday, we talked about Earl Pearson Jr. finding a new ride for 2024, teaming up with Jason Rauen to run the full Lucas schedule. In that piece, I said that Pearson was planning on running Longhorns again as part of this new deal, which was mentioned in the Dirt on Dirt post. But apparently that might not be correct. On the clip I posted to TikTok, late model racer Cory Hedgecock commented that Pearson and Rauen are making the switch to his chassis, the new BMF piece. Hedgecock debuted the first BMF chassis late in 2022, and besides him running them, we saw Jose Parga take them to a DIRTcar championship in 2023, Will Roland compete in one, and Tanner English and Viper Motorsports switch late in 2023. Hedgecock had a number of wins this season, including in both super and crate competition. We'll see if this chassis along with the new team can reignite EPJ's career.
In the dirt late model chassis space, it seems like we have a few newcomers at the moment. And two are connected. Back at the Wild West Shootout, Stormy Scott and Jason Durham revealed their Catagory 5 piece, which is a partnership with Brucebilt's Bruce Nunnally. FloRacing's Kyle McFadden had a story about it back about 10 days ago. Nunnally was previously with Scott Bloomquist's Team Zero, and is also involved with Hedgecock's BMF operation. The car that Stormy and Durham ran at Vado was one built in 2013, but never raced by it's previous owner Rick Eckert. The car was modified to current standards and what Story and Durham wanted. This move to their own chassis, obviously means that Stormy has moved on from running Longhorns. They told McFadden that once they get it sorted, they do plan on selling some of them to other racers.
Besides Catagory 5 and BMF, I've also been told by a few folks that Brandon Overton's Wells Motorsports team is building their own piece for the future. They had been campaigning their own versions of Longhorns, but that seems to have gone south with their late experiment in 2023 that we've documented here on the show before. They are still building and selling the Longhorn by Wells, but supposedly Overton ran something else late in the season last year. Rumblings of possibly a partnership with Team Zero and Shane McDowell. That would make sense, with the Wells team trying out the Team Zero car at Raceway 7 at the end of the Lucas season. Overton's 2024 plans remain unknown at the moment, but his website has been updated with at least a few races. And what's there seems to point to no Lucas run this season. That would fall in line with what we've been hearing and talking about. We'll see Overton this week at Golden Isles, and then he'll continue Speedweeks at Bubba Raceway Park. But following Bubba, instead of going to All-Tech with Lucas, Overton's website shows a trip back to Georgia for Winter Freeze at Screven, which is headlined by a $12k to win Southern All Stars show. From there, it's back to Florida and East Bay, and then the second Golden Isles race is the final event shown. I'd say Overton and Wells are back to picking and choosing races.
Other Lucas question marks at the moment include Jonathan Davenport. Flo's Kyle McFadden says he is 50/50 right now, but will be at all of Speedweeks. And some chatter pointed towards a pick and choose slate for Tyler Erb. He's also going to start the season with Lucas and see how it goes following the end of the swing in February.
Finally today, it seems as though the USAC announcer situation is still in flux. Chet Christner had the role in 2023, but decided at season's end he wouldn't return to the spot. The USAC season starts in a few weeks with the sprint cars at Ocala and Volusia, and the series announced yesterday that Bryan Hulbert will be on the mic for those events. That means both the at-track PA and FloRacing broadcasts. Hulbert is usually on the mic for the ASCS National Tour and at the Chili Bowl, among other motorsports exploits. He did call a USAC midget show in 2023 at Kansas' Mitchell County Fairgrounds. No plans for the seat were revealed for after Florida, and putting in Hulbert buys USAC time until racing gets started again in April to make a decision. The sprint cars are back April 5th, while Silver Crown and the midgets don't get going until later in April. If it's not Hulbert, and it's not Drake York, I'm not sure at the moment who it would be.
That's it for the Daily show today. The streaming schedule is quiet outside of the 24/7 channels on DIRTVision and FloRacing. Things will start to get busier though this weekend. You can see the streaming schedule any time at dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
Hope you guys have a great Tuesday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow!