DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript
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Devin Moran stays hot, wins at Bubba; more droop rule victims; Seavey going for USAC Triple Crown | Daily 2-2-2022
Coming up we are talking Devin Moran's fast start to 2022, the late model droop rule, plus USAC and Xtreme Outlaw news. Let's do this...
Today is Wednesday, February 2nd, two thousand and twenty two. Welcome into DIRTRACKR Daily. I'm Justin Fiedler.
Last night was another Lucas Speedweeks race down south, and yet another Devin Moran top two finish. It was the second of two nights at Bubba Raceway Park in Ocala, Florida, and after missing out on the win on Monday night because of late mistakes and that contact with Tim McCreadie, Moran couldn't be stopped last night. He went overall quick time in qualifying, won heat four from the pole, started on the front row of the feature, and led all 40 laps for the $10,100 victory. The only time he was ever challenged out front was on that opening lap when he went side by side with pole sitter Shane Clanton. He's now finished first or second in all five Lucas races this season. So five top fives in five starts, two wins, and an average finish of 1.6. If you go back to last season, he's now finished sixth or better in 10 of his last 11 Lucas starts. He and Wylie have that Longhorn Chassis just absolutely on a rail right now. And speaking of Longhorn, they've had at least two cars on the podium every single night so far. We've had a few Rockets mixed in between Brandon Sheppard, Tyler Erb, and Hudson O'Neal, but it pays to be in a Longhorn right now. As I said yesterday, don't expect Moran to run the full Lucas season, even if he leaves Florida with the points lead, and he confirmed that last night on Dirt on Dirt's Drive Home. He said they will be at the Outlaw race at Bristol, which is scheduled against the Tri-City and Macon races for Lucas. Moran bagged one of those Bristol wins last season and will be looking to repeat. Behind Moran last night, Tyler Erb grabbed his first Lucas podium of the season, finishing second, Ricky Thornton Jr. hard charged from 16th to finish third, Sheppard was fourth, and Clanton completed the top five. Garrett Alberson and Daulton Wilson grabbed top ten results, while it was yet again another tough night for Josh Richards who finished 18th, and Brian Shirley who was 20th.
Last night's program wasn't without issues though. Track owner Bubba Clem admitted he watered the track too late in the day yesterday, and it took a long time to get it run in and ready to race. It actually ended up costing the night a few drivers, with several teams packing up and leaving. Monday's field was 46, and last night was 41 I believe. Names like Max Blair, Matt Cosner, and Colton Flinner were all missing from the Tuesday field. The program started last night about the time things were ending on Monday, so there were certainly some complaints out there. Stuff like this happens though. If track prep and running these events was easy, every would do it and there would never be problems. There were also some victims of the droop rule again last night, including Mark Whitener, who got bit twice, I believe in both qualifying and his heat race. For those of you who don't understand the droop rule, a simple explanation is that it's in place to limit the left rear deck height. We seem to keep getting more and more left rear travel with the suspension, and the series are now putting a stop to it. There is a maximum measurement that teams must not exceed on that left rear corner, and if they are outside the limit, they are penalized. This is what got Brandon Overton in the Lucas opener as well. The Outlaws have been on this program for a while now, with Lucas just adopting the rule this season. If you want an even more in-depth look at the droop rule, check out the video that Ray Cook did a few months back about dirt late model tech. I'll link to it in the YouTube video description. Right about the eight and a half minute mark he gets into an explanation, including showing the droop limiter and how they are measure for it.
In the win picks department, the dirtrackr.com analytics prediction formula is now one for six, picking McCreadie last night. I'm two for six, correctly picking Moran. The Lucas late models are off tonight, before returning to racing tomorrow at All-Tech.
Over to some open wheel stuff, it was announced yesterday that Logan Seavey will chase the USAC Triple Crown this season, going full time in all three national series. He'll be back aboard the Malloy 25 midget, the Rice 222 Silver Crown car, and the Baldwin-Fox five sprint car. Seavey was full time in the midget and Silver Crown car in 2021, but didn't run the full sprint car schedule. For 2022, he's in line for nearly 100 USAC starts between the three divisions. So far, just he and Justin Grant are set to go for the Triple Crown. This season, if a driver were to win all three championships, they'll get a very nice $300,000 including bonuses, and if they can get two of the three, they'll take down $150,000. Seavey was victorious in all three series last year, and will again be a serious nightly contender. The USAC season opens in a few weeks at Bubba Raceway Park.
In other USAC news, Chad Boat Industries announced their lineup for the Florida opener. They're bringing four midgets with drivers Mitchel Moles, Jade Avedisian, Dominic Gorden, and Jace Park set to drive. We already knew that Avedisian, Park, and Gorden will run full time with the new Xtreme Outlaw midget series, and I'm guessing the season will include more USAC starts, plus some POWRi weekends. We've gotten used to seeing Moles behind the wheel of Matt Wood midgets at the Chili Bowl, but Boat will field a car for the California driver in select USAC events all season. In the previous two seasons, Moles has made 11 national midget appearances, with a best finish of third at Ventura to close out the 2021 season. He's definitely capable of winning some of those races. You'll notice in that Boat lineup, there is no Chris Windom, but that isn't shocking. He's ramping up his winged schedule this season with Hayward Motorsports and we should see him this weekend with the All Stars. Windom did run Chili Bowl for Boat, and we should see him at scattered USAC events this year.
We talked yesterday about drivers for the Xtreme Outlaw Series, and it sounds like we can add Wesley Smith to the sprint car mix. He finished second in the USAC MWRA standings last season, and is planning a full run with Xtreme driving the CarQuest Auto Parts number 44. He joins Chad Boespflug, Jason McDougal, Chase Stockon, Landon Simon, Shane Cockrum, Zach Daum, Mario Clouser, and Kory Schudy as full timers. We also saw yesterday that Thomas Meseraull will be at Volusia with the series driving for Chris Dyson and Sean Michael. So that Xtreme field for the season keeps getting better, as does the group headed to Volusia for the opener. So far Casey Shuman is doing a nice job attracting teams and cars to that series.
On the dirt racing podcast front, Winged Nation has Parker Price-Miller, Noah Gass, and Lachlan McHugh. There are also new episodes of the Dirt Reporters, the Dirt Nerds, and Passing Points. To see the full list of shows and episodes, visit dirtrackr.com/podcasts.
The only thing on the streaming schedule today is FloRacing 24/7. As always, to see the full daily streaming schedule, with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.
That's it for the show today, have a good Wednesday. If you have thoughts about the topics on today's show, leave them in the comments below or tweet at me.
Thanks everybody for tuning in, I'll see you tomorrow for more DIRTRACKR Daily!