BRANDON SHEPPARD, BRIAN SHIRLEY, DENNIS ERB JR. AND MORE GET READY FOR FARMER CITY RACEWAYFARMER CITY, IL – MARCH 29, 2021 –The World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Models Series returns to Farmer City Raceway this weekend for the 13th annual Illini 100.The Series gears up for two nights of action at the 1/4-mile track, with one driver possibly walking away with $26,000 in winnings between the two nights.The Friday, April 2, 25-lap Feature will award $6,000 to the winner. Then, on Saturday, April 3, the Series will run a 75-lap Feature, with the winner collecting $20,000. Saturday’s event also pays $10,000 to second and $1,200 to start.Hot Laps are scheduled to start at 6pm on Friday, and 5pm on Saturday.Fans can also meet the drivers during an autograph session on Saturday, from 3pm to 4pm.Teams will get a practice session on Thursday, April 1.After six races, Kyle Strickler has a 66-point lead on three-time and defending champion Brandon Sheppard. Strickler is still the only two-time winner on the Series, so far.The World of Outlaws Late Models have run 16 races at Farmer City Raceway, with eight different winners. Brandon Sheppard is the most recent winner – April 2019. Billy Moyer has won the most, reaching Victory Lane four times.If you can’t make it either night, watch all the action live on DIRTVision with the annual Platinum FAST PASS subscription for $299/year or the monthly FAST PASS Subscription for $39/month.Here are the top stories to follow this weekend:The Push For 70 Continues: Brandon Sheppard finally picked up his first win of 2021 at Cherokee Speedway last weekend. However, that was a special event and didn’t count as an official Series victory.Sheppard’s next official win will be the 70th World of Outlaws Late Model victory of his career.There’s good news for the New Berlin, IL native. He’s had a lot of success at Farmer City Raceway. Sheppard has three World of Outlaws victories at the speedway, all coming in the 75-lap portion of the Illini 100.Fighting for Victory: Brian Shirley has two World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model wins in his home state at Farmer City Raceway. Both have been during the 25-lap portion of the Illini 100. He’s been close to clinching the 75-lap event, finishing second to Brandon Sheppard in the Illini 100 finale in 2017.Overall, the Chatham, IL driver has four top-fives in World of Outlaws Late Model competition at the track.Racing Close to home: Brandon Sheppard isn’t the only driver looking forward to getting home this weekend. Illinois-native Dennis Erb Jr. has four wins at Farmer City Raceway. However, none have come during World of Outlaws competition.In those races, the Carpentersville, IL native has three top-fives, and six top-10s. Two of those top-fives were during the Illini 100 in 2019.New Territory: The Illini 100 will be a whole new ballgame for Series points leader Kyle Strickler. Friday night will be “The High Side Tickler’s” first start at the track with the World of Outlaws Late Models.So far this season, Strickler has been the dominate driver with the most wins (two), the most top-five finishes (4) – currently the only driver with more than three top-fives – and the most top-10s (5).The Pennsylvania campaigner enters the weekend with a 66-point lead over Brandon Sheppard and leads the hunt for Rookie of the Year.This Week at a GlanceWhen and WhereApril 1-3 at Farmer City Raceway in Farmer City, ILAbout the TrackFarmer City Raceway is a 1/4 mile high banked track Online: https://www.farmercityracing.com Track Record: 11.750 set by Brandon Sheppard on April 5, 2019PREVIOUS FARMER CITY RACEWAY WINNERS 2019 – Brian Shirley on April 5; Brandon Sheppard on April 6 2017 – Brandon Sheppard on March 31; Brian Shirley on April 1 2016 – Josh Richards on April 2, 3 2015 – Scott Bloomquist on April 17; Brandon Sheppard on April 18 2014 – Shannon Babb on April 26 2013 – Billy Moyer on April 6 2012 – Jimmy Mars on March 31 2010 – Billy Moyer on April 10 2009 – Shane Clanton on April 4 2008 – Billy Moyer on April 5 2007 – Shannon Babb on April 27 2006 – Billy Moyer on Aug. 14On the Internet World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Models Series Twitter – Twitter.com/WoOLateModels – @WoOLateModels Instagram – Instagram.com/WoOLateModels – @woolatemodels Facebook – Facebook.com/WorldofOutlawsLateModelSeries YouTube – Youtube.com/WorldofOutlaws DIRTVision – DIRTVision.com – Platinum annual FAST PASS for $299 or monthly FAST PASS for $39/monthAround the Turn: The World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, April 8-10, heads to Bristol Motor Speedway, in Bristol TN, for the Bristol Bash. CLICK HERE for tickets.Feature Winners: (5 Drivers) Rank- Driver- Hometown-WinsKyle Strickler, Sinking Springs, PA-2Kyle Bronson, Brandon, FL-1 Devin Moran, Dresden, OH-1 Brandon Overton, Evans, GA-1 Chris Madden, Grey Court, SC-1DRYDENE HEAT RACE WINNERS (19 Drivers) Rank- Driver- Hometown-WinsKyle Bronson, Brandon, FL-3 Tim McCreadie, Watertown, NY-3Kyle Strickler, Sinking Spring, PA-2 Devin Moran, Dresden, OH- 2 Tyler Bruening, Decorah, IA-2 Bobby Pierce, Oakwood, IL-2 Chris Madden, Grey Court, SC-2Dale Mcdowell, Chickamauga, GA- 1 Cade Dillard, Robeline, LA-1 Darell Lanigan, Union, KY-1 Parker Martin, Milledgeville, GA-1 Ross Bailes, Clover, SC- 1 Brandon Overton, Evans, Ga-1 Brent Larson, Lake Elmo, MN-1 Mike Marlar, Winfield, TN-1 Hudson O’Neal, Martinsville, IN-1 Ricky Thornton Jr., Chandler, AZ-1 Jonathan Davenport, Blairsville, GA-1 Scott Bloomquist, Mooresburg, TN-1Last Chance Showdown Winners (12 drivers) Rank- Driver- Hometown-WinsRicky Weiss, Headingly, MB -2 Dale Mcdowell, Chickamauga, GA-2Ross Robinson, Clover, SC- 1 Boom Briggs, Bear Lake, PA-1 Brent Larson, Lake Elmo, MN-1 Scott Bloomquist, Mooresburg, TN-1 Chase Junghans, Manhattan, KS-1 Brandon Overton, Evans, GA- 1 Dennis Erb, Jr., Carpentersville, IL-1 Mike Norris, Sarver, PA- 1 Stacy Boles, Clinton, TN-1 Kyle Strickler, Silver Springs, PA-1PODIUM FINISHES (14 drivers) Rank – Driver, Hometown – PodiumsKyle Strickler, Sinking Spring, PA – 3Devin Moran, Dresden, OH – 2 Kyle Bronson, Brandon, FL – 2Cade Dillard, Robeline, LA – 1 Scott Bloomquist, Mooresburg, TN – 1 Darrell Lanigan, Union, KY – 1 Hudson O’Neal, Martinsville, IN – 1 Ricky Thornton, Jr., Chandler, AZ – 1 Bobby Pierce, Oakwood, IL – 1 Dale McDowell, Chickamauga, GA – 1 Brandon Overton, Evans, GA – 1 Chris Madden, Grey Court, SC-1 Mike Marlar, Winfield, TN-1 Jonathan Davenport, Blairsville, GA-1HARD CHARGER AWARD (4 drivers) Rank – Driver, Hometown – H.C. AwardsRicky Weiss, Headingly, MB – 2 Chase Junghans, Manhattan, KS – 2Boom Briggs, Bear Lake, PA – 1 Brandon Sheppard, New Berlin, IL – 1SLICK WOODY’S QUICK TIME AWARD (6 drivers) Rank – Driver, Hometown – QTsKyle Bronson, Brandon, FL – 1 Kyle Strickler, Sinking Spring, PA – 1 Brandon Overton, Evans, GA – 1 Devin Moran, Dresden, OH – 1 Bobby Pierce, Oakwood, IL – 1 Donald McIntosh, Dawsonville, GA- 12021 World of Outlaws Late Model Schedule & WinnersNo./ Day, Date / Track / Location / Winner (Total Wins) 1. Thursday, Jan. 14 / Volusia Speedway Park / Barberville, FL / Kyle Bronson (1) 2. Saturday, Jan. 16 / Volusia Speedway Park / Barberville, FL / Kyle Strickler (1) 3. Wednesday, Feb. 10 / Volusia Speedway Park / Barberville, FL / Kyle Strickler (2) 4. Thursday, Feb. 11 / Voluisa Speedway Park / Barberville, FL / Devin Moran (1) 5. Friday, Feb. 12 / Volusia Speedway Park / Barberville, FL / Brandon Overton (1) 6. Saturday, March 6/ Smoky Mountain Speedway/ Maryville, TN/ Chris Madden (1). 7. Friday, March 26 / Cherokee Speedway / Gaffney, SC / Jimmy Owens/Brandon Sheppard

The World of Outlaws Morton Buildings® Late Model Series is brought to fans across the country by many important sponsors and partners, including: DIRTVision (Official Live Broadcast Partner), Drydene (Official Motor Oil), Hoosier Racing Tire (Official Tire), iRacing (Official Online Racing Game), Morton Buildings (Official Building), SIS Insurance (Official Insurance Provider) VP Racing Fuels (Official Racing Fuel); in addition to contingency sponsors, including: Arizona Sport Shirts/Gotta Race, ARP (Automotive Racing Products), Cometic Gasket, COMP Cams, MSD, Penske Racing Shocks, Quarter Master, Slick Woody’s (Quick Time Award), and Wrisco (Exclusive Racing Aluminum); along with manufacturer sponsors, including: Capital Race Cars, FireAde, Integra Shocks, Intercomp, K1 Race Gear, Racing Electronics, Reliable Painting, and Rocket Chassis.Founded in 1978, the World of Outlaws®, based in Concord, NC, is the premier national touring series for dirt track racing in North America, featuring the most powerful cars on dirt, the World of Outlaws NOS® Energy Drink Sprint Car Series and the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings® Late Model Series. Annually, the two series race nearly 140 times at tracks across the United States and Canada. CBS Sports Network is the official broadcast partner of the World of Outlaws. DIRTVision® also broadcasts World of Outlaws events over the Internet to fans around the world. Learn more about the World of Outlaws.

Sweet & KKR #49 Land Series-Best Third Win of 2021 at Lake Ozark SpeedwayELDON, MO – March 27, 2021 – It was rough and tough, and tricky and treacherous; a track that Jason Johnson himself would’ve thrived on.If it couldn’t be the #41, though, it’s no surprise that it ended up going to the #49 Kasey Kahne Racing, NAPA Auto Parts car,.Leading all 30 laps on a “cowboy up” surface at Lake Ozark Speedway on Saturday night, Brad Sweet of Grass Valley, CA checked a big one off his bucket list by claiming the third annual Jason Johnson Classic to the tune of $15,000.His third win of the 2021 season marked the 61st of his World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series career. He’s a Knoxville Nationals champion, King’s Royal winner, and so much more, but Saturday’s win was admittedly one of the biggest of his stout career.”This is definitely one of my biggest wins,” Sweet said afterwards. “I know it’s not the Knoxville Nationals or anything, but memorial races just mean so much. We lost Jason a few years back and I’ve missed him ever since. I think about Bobbi, Jaxx, and his whole family still sticking with the sport after everything that has happened to them. They’re a lot braver than I am. I hope Jason is looking down on us and smiling tonight.”Sweet, the two-time and defending World of Outlaws champion, was impressive all night long on the Eldon, MO 3/8-mile. He set Slick Woody’s QuickTime, ran second in his Team Drydene Heat Race, and second again in the DIRTVision Fast Pass Dash to claim the outside pole position of the main event.Sheldon Haudenschild, a runner-up twice before at Lake Ozark, had the honors of leading the field to the green flag in his Stenhouse Jr. Marshall Racing, NOS Energy Drink #17. It wasn’t Lil’ Haud, but The Big Cat who pounced on the conditions and put his #49 in front of the field to lead the opening lap, a command he would never relinquish it.It wasn’t an easy win by any means for the KKR #49. Outside of one stoppage for a flipped fourth-runningJacob Allen on Lap six, it was a grinding 30 laps through lap traffic.Things heated up at halfway when the initial installment of lap traffic slowed Sweet’s pace and brought Haudenschild to his back bumper. The #17 was hounding the #49 for a handful of laps before Sweet made the right move and separated himself from Haudenschild, who was boxed-in by traffic.Once able to sneak away, Sweet put on an absolute clinic. He lapped up to the sixth-position and crossed the finish line with an astounding margin of victory at 4.218-seconds. Afterwards, he was adamant in making this night about Jason and the Johnson family.”The night is all about honoring Jason and his legacy as a racer, as a father, and as a husband,” Sweet continued. “He was someone we all looked up to in the pits. He really made an impact on this sport. We really miss him. We want to take a moment every now and then and pause to remember him. Tonight is the night we get to do that. It’s truly an honor to win this race. This NAPA Auto Parts car was on rails. That’s a track that Jason Johnson would’ve had his elbows up on. He would’ve been tough to beat tonight.”Sheldon Haudenschild of Wooster, OH gave Sweet all he could at halfway, but the combination of traffic and conditions allowed Sweet to escape. Saturday marked his third career runner-up result at Lake Ozark and his third consecutive top five finish at the Jason Johnson Classic. A strong run, but it left him hungry for a win at this joint.”I’m gonna win this race someday,” Haudenschild told Bobbi Johnson afterwards. “We were really good, but just Brad out-raced us I think. I hung with him for a really long time, but he got through one pack of lappers better than me and it was game over. We want to win this one real bad. Even though it was rough it was awesome to drive. I had a blast.”Coming home with a third-place finish and earning his first podium appearance of the season was James McFadden in the Kasey Kahne Racing, Karavan Trailers #9. Since making his way overseas, the Alice Springs, NT, AUS driver has yet to finish outside the top ten in World of Outlaws action.”We just sort of rolled around and tried to keep out of trouble and capitalize on everyone else’s mistakes,” McFadden noted on his strategy. “Tried to minimize my mistakes as much as possible. It was a tough race, though. I always enjoy this track, it’s a lot of fun. This is a good confidence booster for us. We struggled in Texas, so running third is great for sure.”Rounding out the top ten on Saturday night was Logan Schuchart in the Shark Racing #1S, Carson Macedo in the Jason Johnson Racing #41, Aaron Reutzel in the Roth Motorsports #83, David Gravel in the Big Game Motorsports #2, Brent Marks in the CJB Motorsports #5, Kraig Kinser in the Kinser Racing #11K, and Cory Eliason in the Rudeen Racing #26.UP NEXT – The World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series heads to Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55 next weekend. A two-day stop brings The Greatest Show on Dirt to the Pevely, MO 1/3-mile on Friday and Saturday, April 2-3. Fans can BUY TICKETS HERE.NOS Energy Drink Feature (30 Laps) – 1. 49-Brad Sweet [2][$15,000]; 2. 17-Sheldon Haudenschild [1][$6,225]; 3. 9-James McFadden [5][$3,725]; 4. 1S-Logan Schuchart [3][$3,025]; 5. 41-Carson Macedo [7][$2,725]; 6. 83-Aaron Reutzel [8][$2,525]; 7. 2-David Gravel [9][$2,425]; 8. 5-Brent Marks [20][$2,325]; 9. 11K-Kraig Kinser [6][$2,275]; 10. 26-Cory Eliason [11][$2,225]; 11. 15-Donny Schatz [12][$1,825]; 12. 18-Giovanni Scelzi [14][$1,625]; 13. 11-Ian Madsen [15][$1,425]; 14. 3Z-Brock Zearfoss [19][$1,325]; 15. 27-Tucker Klaasmeyer [18][$1,275]; 16. 15H-Sam Hafertepe [13][$1,225]; 17. 3-Ayrton Gennetten [22][$1,225]; 18. 2C-Wayne Johnson [10][$1,200]; 19. 7S-Jason Sides [23][$1,200]; 20. 21-Brian Brown [17][$1,200]; 21. 14E-Kyle Bellm [24][$1,200]; 22. 73-Scotty Thiel [16][$1,200]; 23. 1A-Jacob Allen [4][$1,200]; 24. 98-Clinton Boyles [21][$1,200]. Lap Leaders: Brad Sweet 1-30. KSE Hard Charger Award: 5-Brent Marks[+12].NEW Championship Standings (9/83 Races) – 1. 49-Brad Sweet (1,298); 2. Logan Schuchart (-32); 3. 2-David Gravel (-52); 4. 17-Sheldon Haudenschild (-60); 5. 15-Donny Schatz (-60); 6. 41-Carson Macedo (-90); 7. 83-Aaron Reutzel (-90); 8. 26-Cory Eliason (-106); 9. 5-Brent Marks (-164); 10. 11K-Kraig Kinser (-180).Photo – Trent Gower

The World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink® Sprint Car Series is brought to fans across the country by many important sponsors and partners, including: DIRTVision (Official Live Broadcast Partner), Drydene (Official Motor Oil), Hoosier Racing Tire (Official Tire), iRacing (Official Online Racing Game), Morton Buildings (Official Building), NOS Energy (Official Energy Product), SIS Insurance (Official Insurance Provider) and VP Racing Fuels (Official Racing Fuel); contingency sponsors include ARP (Automotive Racing Products), Cometic Gasket, COMP Cams, KSE Racing Products (Hard Charger Award), MSD and Slick Woody’s (Quick Time Award); manufacturer sponsors include FireAde, Intercomp, K1 Race Gear, and Racing Electronics.Founded in 1978, the World of Outlaws®, based in Concord, NC, is the premier national touring series for dirt track racing in North America, featuring the most powerful cars on dirt, the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series and the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series. Annually, the two series race nearly 140 times at tracks across the United States and Canada. CBS Sports Network is the official broadcast partner of the World of Outlaws. DIRTVision® also broadcasts all World of Outlaws events over the Internet to fans around the world. Learn more about the World of Outlaws.

BRASELTON, GEORGIA (March 26, 2021) – Beating out nearly 30 other Formula 4 United States Championship Powered by Honda cars, Noel Leon of Monterrey, Mexico, claimed the first pole position of the season on at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta on Friday. 

After winning the 2020 NACAM F4 championship, Leon brought his talents north to vie for another title and the FR Americas scholarship valued at $230,000. Today Leon got one step closer to his season-long goal, securing pole position in the No. 19 DEForce Racing Ligier by nearly a half of a second ahead of second-place with a fast lap of 1:28.258-seconds.

“I really like Road Atlanta, especially now that I got my first career F4 U.S. pole here,” said Leon. “I am so happy for the team, for my family, sponsors and country to get the first pole of the season. We are shooting for a great result tomorrow.”

The Velocity Racing Development duo of Jason Alder of Cookville, Maryland, and Nico Christodoulou of Maple, Ontario, held the top two times early in the session, but a red flag halted qualifying after the No. 22 of Christodoulou made contact with the wall in Turn 1. Christodoulou remained unscathed but was forced to retire the session due to damage. The early flier he set was good enough to give him a top-five start for Saturday’s opening round.

Christodoulou’s teammate Alder continued to build momentum in the No. 77 VRD machine after the track switched back to green. The rookie driver laid down his fastest time (1:28.744-seconds) on the final circuit to secure a front-row start. 

“Getting into the top-two in such a heavy field of talent is amazing,” said Alder. “Tomorrow I am going for the win.”

Driving the No. 5 CSU/One Cure/Lucas Oil/Pelican/Capri Tools Jay Howard Driver Development car, Matt Christensen of Orlando, Florida, slotted into third on the last lap (1:28.797-seconds). Arias Deukmedjian of Merritt Island, Florida, will share the second row with Christensen.

“The red flag kind of held us up, getting caught in some traffic,” explained Christensen. “The car felt great. I really like racing here. Road Atlanta is a really fast track, a really technical track and I love it.”

Saturday morning will kick off the triple-round weekend for the F4 U.S. drivers at Road Atlanta, starting with Race 1 at 10:35 a.m. Eastern followed by Race 2 at 3:25 p.m. Eastern. Sunday will wrap up the weekend with Race 3 scheduled at its new time of 1:30 p.m. Eastern. 

DRIVERS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF NEW BANKING IN TURNS 1 AND 2

GAFFNEY, SC – March 26, 2021 – Friday night at Cherokee Speedway was double the Features, double the fun with the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Models.

The 42-car field was split into two groups, running two 25-lap Feature events on night one of the Rock Gault Memorial doubleheader.

While the number of laps were equal, the two Features were anything but similar.

ACT ONE

The first Feature was a war of attrition with drivers working to manage their tires.

When the dust settled, Jimmy Owens won the war, picking up the $5,000 prize.

Chris Madden wasted no time using the track’s new configuration, rim-riding on the top side of the speedway in Turns 1 and 2. That’s where speedway officials added banking earlier in the week.

“Smokey” used that lane for the first 10 laps, until he started getting pressure from Kyle Strickler and Owens.

Strickler pulled a slide job on Madden in Turn 2, taking the lead for a few car lengths on Lap 9. But that’s when Owens, the “Newport Nightmare,” decided to strike. He took advantage of the open lane on the bottom of the speedway, powering past Strickler and Madden for the top spot.

Tire wear became an issue for some drivers in the final 10 laps, bringing out a few late cautions. That put all eyes on Owens with each restart.

Kyle Strickler chose the high side on the double-file re-start, pitting him in a side-by-side battle with Chris Madden.

“The High Side Tickler” was living up to his nickname, trying to power past Madden as Jonathan Davenport and Chris Ferguson raced wheel-to-wheel behind them. That’s when the bad luck bug hit Strickler, as his right rear tire went flat with six laps to go.

He wouldn’t be the only one with trouble, as the same problem would plague Chris Madden a few laps later, costing him a top-five finish.

The Grey Court, SC campaigner said damage early in the race led to the flat tire.

“I got run into, and it pushed the quarter panel into the tire,” Madden said. “After Lap 3, we were kind of just hanging on.”

Owens held on for the victory in the final two laps of the race, putting the Ramirez Motorsports car in victory lane.

“The track turned out pretty good,” Owens said. “I would’ve liked to run [Turn] 1 and 2 a little bit better because it was really dusty, but overall, it worked out for us.”

Davenport finish second, Trent Ivey was third, Tim McCreadie fourth, and Brent Larson fifth.

ACT TWO

In the second Feature, the outside lane became the main factor in the race’s outcome.

Dale McDowell took the lead early and began to pull away from the field in what looked to be a dominant victory.

But three-time and defending champion Brandon Sheppard pulled into second with 15 laps to go and started using the high lane to reel in McDowell.

Sheppard caught McDowell with two laps to go. He rocketed around the outside of him in Turn 3, using a slower car as a pick to get by.

“Towards the end we got to lap traffic, and luckily my tires must’ve been just right at the end, because I could roll the middle and top pretty good compared to early in the race,” Sheppard said.

It was a big win for the reigning champion, being his first of 2021 – however these special Features will not count as official Series wins for Owens or Sheppard.

“We’ve been on the struggle bus for most of the year, but I knew not to count ourselves out,” Sheppard said.

McDowell led the first 23 laps of the feature and said lap traffic wasn’t the only reason he lost the lead in the final two laps.

“I started losing grip in my right rear tire, I’m pretty sure [Sheppard] went with a harder tire. It was the right choice for 23 laps, but it is what it is,” McDowell said.

The Chickamauga, GA driver held on for second place, Brandon Overton finished third, Scott Bloomquist fourth, and Jeff Smith fifth.

UP NEXT:  

The World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series is back in action on Saturday March 27, for night number two of the Rock Gault Memorial at Cherokee Speedway Gaffney SC. For Tickets, CLICK HERE.

If you’re unable to make it to the track can watch all of the action live on DIRTVision with the annual Platinum FAST PASS subscription for $299/year or the monthly FAST PASS subscription for $39/month.

Morton Buildings Feature 1 (25 Laps): 1. 20-Jimmy Owens [2][$5,000]; 2. 49-Jonathan Davenport [10][$2,500]; 3. 88-Trent Ivey [3][$1,750]; 4. 39-Tim McCreadie [11][$1,500]; 5. B1-Brent Larson [6][$1,200]; 6. 79-Casey Roberts [9][$1,100]; 7. 28-Dennis Erb [13][$1,000]; 8. 22-Chris Ferguson [4][$950]; 9. 421-Anthony Sanders [15][$900]; 10. 57M-Zack Mitchell [14][$850]; 11. 58-Ross Bailes [8][$800]; 12. 20H-Bryson Harper [17][$750]; 13. 44-Chris Madden [1][$700]; 14. 1D-Brent Dixon [18][$650]; 15. 18D-Daulton Wilson [7][$600]; 16. 7-Ricky Weiss [16][$550]; 17. 8-Kyle Strickler [5][$525]; 18. 11-Austin Kirkpatrick [12][$500]; 19. 6JR-Parker Martin [20][$500]; 20. 42-Doug Sanders [19]; 21. 23-Ahnna Parkhurst [21][]; 22. 14-Josh Richards [22]; KSE Hard Charger Award: 49-Jonathan Davenport[+8]

Morton Buildings Feature 2 (25 Laps): 1. 1-Brandon Sheppard [6][$5,000]; 2. 17M-Dale McDowell [1][$2,500]; 3. 76-Brandon Overton [5][$1,750]; 4. O-Scott Bloomquist [2][$1,500]; 5. 70-Jeff Smith [3][$1,200]; 6. 16-Tyler Bruening [8][$1,100]; 7. 18-Chase Junghans [7][$1,000]; 8. 6B-Dillon Brown [10][$950]; 9. 19R-Ryan Gustin [12][$900]; 10. 1P-Earl Pearson [13][$850]; 11. 29V-Darrell Lanigan [15][$800]; 12. 97-Cade Dillard [9][$750]; 13. 24D-Michael Brown [19][$700]; 14. 57-Adam Yarbrough [11][$650]; 15. 40B-Kyle Bronson [14][$600]; 16. 42K-Cla Knight [16][$550]; 17. 89-G.R. Smith [21][$525]; 18. 6-Blake Spencer [17][$500]; 19. 25-Shane Clanton [4][$500]; 20. 99B-Boom Briggs [18][$500]; 21. 54-David Breazeale [20]; KSE Hard Charger Award: 24D-Michael Brown[+6]

Qualifying Flight-A: 1. 22-Chris Ferguson, 14.867; 2. 20-Jimmy Owens, 15.137; 3. 44-Chris Madden, 15.169; 4. 57M-Zack Mitchell, 15.229; 5. 18D-Daulton Wilson, 15.256; 6. 88-Trent Ivey, 15.318; 7. 8-Kyle Strickler, 15.367; 8. B1-Brent Larson, 15.369; 9. 421-Anthony Sanders, 15.382; 10. 49-Jonathan Davenport, 15.397; 11. 79-Casey Roberts, 15.41; 12. 11-Austin Kirkpatrick, 15.42; 13. 28-Dennis Erb, 15.428; 14. 58-Ross Bailes, 15.434; 15. 39-Tim McCreadie, 15.45; 16. 1D-Brent Dixon, 15.603; 17. 20H-Bryson Harper, 15.61; 18. 7-Ricky Weiss, 15.639; 19. 42-Doug Sanders, 15.912; 20. 6JR-Parker Martin, 15.973; DNS. 23-Ahnna Parkhurst, NT; DNS. 14-Josh Richards, NT

Qualifying Flight-B: 1. O-Scott Bloomquist, 14.9; 2. 76-Brandon Overton, 15.103; 3. 1-Brandon Sheppard, 15.237; 4. 25-Shane Clanton, 15.288; 5. 24D-Michael Brown, 15.332; 6. 54-David Breazeale, 15.402; 7. 18-Chase Junghans, 15.474; 8. 70-Jeff Smith, 15.486; 9. 97-Cade Dillard, 15.498; 10. 19R-Ryan Gustin, 15.568; 11. 17M-Dale McDowell, 15.57; 12. 40B-Kyle Bronson, 15.679; 13. 89-G.R. Smith, 15.753; 14. 6B-Dillon Brown, 15.754; 15. 29V-Darrell Lanigan, 15.793; 16. 42K-Cla Knight, 15.809; 17. 57-Adam Yarbrough, 15.856; 18. 16-Tyler Bruening, 15.863; 19. 1P-Earl Pearson, 15.925; 20. 99B-Boom Briggs, 15.991; 21. 6-Blake Spencer, 16.152

TJ Speed locks up front row in FR Americas debut

Full Results

BRASELTON, GEORGIA (March 26, 2021) – A dozen competitive Formula Regional Americas Championship Powered by Honda drivers suited up for the first qualifying session of the season on Friday afternoon at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, all with the same goal to be the fastest car on the technical 2.54-mile, 12-turn circuit.

Three different drivers held the top spot in the condensed 20-minute qualifying with only a half of second deciding the first three rows. But it was Kyffin Simpson from Grand Caymon who secured pole position with a fast lap of 1:19.141-seconds in the No. 21 Simpson Race Products/GoPro/Spy Optic Ligier. Simpson will be joined on the front row by his TJ Speed Motorsports teammate Logan Cusson of Port Hope, Ontario. 

“I am feeling great after that result,” said Simpson. “The entire TJ Speed team worked so hard this weekend. I am so glad that today came out well and get the pole for them. 

“Road Atlanta is a great course, it’s one of my favorites,” Simpson continued. “It has fast corners and earlier this weekend we had rain which made it a little more interesting through those fast corners. In qualifying the track was just a lot of fun.”

Following an extended oil spill clean up earlier in the day from another group, the FR Americas qualifying session was shortened, giving the drivers just 20 minutes to get up to speed. In an all green session, Simpson, Cusson and Newman Wachs Racing’s Jordan Missig of Channahon, Illinois, all found themselves leading a lap. 

Cusson continued to find speed throughout the session and topped his personal best time on the final circuit (1:19.371-seconds), but with a bobble in a turn, he missed pole position by just .230-seconds. Saturday will be the Canadian’s first front row start of his FR Americas career. 

Cusson is the only driver entered for the weekend who has competed at Road Atlanta with FR. Cusson’s lap times from his 2019 rookie season at Road Atlanta have improved by more than two seconds with the help of his new team. 

“I have had a lot more experience than I had last time I am here,” said Cusson. “I had a year in the car between that time, and I am on a really great team now. TJ Speed has really helped me out with coaching and the car was just perfect today. I am feeling super confident for tomorrow’s race.”

In his series debut, Jay Howard Driver Development rookie Christian Bogle (1:19.416-seconds) will start on point from Row 2 in the No. 7 CSU/One Cure/Lucas Oil/Pelican/Capri Tools. Bogle was fastest in the morning practice and slotted into third on the white flag lap. The F4 U.S. graduate competed at Road Atlanta in 2019 with JHDD in F4. 

“It’s been a pretty big difference moving from the F4 car into the FR car here at Road Atlanta,” said Bogle. “We’ve done a pretty good job keeping up to speed. We had a strong practice session and came in third in qualifying. We have a strong starting position and I am looking forward to the race tomorrow.”

F4 U.S. reigning champion Hunter Yeany (1:19.525-seconds) and Missing (1:19.590-seconds) rounded out the top five times. 

PMH Powering Diversity scholarship recipient Ernie Francis Jr. finished with the 10th fastest time of the day with a 1:21.202-second lap. Future Star Racing took position of Francis Jr.’s  No. 98 Ligier last weekend and Thursday’s test day was the Francis Jr.’s first time behind the wheel. The seven-time Trans Am champion has two victories at Road Atlanta in Trans Am but has found that making the switch to open wheel comes with its own learning curve.

“The biggest difference between driving Road Atlanta in my Trans Am car compared to the FR Americas car is the braking and corner speed,” explained Francis Jr. “I have to attack the braking zones so much differently. It takes a totally different mentality with the driving style so I am trying to manage rewiring my brain to go and drive this without losing it all for the Trans Am sessions. Future Star Racing has made this opportunity possible and it’s been a great learning experience. I am looking forward to my first standing start tomorrow.”

Saturday morning will kick off the triple-round weekend for the FR Americas drivers at Road Atlanta, starting with Race 1 at 8:50 am Eastern followed by Race 2 at 1:25 p.m. Eastern. Sunday will wrap up the weekend with Race 3 scheduled at its new time of 3:10 p.m. Eastern. 

WASHED OUT: Excessive Rain Forces Cancellation of US-36 on FridayWorld of Outlaws Sprint Cars Move to Lake Ozark Speedway on SaturdayOSBORN, MO – March 25, 2021 – Due to a series of showers on Thursday that soaked the facility, Friday’s World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series event at US-36 Raceway in Osborn, MO has been cancelled.Fans who purchased tickets in advance to Friday’s show have the option to take their tickets to Saturday’s World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series event at Lake Ozark Speedway. Fans who can’t attend the Lake Ozark event will receive an automatic credit to their MyDirtTickets.com account, or they  can request a REFUND HERE (need new link) within 30 days.The Greatest Show on Dirt now shifts its focus to Saturday night when the third annual Jason Johnson Classic presented by FK Rod Ends offers a $15,000 payday at Lake Ozark Speedway in Eldon, MO. Plan ahead for an early start time with hot laps scheduled for 5:00pm CST. Fans can BUY TICKETS HERE.Fans who can’t make it to the track can catch all of the action on DIRTVision with the annual Platinum FAST PASS subscription for $299/year or the monthly FAST PASS subscription for $39/month.

The World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink® Sprint Car Series is brought to fans across the country by many important sponsors and partners, including: DIRTVision (Official Live Broadcast Partner), Drydene (Official Motor Oil), Hoosier Racing Tire (Official Tire), iRacing (Official Online Racing Game), Morton Buildings (Official Building), NOS Energy (Official Energy Product), SIS Insurance (Official Insurance Provider) and VP Racing Fuels (Official Racing Fuel); contingency sponsors include ARP (Automotive Racing Products), Cometic Gasket, COMP Cams, KSE Racing Products (Hard Charger Award), MSD and Slick Woody’s (Quick Time Award); manufacturer sponsors include FireAde, Intercomp, K1 Race Gear, and Racing Electronics.Founded in 1978, the World of Outlaws®, based in Concord, NC, is the premier national touring series for dirt track racing in North America, featuring the most powerful cars on dirt, the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series and the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series. Annually, the two series race nearly 140 times at tracks across the United States and Canada. CBS Sports Network is the official broadcast partner of the World of Outlaws. DIRTVision® also broadcasts all World of Outlaws eve

TEAM CHEVY ADVANCE FOOD CITY DIRT RACE BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY BRISTOL, TENNESSEE MARCH 28, 2021

RACE #7 – BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAYOne of the most highly-anticipated events on the revamped 2021 NASCAR schedule, the NASCAR Cup Series (NCS) will return to the dirt for the first time in over 50 years as the .533-mile oval of Bristol Motor Speedway is converted to dirt for the sport’s first visit to the venue this season. NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) will also be joining in on the action at the Tennessee short track, who will compete in the first of two dirt races on the Series’ schedule for the 2021 season. 
There have been 489 NASCAR Cup Series races contested on dirt from June 1949 to September 1970, which was won by Richard Petty at the half-mile North Carolina State Fairgrounds in Raleigh.
The NCWTS schedule has included at least one race on dirt since 2013, though the 2020 event was canceled because of COVID-19. A second dirt race is scheduled for July at the famed half-mile of Knoxville Raceway in Knoxville, Iowa.
Chevrolet NCS drivers Kyle Larson and Daniel Suarez will do double duty this weekend. Larson won the NCWTS race at the Eldora Speedway dirt oval in 2016. Also entered is Myatt Snider, who is seventh in the NASCAR Xfinity Series standings in the No. 2 Chevrolet Camaro SS.
The NCS 250-lap Food City Dirt Race will be telecast on FOX at 3:30 p.m. EDT Sunday, March 28. FS1 will telecast the 150-lap Pinty’s Truck Race on Dirt at 8:00 p.m. EDT Saturday, March 27.
DILLON PREPS WITH WIN ON DIRTRichard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon tuned up for the Bristol race weekend by winning the 604 Late Model feature last Saturday, March 20, on the high-banked oval as part of the Bristol Dirt Nationals. Dillon started from the pole and led all 20 laps.
Kyle Larson and reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Chase Elliott also got in laps in competition at the Bristol Dirt Nationals. Larson was runner-up in the 40-lap Super Late Model feature. Larson is the reigning champion of the Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals and also won a Late Model race on dirt this year, making the 28-year-old California native one of the favorites to capture the victory of this historic event. 
WELCOMING WINDOM FOR THE WEEKENDUnited States Auto Club (USAC) Triple Crown champion Chris Windom is among the 39 entries for the NCS race. He will drive the No. 15 NOS Energy Drink Camaro ZL1 1LE for Rick Ware Racing in partnership with his USAC sprint car team, Hayward Motorsports.
LARON MOVES TO SECONDAfter matching his career-best finish of second at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Larson moved from a tie for fifth in the Driver Standings to second. Larson led 269 of the 325 laps on the 1.5-mile oval and recorded two stage wins.
Larson, No. 5 Freightliner Camaro ZL1 1LE, is among three drivers with five top-10 finishes in the six races. Homestead-Miami Speedway winner William Byron, No. 24 Liberty University Camaro ZL1 1LE, is eighth and Chase Elliott, No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Camaro ZL1 1LE, rounds out the top-10 in the standings.
HEAT RACES TO DETERMINE LINEUPSThe race weekend kicks off with a pair of 50-minute practice sessions for both the NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series on Friday, March 26. Saturday’s events kick off with heat races, which will determine the starting lineups for each main event. Both series will run four 15-lap heats, with the lineup for each heat determined by random draw. The starting lineup will be determined by a formula that weighs finishing position plus passing points from positions gained during each heat. BOWTIE BULLETS·       Chevrolet leads manufacturers with 640 laps led – 200 more than its closest competitor – and in top-10 finishes with 26.
·       Chevrolet has 797 NASCAR Cup Series wins to lead all manufacturers.
·       Kyle Larson paces all drivers with 379 laps led in the six races.
·       Kyle Larson is one of just two drivers to complete every lap thus far this season. Austin Dillon has completed all but one of the 1,441 laps.
·       Chase Elliott (Daytona Road Course), William Byron (Homestead-Miami Speedway) and Kyle Larson (Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Atlanta Motor Speedway 2) have stage wins.
TUNE INFOX will telecast the 250-lap Food City Dirt Race live at 3:30 p.m. ET Sunday, March 28. Live coverage can also be found on PRN and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
QUOTABLE QUOTESKYLE LARSON, NO. 5 FREIGHTLINER CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 2nd IN STANDINGSLARSON ON WHAT COMES TO MIND IN ADVANCE OF THE FIRST CUP SERIES DIRT RACE AT BRISTOL:  “Anticipation and the unknown. Even me being a dirt racer, I really don’t know what to expect. These (NASCAR Cup Series) cars are way different than what I’m used to racing on dirt. They are way heavier with a lot less power than I’m used to. I think the only thing that transfers from my previous dirt experience to this weekend is how to read the surface and how it changes and evolves throughout the weekend and the race. I may be able to adapt to that quicker than a pavement racer.”
CLIFF DANIELS, CREW CHIEF, NO. 5 FREIGHTLINER CAMARO ZL1 1LE DANIELS ON PREPARATION FOR THE BRISTOL DIRT RACE:  “We have watched a lot of Eldora races, especially the race that Kyle won and others he was close to winning. We’ve talked to (No. 24 crew chief) Rudy (Fugle) a lot and to a lot of friends and contacts in the dirt racing world. We’ve studied everything we can possibly study to make good decisions. We’ve talked with Kyle a lot since he ran the super late model last weekend to see what he would predict or expect – and that is still a bit of an unknown. But we’ll still have to react quickly to whatever challenges are thrown at us this weekend.”
WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 8th IN STANDINGSBYRON ON THE CHALLENGES HE EXPECTS RACING ON DIRT: “This weekend is going to be such a challenge. I’m looking forward to it and I think it will be fun. I just don’t know what to expect, honestly. Luckily, iRacing scanned it and we will race virtually Wednesday night. Hopefully, that will help a bit. I think the guys who run dirt normally will have an advantage. Someone like Kyle Larson is going to be fast. It’s going to be a challenge for us asphalt guys. You’ll have to have your elbows up every lap. It’s going to be challenging physically, too, because you’re going to be driving your car hard constantly. There is no saving equipment in dirt racing.”
BYRON ON HOW HE PLANS TO PREPARE FOR SUNDAY’S DIRT RACE: “I didn’t do the best at Eldora (Speedway) but Bristol has more banking, which will give it a different feeling. I’m excited to get there and see what it’s like though. I’m obviously going to talk with Kyle (Larson) some beforehand, but he also doesn’t know what to fully expect in a Cup car there. The biggest thing when it comes to dirt is getting to experience it yourself and watching what everyone else is doing and where they are making speed. I plan to really do that during practice on Friday to see what I can learn and apply to the race on Sunday.”
RUDY FUGLE, CREW CHIEF, NO. 24 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY CAMARO ZL1 1LE FUGLE ON RACING ON DIRT AT BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY: “This weekend’s race will be unlike any other that we’re used to. Just about every way the car is set up is the opposite of what we would normally run. You want the car raised up higher to account for the dirt and bumps but also to allow the right side to really roll over and get the rear tire to catch and grip the track. The main thing is we don’t have any notes on what to expect from the track, but at least we do have practice sessions on Friday to help get acclimated. We’ve also been watching the other races that have been taking place there the last few days to try judge some characteristics of the track as runs go on. The good thing is that we’re really all on the same page going into the event.”
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 10th IN STANDINGS“Just the track surface, to me, is the biggest question and just how the event is going to look from the beginning of the weekend to the end. The racetrack is going to change a lot, I think, throughout the week. Weather can play a factor into that (and) how they water and keep up the track if they do any track prep. That, to me, is probably the biggest question mark in just how they’re going to go about that. Two hundred fifty laps in the sun is a lot on a dirt track. What little bit of experience I have, those tracks lose their moisture very fast when the sun’s out, so if it’s sunny and you’re racing with that many heavy cars on it, I can see the track degrading very quickly.” 
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER OFF ROAD CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 11th IN STANDINGSONE THING THAT I’VE HEARD CONSISTENTLY ENOUGH THAT ONCE THE TRACK TAKES ENOUGH RUBBER, IT MIGHT BE A SLOWER VERSION OF WHAT BRISTOL USED TO BE WHEN IT WAS KIND OF BOTTOMING-FEEDING, BUMP-AND-RUN. IS THAT KIND OF FAIR TO SAY?“I think there’s definitely going to be a point where there’s going to be a dominate line everybody is going to be fighting for. The one thing, though, that I noticed at the dirt track last weekend was that you can kind of move around, momentum-wise, to find speed, which is nice. That’s what’s great about dirt racing. As the track goes through transitions, it’s always going to change. There might be a point in the race where, ultimately, you have to be on the bottom and you’ll be fighting for it. But the great thing about dirt racing is that the track is always changing. So, it’ll go through so many transitions throughout the race and that’s what’s cool about dirt racing. You have to be comfortable with change because it changes throughout the race and to be good at it, you have to search constantly. Even when you’re the leader, the leader is always kind of a moving target. They have to be comfortable; they can’t just get in a line and think that line is going to win them the race. We’re going 250 laps on a dirt track. After 25, the dirt track changes drastically with a lot of cars out on it. So, that’s the great thing about it. It’ll go through so many transitions and the team that is willing to change and move will be the best by the end of it.”
DOES THE WEIGHT OF THE CARS PLAY INTO YOUR FAVOR?“From sprint cars to late models, I definitely think there’s some experience there that helps. Kyle (Larson), he’s driving late models now and doing really well. He about won the big race this past weekend in the super. The weight in those late models, they drive so much different than our Cup cars or a truck. A truck, from what I know in the past, the history that I have in my mind is that they are heavier. You don’t really drive them, I would say, like a late model or a sprint car. Definitely the weight is the biggest thing in the difference in how you drive. Side force, too; I’ll throw that in there. Our cars don’t have the bodies that the late models and sprint cars have wings; they’re just built a lot different to rely on downforce.”
ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 14th IN STANDINGSBOWMAN ON HIS DIRT EXPERIENCE: “I’m excited. I may not be a dirt guy, per se, but I probably have more dirt starts than most, I guess, going into Bristol. I ran a couple different midget series for a couple years. While I ran pavement more than dirt, I did run some dirt stuff. I’m going to race my Sprint car this year as well. I definitely enjoy the dirt thing. I’m ready to go. I ran the ARCA race on dirt. I feel like that was somewhat similar. I don’t know what to expect. You saw the track get pretty rough over the last couple nights. But those late models make a lot of grip, do some crazy stuff with the rear suspension that I think probably tends to dig the racetrack up a little bit. Our cars are heavy. We’ll see if they do the same thing or not.”
BOWMAN ON RACING ON DIRT FOR THE FIRST TIME FOR A CUP SERIES RACE: “I’m just excited. I love new and different things. I think going somewhere completely different than what we’ve done in the Cup Series for forever is pretty awesome. Who knows if it’s going to be amazing, not great, what the racetrack is going to do or what’s going to happen. I think the fact that it’s new, different and exciting, is really cool to be a part of.”
GREG IVES, CREW CHIEF, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1 1LE IVES ON BOWMAN’S DIRT EXPERIENCE: “It’s actually really nice that Alex (Bowman) has some dirt experience racing in the midgets and his love for it. I think his background and experience really brings an added bonus to not only myself, but the rest of the race team. I grew up having a little bit of dirt experience, but most of my stuff was on asphalt. I am definitely looking forward to the challenge of not only the new track configuration, but also the challenge of getting back into the routine of practice. I know qualifying is a heat race, but you are just going to have a lot more track time.”
IVES ON THE SPEED OF THE NO. 48 ALLY CHEVROLET: “I feel like we have had speed all year. Incidents on the race track whether it is a tire going down or contact with another car has hampered that finishing position, which ultimately reveals your speed. If you look at when we have been running well and not having those issues, we are capable of top 10s and top fives every week. Our third-place result last week kind of shows that. You can always talk the talk, but unless you walk the walk it doesn’t really matter, and we were able to do that this week. The pit crew was phenomenal, and Alex (Bowman) did a great job on green flag cycles and managing restarts. Every time we came on pit road we picked up spots.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 MONSTER ENERGY CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 15th IN STANDINGS“I’m tremendously excited, but I am nervous too. I’m ready to go and experience it all. Just to be out there at a track where I have six wins, but it’s going to be different: it will be colored differently (with the clay), we’ll be slinging mud and I get to learn all about a bias-ply tire that I haven’t driven on since the 90s. The build-up and anticipation for this has had a ton of hype, so I think everybody’s all jacked and ready to go. There are still so many unknowns; what set up do we run, what brakes do we put on it? We just gotta get there and get to work. Then Mother Nature; you check the radar, it’s like we’ve got a possibility of rain Sunday morning, that’s just going to make it muddier, dirtier and filthier!”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR., NO. 47 KROGER CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 17th IN STANDINGS“Heading into the Bristol Motor Speedway dirt race this weekend, there are a lot of unknowns but we’re all really excited for it. With my experience racing dirt, I think I’m going to be a little more comfortable heading into the weekend, but these cars drive totally different than racing in my sprint car but I’m ready for the challenge. It’s the same as other race weekends, you have to have a good team and a good car and get it done behind the wheel. Brian Pattie (crew chief) also grew up racing Modifieds on dirt, so I know he and I are going to have a good game plan heading into the weekend and I think we’re going to give the fans a really good show in our No. 47 Kroger Chevrolet with the NOS Energy Drink in-car camera.”
RYAN PREECE, NO. 37 BUSH’S BEANS/KROGER CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 18th IN STANDINGS“I haven’t raced on dirt in more than a decade, but I think this is going to be an awesome challenge for us in the No. 37 BUSH’S Beans/Kroger Chevrolet. We had a really strong start to the season and have just missed it a little bit the last couple of weeks, but this is a perfect opportunity to get the momentum back rolling again. Ricky obviously has a ton of experience dirt racing, so I think we’ve been leaning on each other a little bit to prepare the best we can to be competitive right off the truck starting with practice on Friday.”
DANIEL SUAREZ, NO. 99 CAMPING WORLD CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 23rd IN STANDINGSWHAT WILL BE THE KEY TO SUCCESS AT BRISTOL? “I don’t know how to answer that. I have never been on dirt in my life so I’m not a dirt person. I grew up in Mexico and didn’t even know people raced cars on dirt! That’s wasn’t an option when I was growing up. But, honestly, I’m super excited for the challenge. It will be interesting to see how things play out. I will have to put a lot of work in and try to get better at it quickly.”
HOW BIG OF A DISADVANTAGE WILL IT BE FOR YOU? “Even the guys who have raced on dirt before have never raced a Cup car on dirt. So, it’s going to be a challenge for not just me but them as well. We will see how things play out. I think patience will play a huge role.”
ERIK JONES, NO. 43 TIDE FOOD CITY CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 25th IN STANDINGSWHAT KIND OF EXPECTATIONS DO YOU HAVE GOING INTO THE DIRT RACE AT BRISTOL? AS A DRIVER, WHAT CAN YOU DO TO PREPARE FOR THAT? “I don’t know that I have many expectations – it’s kind of a wildcard race for me. I’ve only ran two dirt races ever in my life and those were both in the NASCAR Truck Camping World Truck Series at the Eldora Speedway. It’s hard to set an expectation when you don’t really know. For me, I want to go there and survive and be there at the end of the race. We did have some good runs at Eldora in the Trucks, so that’s encouraging. It’s hard to set expectations for that one.”
“As far as preparing for it, you just really need to get into anything on a dirt track before we go there and just get that feel. You want some sense of normalcy when you hop in the car on dirt. You don’t want it to feel totally foreign, even though it will anyways, so just getting some experience in a dirt car is important. I don’t really know that it matters what kind of dirt car it is, but I think that will be valuable for when we get there.”
TYLER REDDICK, NO. 8 BETMGM CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 28th IN STANDINGSWHILE THEY WEREN’T NASCAR VEHICLES, WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY’S DIRT SURFACE AFTER SEEING THE BRISTOL DIRT NATIONALS TAKE PLACE LAST WEEK?“I saw a lot of great racing and a really fast track for those divisions that ran last week. We saw a couple bumps develop in Turns 3 and 4, likely because of the rain, but overall it was a very fast track for those cars. That’s exciting to me because our Cup cars are so much heavier with more power and less tire underneath us, so we should have some great racing this weekend. I think one thing that will be interesting to see if it unfolds is if two lanes of competitive racing on the track will develop with the Cup cars at the same time. But regardless, from what I saw this past week, I think it’s going to be a good race. It was just really cool to watch. My crew chief, Randall Burnett, and I went up to Bristol last Friday afternoon to check it out, touch the dirt and really understand how it was going so far. To see how quick these late models were going was amazing. 250 laps is a lot for a dirt track, so the track will change quite a bit during the race on Sunday. It should be exciting for fans and I’m looking forward to being behind the wheel of the No. 8 BetMGM Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE for it.”
WHAT WERE SOME OF THE TAKEAWAYS FROM YOUR VISIT TO BRISTOL LAST FRIDAY ON HOW THE TRACK HAS BEEN PREPARED? “There’s a lot of things to look at. The track says they took banking out, but it still has a lot of banking in it, so that was wild to see. There’s a lot of dirt on this racetrack, and it’s really incredible to see how they all brought it together. They had a lot of equipment out there and were trying a lot of things on the track this past week. I think it was great Bristol had that week of racing with so many different entries ahead of NASCAR’s weekend there. Bristol now has a better idea of what the track is going to do with so many different cars having been on it, that now they can get the track where they want it to be for us.”
COREY LAJOIE, NO. 7 NASCAR TRUCKS AT KNOXVILLE CAMARO ZL1 1LE – 29th IN STANDINGS“This weekend at Bristol is going to be a new challenge for everybody. It will be the first time we’ve had any sort of practice prior to a race in over a year. I ran a late model last week at Bristol to get familiar with the track, hopefully it translates some to the Cup car. Most of the field has limited experience on dirt so it’ll be the most level playing field we’ve been on in a long time. I’m looking to capitalize on what I learned last weekend at Bristol and rebound for a good result after a rough last couple of weeks.”

CHEROKEE SPEEDWAY OFFICIALS MAKE CHANGES IN PREPARATION FOR ROCK GAULT MEMORIAL WITH $40,000-TO-WIN FEATURE ON SATURDAYGAFFNEY, SC – MARCH 25, 2021 – “It’s the power and the glory, it’s a war in paradise.” That’s two of the many ways Canadian rock band Rush describe “Big Money.”Big money is what drivers competing with the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series are gunning for over the next three weeks.It starts Friday and Saturday, March 26-27, in Gaffney, SC, at Cherokee Speedway, for the inaugural Rock Gault Memorial. Friday night will be twin features, each paying $5,000 to win. Saturday night’s feature pays $40,000 to the winner, $15,000 for second, and $10,000 for third.Co-promoters Tony Adair and Scott Childress are excited about how the purse came together. Local businesses are chipping in money, so the winner isn’t the only one walking away with a high dollar amount.“It’s a page full of businesses, and Mike Gault [Rock Gault’s son] has done a tremendous amount of work raising the money to get [the purse] where it’s at,” Childress said. “Everybody liked [Rock Gault] so everybody’s really supporting this event.”“It’s definitely the biggest thing we’ve seen around this area,” Adair said.A high-paying purse isn’t the only thing drivers can expect this weekend. Cherokee Speedway officials are making some changes.After talking to drivers, Adair and Childress made the decision to add some banking in Turns 1 and 2, to try and create another groove on the high side of the speedway.“We’ve had to add some concrete blocks in [Turns] 1 and 2, so we could bring some of the dirt up,” Childress said. “We think it’s going to be a big difference, and we’ve been thinking we needed to do this anyway.”“We just had the barriers in [Turns] 1 and 2, and it was too short to keep banking the turn up. It was dangerous,” Adair said. “I think the drivers will be more enticed to get up on the high side now.”The track surface and concrete walls aren’t the only change at the speedway. Officials are also giving the walls around the track a new patriotic look.“We’re going red, white, and blue around the walls on the speedway, inside and out,” Adair said.After Cherokee, the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Models head to Farmer City Raceway April 2-3, for the Illini 100. Friday night’s 25-lap Feature pays $6,000-to-win, and the winner on Saturday gets $20,000 in Saturday night’s finale.One week later is the highly anticipated Bristol Bash.Friday, April 9, drivers will battle for $10,000 in a 40-lap feature. They’ll then battle for another 40-laps Saturday, April 10, but this time with a $25,000 top prize on the line.South Carolina driver and 2021 Rookie of the Year contender Ross Bailes is excited about the high paying races on the horizon.“It’s really big, it seems like tracks are stepping their purses up,” Bailes said. “It’s good when we can go and race for $10,000 almost every weekend.”With big money on the line, the best Late Model drivers in the country will be gunning from the drop of the green flag. But as “Rush” also said. It could lead to “A Cinderella story, or a tumble of the dice.”If you can’t make it this weekend or any other event, catch all of the action on DIRTVision with the annual Platinum FAST PASS subscription for $299/year or the monthly FAST PASS subscription for $39/month.

The World of Outlaws Morton Buildings® Late Model Series is brought to fans across the country by many important sponsors and partners, including: DIRTVision (Official Live Broadcast Partner), Drydene (Official Motor Oil), Hoosier Racing Tire (Official Tire), iRacing (Official Online Racing Game), Morton Buildings (Official Building), SIS Insurance (Official Insurance Provider) VP Racing Fuels (Official Racing Fuel); in addition to contingency sponsors, including: Arizona Sport Shirts/Gotta Race, ARP (Automotive Racing Products), Cometic Gasket, COMP Cams, MSD, Penske Racing Shocks, Quarter Master, Slick Woody’s (Quick Time Award), and Wrisco (Exclusive Racing Aluminum); along with manufacturer sponsors, including: Capital Race Cars, FireAde, Integra Shocks, Intercomp, K1 Race Gear, Racing Electronics, Reliable Painting, and Rocket Chassis.Founded in 1978, the World of Outlaws®, based in Concord, NC, is the premier national touring series for dirt track racing in North America, featuring the most powerful cars on dirt, the World of Outlaws NOS® Energy Drink Sprint Car Series and the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings® Late Model Series. Annually, the two series race nearly 140 times at tracks across the United States and Canada. CBS Sports Network is the official broadcast partner of the World of Outlaws. DIRTVision® also broadcasts World of Outlaws events over the Internet to fans around the world. Learn more about the World of Outlaws.

Richard Childress Racing at Bristol Motor Speedway Dirt Track… With the NASCAR Cup Series taking to dirt for the first time since 1970, Richard Childress Racing will compete in the inaugural event at the Bristol Motor Speedway Dirt Track. Before the main feature on Sunday, Austin Dillon and Tyler Reddick will run two 50-minute practice sessions and a qualifying heat to determine the starting lineup. Both Dillon and Reddick are armed with dirt backgrounds and have spent significant time preparing for this unique race with their teams.  Richard Childress Racing at Bristol Motor Speedway… While Sunday’s race will make history on the Bristol Motor Speedway dirt oval, Richard Childress Racing has found success on the half-mile’s typical concrete surface. In 179 NASCAR Cup Series starts, the Welcome, N.C. organization has scored nine wins, 35 top-five, and 71 top-10 finishes at the Tennessee short track.  Catch the Action… The NASCAR Cup Series Food City Dirt Race will be televised live Sunday, March 28, beginning at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX and will be broadcast live on the Performance Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.

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Austin Dillon and the No. 3 Bass Pro Shops / TRACKER Off Road Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE at Bristol Motor Speedway… While this weekend marks the first NASCAR Cup Series race on Bristol Motor Speedway’s dirt configuration, Dillon has made 14 paved Cup starts at the track, earning one top-five and three top-10 finishes.  Winner, Winner… Dillon has won at Bristol Motor Speedway on both the paved and dirt configurations. In addition to winning a NASCAR Xfinity Series race at the track in August 2016 (paved), Dillon was among the first drivers to compete on the track’s dirt surface last week. He won two features and a heat race in dominating fashion in a 604 Crate Late Model for Corey Hedgecock Racing. An Ace on Dirt… Dillon first began racing dirt late models in 2006 as the natural progression in his career after starting out in legend cars and bandoleros. Under the tutelage of Shane and Dale McDowell, notable dirt racing victories include the All-Star Shootout at the Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway (May 2009 and May 2007). About Tracker Off Road… Dillon’s No. 3 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE prominently features TRACKER ATVs, a game-changing new line of all-terrain vehicles and side-by-sides offering breakthrough performance, service and value in the off-road industry. TRACKER OFF ROAD was born out of a powerhouse partnership formed between Bass Pro Shops and TRACKER founder Johnny Morris and Textron Specialized Vehicles, bringing together the undisputed world leader in boating with a global leader in innovation and technology.  About Bass Pro Shops… Bass Pro Shops is North America’s premier outdoor and conservation company. Founded in 1972 when avid young angler Johnny Morris began selling tackle out of his father’s liquor store in Springfield, Missouri, today the company provides customers with unmatched offerings spanning premier destination retail, outdoor equipment manufacturing, world-class resort destinations and more. In 2017 Bass Pro Shops acquired Cabela’s to create a “best-of-the-best” experience with superior products, dynamic locations and outstanding customer service. Bass Pro Shops also operates White River Marine Group, offering an unsurpassed collection of industry-leading boat brands, and Big Cedar Lodge, America’s Premier Wilderness Resort. Under the visionary conservation leadership of Johnny Morris, Bass Pro Shops is a national leader in protecting habitat and introducing families to the outdoors and has been named by Forbes as “one of America’s Best Employers.” Bass Pro Shops has a long relationship with NASCAR, dating back to 1998. For more information, visit http://www.basspro.com/. AUSTIN DILLON QUOTES: The configuration of the high banks on the Bristol dirt stands out. What are some other parts of the track that strikes you as either very similar or very different from dirt tracks that you’ve raced in the past?“Well, I think the dirt itself is interesting. The type of dirt they choose to lay down on Bristol is not a dirt that you see in the Midwest; it’s a sandy-dirt. When you really get into the dirt track racing world, you start talking about the type of dirt that you’re racing on and certain dirt puts on better races, and certain dirt goes through different transitions than the other. The good thing is that the dirt, I feel like, came from a track that I kind of grew up racing around and I kind of know the transitions and what it takes, I think, to create speed throughout the transitions that it’s going to go through. So, if anything, maybe that helps me. But it’s not a dirt that I believe you’re going to see a cushion built; it doesn’t do that. This stuff kind of creates a fluff and it gets up there; you can gain grip because it might be wet up there for a while, but it’s not something that you can use as a curb to catch you, which is different. And I’m glad that it came from around here because I feel like I’ve ran on it a lot and know when it has grip and when it doesn’t.”  Does the weight of the cars play into your favor?“From sprint cars to late models, I definitely think there’s some experience there that helps. Kyle (Larson), he’s driving late models now and doing really well. He about won the big race this past weekend in the super. The weight in those late models, they drive so much different than our Cup cars or a truck. A truck, from what I know in the past, the history that I have in my mind is that they are heavier. You don’t really drive them, I would say, like a late model or a sprint car. Definitely the weight is the biggest thing in the difference in how you drive.” “Side force, too, I’ll throw that in there. Our cars don’t have the bodies that the late models and sprint cars have wings; they’re just built a lot different to rely on downforce.” Talk about the importance of the practice session at Bristol.“It will be nice to have some practice to just test and tune. I think the difference between an asphalt track and a dirt track is we have so many notes on things that we don’t do. A dirt track is where you can go to it with an open mindset and do things that you wouldn’t normally do to find speed and that’s what’s going to be fun for all of the crew chiefs, car chiefs and mechanics out there to really do things opposite. The thought process has to be so open-minded when we get there to the track. Not only are you worrying about the setup, but you’re worried about the car. Make sure the heights are right, you’re not rolling the nose under – there’s a lot of things that we do at a dirt track to just make the car go around the track. And then it might not always be like ‘hey, we needed just a little more wedge to be perfect’. It might be ‘we need more clearance so I don’t hit the track right here and get tight’. There’s a lot of fun stuff about the practice.” “The heat races – they’ll be challenging. It’s a short amount of time and you’ll want to get as many passing points as you can. Your starting position matters at any type of racing level. The draw – I haven’t really looked into how that’s going to go down or where we start in the heat races yet. But I think the whole process is going to be fun. I was hoping we would go off of a regular race weekend and go off of the past race, because we would have a pretty good starting position after our run at Atlanta this past weekend, and I think starting up front would be really good for us. I’m not really worried about where we start in the dirt race because I feel like if you do your job and practice that you should be able to move forward through the race.” “I watched the stock car race and I felt like the stock car race was probably one of the best races this past week when I was there at the Dirt Car Nationals, and that’s what I’m hoping you guys get to see from the Cup level. All the guys that are preparing the track – I’ve been in touch with some of those people, trying to just give feedback to give it the best show we can put on for all the fans out there. I think they’re prepared; I think the knowledge they gained form the Dirt Car Nationals last week will really go a long way when it comes down to it of what you see this coming week.”

Tyler Reddick and the No. 8 BetMGM Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE at Bristol Motor Speedway… This weekend marks the first time the NASCAR Cup Series will be running on dirt at Bristol Motor Speedway. Reddick does have two Cup Series starts at the track on the concrete surface, with his best finish of fourth coming during last fall’s event. Reddick also has five NASCAR Xfinity Series starts at the track, winning the 2019 fall race with crew chief Randall Burnett, along with two top-five and four top-10 finishes. He also has two NASCAR Truck Series starts and two top-five finishes at Bristol. Dirt Track Savvy… Both Reddick and his crew chief, Randall Burnett, came to NASCAR from dirt racing backgrounds. Reddick began racing on dirt at age four in Outlaw Karts before moving on to midgets, dirt late models and sprint cars. During that time, he became the youngest person to qualify on the pole for the World 100 at Eldora Speedway, as well as the youngest winner at the East Bay Winter Nationals and in the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. Burnett grew up in Fenton, Missouri, where he often built and raced his own late models at local tracks before moving out to attend school at UNC Charlotte. Burnett continues to be an avid dirt racing fan today. iRacing Success… On Wednesday night, Reddick climbed behind the wheel of his virtual No. 8 BetMGM Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE for the kick-off event of the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series. After advancing through his qualifying heat, Reddick rode the high line to a second-place finish in the main feature. About Bet MGM… BetMGM is a market leading sports betting and gaming entertainment company, pioneering the online gaming industry. Born out of a partnership between MGM Resorts International and Entain (formerly GVC), BetMGM has exclusive access to all of MGM Resorts’ U.S. land-based and online sports betting, major tournament poker, and online gaming businesses. Utilizing Entain’s U.S.-licensed, state of the art technology, BetMGM offers sports betting and online gaming via market leading brands including BetMGM, Borgata Casino, Party Casino and Party Poker. Founded in 2018, BetMGM is headquartered in New Jersey.TYLER REDDICK QUOTES: While they weren’t NASCAR vehicles, what are your thoughts on Bristol Motor Speedway’s dirt surface after seeing the Bristol Dirt Nationals take place last week?“I saw a lot of great racing and a really fast track for those divisions that ran last week. We saw a couple bumps develop in Turns 3 and 4, likely because of the rain, but overall it was a very fast track for those cars. That’s exciting to me because our Cup cars are so much heavier with more power and less tire underneath us, so we should have some great racing this weekend. I think one thing that will be interesting to see if it unfolds is if two lanes of competitive racing on the track will develop with the Cup cars at the same time. But regardless, from what I saw this past week, I think it’s going to be a good race. It was just really cool to watch. My crew chief, Randall Burnett, and I went up to Bristol last Friday afternoon to check it out, touch the dirt and really understand how it was going so far. To see how quick these late models were going was amazing. 250 laps is a lot for a dirt track, so the track will change quite a bit during the race on Sunday. It should be exciting for fans and I’m looking forward to being behind the wheel of the No. 8 BetMGM Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE for it.” What were some of the takeaways from your visit to Bristol last Friday on how the track has been prepared?“There’s a lot of things to look at. The track says they took banking out, but it still has a lot of banking in it, so that was wild to see. There’s a lot of dirt on this racetrack, and it’s really incredible to see how they all brought it together. They had a lot of equipment out there and were trying a lot of things on the track this past week. I think it was great Bristol had that week of racing with so many different entries ahead of NASCAR’s weekend there. Bristol now has a better idea of what the track is going to do with so many different cars having been on it, that now they can get the track where they want it to be for us.”

Yeager impressive in Tour debut, Ducharme notches career best finish March 24, 2021 – Blake Matjoulis got his goal of competing for a DIRTcar eSports Tour championship started off right with a win in the season opener Wednesday night on DIRTVision. “We got a couple wins last season, and to start off like this, it’s definitely some good momentum for Week #2,” Matjoulis said. A 50-lap contest stood before the Bicknell Racing Products Big Block Modified field of 38 strong at Weedsport Speedway. Matjoulis, of Ashville, NY, had yet to win with the Big Blocks on the DIRTcar eSports Tour, but looked as good as ever, backed by his newest iRacing team at 127 Industries. Starting fourth on the grid, Matjoulis chased down early leader Tyler Ducharme, of Bomoseen, VT, in the opening laps with fellow frontrunners Alex Bergeron, Evan Seay and Dylan Yeager. Matjoulis found his first opportunity at the lead directly after a restart on Lap 18, where he rode the high side of the slicked-off track surface and gained enough speed out of Turn 4 to nip Ducharme at the line for the lead. “I found something in [Turns] 1-2 that was about a tenth faster every lap and was pounding the fence in 3-4. That’s how I ended up getting the lead,” Matjoulis said. That move proved to be all the #127 needed to get the lead. But, holding it was a different story. While the top side got him the lead, the bottom carried him to victory. Matjoulis quickly swapped lanes to the bottom in an effort to hold off Ducharme and wisely held the line through the remainder of the race. Bergeron, of Drummondville, QC, was riding solidly in third with just under 15 circuits remaining when a bit of contact with his competition sent him in a near-spin through Turns 3-4, losing several spots. He impressively rebounded before the checkers, though, climbing back up to a fifth-place finish. This incident inadvertently allowed the resurgence of Yeager and his charge back up to third, which he completed on the final lap. “Alex [Bergeron] and Tyler [Schell] got together and I was able to capitalize on that and finally get around Richard [Murtaugh] for third-place, so we’ll take it,” Yeager said. Back out front, the caution-sprinkled race allowed those behind Matjoulis multiple chances to make a move for the lead, but he was too good in the slick. The 2019 World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model iRacing World Champion got a great final restart after the final caution in the closing laps and drove off to his third career victory with the Tour and the $250 check. Ducharme was able to hang on for a runner-up finish, the best of his few DIRTcar eSports Tour starts since his debut last season. “Congrats to Blake, he ran a great race,” Ducharme said. “Once he got in front of me, I got back under him a couple of times. I’m not going to driver through him for a win, I wouldn’t do that to anybody.” The DIRTcar eSports Tour next heads to the high, dirt-covered banks of Bristol Motor Speedway next Wednesday night, March 31, for a UMP Modified showdown in race #2 of 10. Catch all the action live on DIRTVision! Bicknell Racing Products Feature (50 Laps) – 1. 127-Blake Matjoulis [4]; 2. 25-Tyler Ducharme [1]; 3. 48-Tyler Yeager [2]; 4. 033-Richard Murtaugh [7]; 5. 12-Alex Bergeron [3]; 6. 32-Tyler Schell [10]; 7. 96-Gunnar Swanchara [9]; 8. 33-Evan Seay [5]; 9. 71-Keven Hebert [19]; 10. 213-James Boniface [14]; 11. 81-Bobby Sweeney [6]; 12. 0-Kevin Dedmon [15]; 13. 77-Brandon Planck [17]; 14. 1-Jesse Enterkin [23]; 15. 331-Dustin Hall [16]; 16. 17-Brett Rowles [22]; 17. 91-Felix Roy [11]; 18. 79-Maxime Plante [12]; 19. 114-Joe Garcia [24]; 20. 77-Blaise Baker [20]; 21. 2-Chance Carr [21]; 22. 41-Logan Rumsey [8]; 23. 115-Boddie Parker [18]; 24. 44-Mason Hammel [13] LOW ‘N SLOW: Gage Scores First Career Street Stock League Win in Season 3 Opener at KnoxvilleJackson continues dominance with podium effort; Axner charges 17th-to-5th One of the most difficult lines to take around a glass-smooth Knoxville Raceway in a DIRTcar Street Stock on iRacing is right around the bottom. Fittingly, it was the very line Jordan Gage took en route to his first career DIRTcar eSports Chevy Performance Street Stock League Feature win Wednesday night on DIRTVision. “I usually run the slider line here, but it was kind of wearing out faster than I liked,” Gage said. “These [races] are awesome when they come onto the table, especially when you can run them.” Starting P1, Gage, of Whiting, IA, jumped out to the early lead and began fending off a hungry field of 23 other competitors behind him. Applying the most pressure early on was none other than the winningest driver in League history, Tyler Jackson. Jackson, from Rockford, IL, started fifth and tried both the high and low lines to make the move on Gage, but was unsuccessful. After a late-race caution that brought a green-white-checkered finish at 22 laps, Thorne Zimmerman, of Sanderson, FL, was continuing his charge up from the seventh starting spot and got a great restart as the field came to two-to-go. Zimmerman took the low line right behind Gage while Jackson followed suit, fending off a high-flying Carl Kilgore to his outside. The field rounded Turns 1-2, breeding a big run for Zimmerman down the backstretch. He tried the middle of the track in the final turns but came up just one spot short in the end. “That white flag – I tried going in a little higher, so that maybe I could swing it under him, but I think [Gage] saw it coming and blocked the bottom to me,” Zimmerman said. Jackson, a three-time winner in Season 2, crossed the line in third, continuing his stretch of success in the League that he began last December. “Kinda got locked down there on the bottom at the end, but all-in-all for 12 green-flag laps, I guess we did all we could,” Jackson said. The Chevy Performance Street Stocks are back in action next Wednesday night, March 31, at Limaland Motorsports Park for Round #2 of 10 in DIRTcar eSports Season 3. Catch all the action live on DIRTVision presented by Drydene! Chevy Performance Feature (20 Laps) – 1. 0-Jordan Gage [1]; 2. 003-Thorne Zimmerman [7]; 3. 8-Tyler Jackson [5]; 4. 021-Carl Kilgore [11]; 5. 546-Randy Axner [17]; 6. 7-Chris Davis [13]; 7. 17-Brett Rowles [15]; 8. 44-Mason Hammel [8]; 9. 29-Lane Phillips [21]; 10. 71-Daniel Stiffler [9]; 11. 04-Joshua Dennison [14]; 12. 14-Kyle Vaughn [10]; 13. 48-Grant Parr [20]; 14. 93-Steve Miskolczi [24]; 15. 077-Holden English [18]; 16. 225-Nathan Lemons [12]; 17. 6-Mitch Erickson [19]; 18. 53-Aidan Skraha [3]; 19. 717-Bobby Rafferty [6]; 20. 69-Keith Hackney [2]; 21. 21-Jim Reavis [22]; 22. 1-Alex Breuer [4]; 23. 26-Sage Luther [16]; 24. 111-Jaron Valley [23]

DIRTcar Racing is brought to fans by many important sponsors and partners, including: DIRTVision (Official Live Broadcast Partner), Hoosier Racing Tire (Official Tire), SIS Insurance (Official Insurance Provider), VP Racing Fuels (Official Racing Fuel), Chevy Performance Parts, iRacing (Official Online Racing Game), Arizona Sport Shirts/Gotta Race, and NAPA Auto Parts (SDS). Contingency sponsors include: ARP (Automotive Racing Products), ASI Race Wear (SDS), Bassett, Bicknell Racing Products, Billy Whittaker Cars & Trux (SDS), Cometic Gasket (SDS), COMP Cams, Drydene, Fast Shafts, Fox Factory (SDS), Arizona Sport Shirts/Gotta Race, Jerovetz Motorsports Shock Service, KSE Racing Products, MSD, Quarter Master, Schoenfeld Headers, Summit Racing Equipment, and Wrisco (Exclusive Racing Aluminum) (SDS); along with manufacturer sponsors, including: Beyea Headers, FireAde, Intercomp, K1 Race Gear, Racing Electronics and Velocita USA

Inside Line Promotions – STOCKTON, Calif. (March 24, 2021) – Dominic Scelzi salvaged a podium finish despite misfortune on Saturday night during the King of the West-NARC Fujitsu Sprint Car Series season opener.

Scelzi put himself in a great position to contend for the victory at the Stockton Dirt Track. He qualified fourth quickest and finished where he started – third – in a heat race to garner enough points to make the dash.

“We went out late in qualifying and we qualified well, which was important,” he said. “We ran well in the heat race and that put us in the dash.”

Scelzi drew the No. 2 during the dash draw to line up on the outside of the front row for the dash. He maintained that position to start the feature on the front row. Unfortunately, the nose wing came loose on the opening lap.

Scelzi held onto the runner-up position for most of the race and even challenged the leader in traffic as well as during a restart. However, a late-race restart dropped Scelzi to a third-place finish. It marked his fifth top five of the season.

“It’s definitely a Catch-22,” he said. “On one hand I feel we gave away a great chance to win a race. To be as good as we were without the nose wing – it really hindered us – shows how great of a car we had. On the other hand that’s the first NARC points race. To win the points championship you have to take bad nights and turn them into as good of nights as you can.”

Five top fives in his first nine races this year ties Scelzi’s best start to a season with his opening nine races in 2018. He placed 10^th in the 10^th race that year so his next race can offer the greatest start to a season in his sprint car career.

Scelzi plans on competing this Friday and Saturday at Thunderbowl Raceway in Tulare, Calif., with the Kings of Thunder 360 Sprint Cars.

“I haven’t been to Tulare since 2019,” he said. “I feel like it was going in the right direction so we’re excited to get back there. It will be a good two-day weekend.”

NASCAR CUP SERIES BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY FOOD CITY DIRT RACE TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT MARCH 24, 2021
RANDALL BURNETT, CREW CHIEF, NO. 8 BETMGM CAMARO ZL1 1LE, Teleconference Transcript: CAN YOU GIVE US AN OVERVIEW OF WHAT IT’S BEEN LIKE THIS WEEK FOR YOU AND YOUR TEAM AT RICHARD CHILDRESS RACING HEADING TO THE BRISTOL DIRT RACE?“Yeah, it’s been a little different than normal. This is something new for all of us on the Cup side. It’s been a challenge. The rules are a little bit different with the cars; how we approach things. For instance, we normally run a splitter on the car that kind of keeps us off the ground a little bit and keeps us from traveling the car too much, because on the asphalt tracks, we run really close to the ground to try to make as much downforce as we can. We’re going with a little bit different approach this weekend. You are kind of going to be running the car up off the ground, so you don’t dig the nose in and tear it up. That’s been something we’ve had to work on. Just coming up with a set-up that we don’t really know much about the track. We don’t really know much about how these cars are going to react on the track. So, we’re trying to make our best guess, basically, is what it boils down to.”
YOU HAVE A DIRT BACKGROUND AND YOUR BROTHER OWNS MILLBRIDGE SPEEDWAY AND TYLER REDDICK HAS A DIRT BACKGROUND. IS THIS AN OPPORTUNITY WEEKEND? ARE YOU PUTTING MORE PRESSURE ON YOURSELVES TRYING TO GO OUT AND CAPITALIZE ON THIS WEEKEND?“I think both of us, kind of having a little bit of a dirt background; I’ve never driven on dirt myself, really, except for at my brother’s track up at Millbridge and racing go karts and stuff like that. Tyler’s got quite a bit of experience on anything from Micro Sprints to dirt Late Models and everything else. That’s kind of what he grew up racing. He’s pumped up about this weekend. We don’t want to get our hopes up too much because we don’t know what to expect, you know? This is a completely different animal for us as far as having this heavy of a car to run on dirt. So, we’re both excited about the opportunity to go up there. And hopefully we can put a good package together and unload off the truck good. I think that’s going to be very important this weekend.”
WHERE IS THIS TEAM AT NOW? IT SEEMS LIKE THE SPEED IS THERE BUT THERE HAVE MAYBE BEEN A FEW THINGS THAT HAVE GONE WRONG. DO YOU HAVE TO REIGN TYLER IN A LITTLE BIT OR ARE YOU JUST LETTING HIM BE WHO HE IS WHEN HE MAKES A MISTAKE?“We’ve shown signs of speed throughout all the races this year. We’ve just done a poor job of executing; whether it be calls on pit road or bad pit stops or driver errors or whatever. We’re all in it together and we’ve all made our fair share of mistakes this year. We’ve just got to really focus on cleaning that up. I think we saw that our RCR cars and our teammates all have good speed as well as us. We’ve just got to do a better job of executing and not trying to overcompensate for it. If you start trying too hard then you start making too many mistakes. So, we’ve just got to clean-up everything we’re doing and get back to doing the basics right.”
HOW DO YOU GO ABOUT DECIDING ALL THE THINGS THAT NASCAR IS ALLOWING THE TEAMS TO DO?  DO YOU HAVE TO PICK AND CHOOSE?“Well, I think we’ll get there, and we’ll see a wide variety of people’s approaches. None of us really know how to approach this. Some guys have been to the Eldora truck races, so we’ve got some notes from that. We’ve talked to people that have run well there; and just trying to get some ideas on things. Obviously, Bristol is probably going to be a little bit different animal than Eldora. So, there will be some things that you fight at Bristol that you didn’t see at Eldora. So, it’s basically just kind of getting back to your general knowledge of cars and getting back to kind of your roots and knowing what works for you and what doesn’t; and don’t put too much stuff on your car to get yourself in a bad place that something breaks. That’s the main thing. You’re going to have plenty of tire clearance and things like that, so you don’t put all this stuff on your car and end up cutting a tire with it. We’ve looked at things that we thought would help on our car and things that we’re allowed to do that we didn’t really need to do. It’s kind of been a mixed bag on some of that.”
SO, WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST CONCERN? ARE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT DIRT GETTING INTO AREAS AND OVERHEATING AND CERTAIN PARTS & PIECES BREAKING AND YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT TYPE OF PUNISHMENT IT’S GOING TO GET?“Well, I think a little bit of both. I think the main thing is, to finish the race, you’ve got to keep oil and water in it and that’s going to be a big deal. We don’t know how the nose is going to hold up if you do get close and hit the track; or, getting into somebody. We’ve seen the damage that happens on a normal weekend with that. We’ve tried to take some precautions for that. But I definitely think keeping the motor cool for 250 laps without packing it up full of dirt and trying to protect your radiator and your cooling system as much as you can is definitely one of the big concerns we have. And then again, with parts fatigue, we don’t know if the track stays really hard and smooth and it doesn’t rut-up, you’re probably a little less likely to break something. If that stays the case, whether it starts pulling up and rutting up a little bit, and you are kind of bouncing through holes and stuff, you’re going to take a bigger chance of breaking something. So, that’s when you’ve kind of got to be concerned about part’s fatigue and things like that.”
IN TERMS OF WORK LOAD, IS IT MORE, LESS, OR THE SAME IN PREPARING A CAR FOR BRISTOL DIRT AS IT IS FOR A NORMAL BRISTOL RACE?“Yeah, probably a little bit more work load because you’re doing a little bit of different things here. You’ve had to fabricate some new things that you don’t have to typically have to fabricate on a car; and trying to get the teams to agree on what they need and what they don’t so you’re not building three or four different cars. We also have to have a good back-up car that’s prepared too because you never know what’s going to happen. So, you’ve kind of got two cars that we don’t typically have in shop or in hand that we’re going to need on these cars. So, it’s been a little bit more of a strain on the fab shop to get that ready. And also, our road crews, just making sure they have everything they need in the way of spare parts they might need, and everything prepared for the back-up car. So, it’s been a little bit more workload this week, for sure.”
IS THE INCREASED WORK LOAD BECAUSE THIS IS A BRAND-NEW THING? OR, IF THERE IS A NEXT TIME, YOU WON’T HAVE TO GO THROUGH THIS PROCESS MORE THAN ONCE?‘I would like to say yeah because it would be easier to go through it again because you would know what you need for engine cooling and what worked and what didn’t, and what panels you made for protecting brake lines and things like that. All that stuff, you’d know what you need and what you don’t need. It’s definitely been a little bit of a process (with) lots of meeting about what we thought we needed to build and what kind of preventative plans we need to put in place to help with cooling and protecting parts and things like that. I would like to say it would be a lot easier to do again. We don’t have another one of these on the schedule. So, if we ever do it again, it looks like it would be with the Next Gen car, so I would think you would start all over.”
FROM A CREW CHIEF AND TEAM PERSPECTIVE, IS THIS SOMETHING YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE HAPPEN AGAIN?“I like different things. It’s going to be interesting to see how the race place out and how the track and the cars hold up. I enjoy dirt racing. I’ve been around it my whole life. I think it’s going to be something new for the fans. It will be interesting to see how the cars race and how they race each other. The Eldora dirt race with the trucks has been an exciting one to watch. So, hopefully it pans out for the Cup cars and I think they’ll put on a good show. There’s a reason all these guys race on Sunday. It’s because they’re really good. There will be guys with some experience with it and there will be guys that don’t have any experience. But I would imagine they’ll pick it up pretty quick.”
WITH HAVING A THIRD TEAM IN THE SHOP THIS YEAR, HOW MUCH HAS THAT MADE A DIFFERENCE? HOW MUCH HAS IT HELPED? OR IS IT LIKE IT WAS LAST YEAR BUT INSTEAD OF GERMAIN IT’S TRACKHOUSE?“Germain was in a separate shop last year, so they were a little bit more disconnected. With having TrackHouse in house, it’s basically like having a third team in-house. Travis (Mack) and Justin (Alexander) and myself have known each other for year. So, it’s nice that Travis is here. I think he’s doing a good job of getting that team rolling. It’s got a lot of really good guys on it. I think it’s helped. It’s brought in some new ideas for us and helped our processes, I think. And on the other side of that, it’s more cars to build and more to keep up with. So, it’s good and bad in ways; but I’m excited they’re here. I think you’ve seen speed. Like they had a lot of speed at Atlanta this past weekend as well as the No. 3 car. Unfortunately, we had our accident but overall, we had some pretty good speed in the race. I think you’re going to see both RCR and TrackHouse keep elevating their game.”
WITH THE NEXT GEN CAR, HOW MUCH HAVE YOU HAD YOUR HANDS ON IT? AT WHAT POINT DURING THE SEASON DOES YOUR FOCUS TURN TO THAT? HOW WILL YOU BALANCE THE REST OF THIS SEASON ALONG WITH WORKING ON THE NEW CAR FOR NEXT YEAR?“It’s definitely going to be a little bit of a balancing act. I’ve been around. I’ve been looking at things and talking with the guys. We have our testing guys that go work on that and kind of keep up on that. I keep up with them and what they’re doing and how it’s developing and things like that. I haven’t had my hands on it a whole lot by any means; so, I’ve still got a pretty steep learning curve with it. Fortunately, we’ve got a good group of guys that go with it and are very educated about it. I think that’s going to be of benefit. But when we get all the cars, we’ll see how it works. The Next Gen car we’ve got, the first one they built, the actual cars that we’re getting, production-wise, are going to be a little bit different than that. So, there’s still going to be some learning curve. The body is a little bit different. They’ve kind of refined that. There’s still going to be a pretty steep learning curve. It’s going to be a challenge to remain focused on what we’re doing in developing our cars and trying to make our cars better each week, as well as going and testing with that when we start getting cars put together, when NASCAR allows that. So, it’s going to be a busy second half of the season, for sure.”
DID MOST TEAMS BUILD NEW CARS FOR THIS RACE OR ARE THEY BRINGING THE OLDEST CAR THAT THEY WEREN’T GOING TO TAKE TO ANY OTHER TRACK?“You definitely have to build a car so the primary cars don’t come out of your inventory. NASCAR allows us to have so many cars a year. So, this car is kind of a throwaway car. It’s definitely a one-off car. A lot of teams, like ourselves, you build so many chassis over the years and then you kind of pick one that wasn’t in the litter for the whole year. That’s kind of the way we approached it. It’s not like it’s just a throwaway car, or anything like that. It’s just one that we’ve had sitting here that’s been used already and we kind of prioritized it to be our Bristol dirt car.”
ON TIRES, DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU ANTICIPATE WITH THE BIAS PLY TREADS?“They’re bringing a little bit different tire it sounds like, from what they’ve raced at Eldora. We’ve looked at those. It’s definitely going to be different for us. We’re going to be focusing a little bit more on stagger and things like that. The radial tire, it’s a lot easier to get that; and they’re very consistent. The bias ply tire is going to bring a new element for us as far as keeping up with our stagger and making our sets consistent across and being able to change that. It’s definitely something that you can use as a tuning tool that doesn’t play into the radials quite as much. We have a very small window on the radial tires with stagger and rollout. So, that’s a very, very small window. This is a much bigger window. That’s something we’ve definitely got to keep up with. The tire guys are going to be pretty busy this weekend.”
DOES THE PIT CREW HAVE TO DO ANYTHING TO ADJUST? IS ONE TIRE A DIFFERENT SIZE THAN THEY’RE CURRENTLY USED TO CARRYING?“Yeah, they’re definitely a little bit smaller, it looks like, overall. So, it’s not going to be a big deal for the pit crew guys. Our road guys are doing it. I’m bringing one of our pit crew guys that’s going to come with us and help us with that. We’ll see how it goes. I don’t think they’re going to have to make any big adjustments to what they do. It will certainly be a little bit different. But as far as that goes, I don’t foresee anything big on that.”

The Canadian is eager for a full season of Super DIRTcar Series racing, which includes Bristol and Super DIRT WeekBy Nick GrazianoLAFARGEVILLE, NY – March 24, 2021 – The Super DIRTcar Series championship crown remained atop Mat Williamson’s head at the end of 2020. But only by default.The racing season that never was, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, allowed Williamson to hold the title without a fight for another year. However, with restrictions in New York easing and a new Super DIRTcar season ahead, the St. Catharines, ON driver is eager to earn the crown once again.“We’re in good shape,” he said. “We went to Florida (for the DIRTcar Nationals) a few months ago and shook everything down. Stuff went back to the shop. The guys up there got everything turned around and we’re ready to go for Can-Am (the Super DIRTcar Series season-opener on Saturday, April 10). That’ll be the first race back in the Northeast the #88 Buzz Chew car. It’ll kick off a busier than normal April. I’m looking forward to it.”While the Series was able to run the six-day OktoberFAST event last year, the $7,500-to-win April 10 event at Can-Am Speedway, in LaFargeville, NY, is the first scheduled points event in more than a year. That year-break from full-time racing made for a tough 2020, Williamson said.The toughest part was getting from Canada to the United States for the few races there were. Not only was he missing out on races, but he was also missing out on opportunities to work his other job at Bicknell Racing Products in New York.There was a lot of homework on his plate to figure out what he needed to do and how to still make a living, Williamson said. Fortunately, for him and his family, with the success he had in 2019, they set themselves up to be prepared – unexpectedly – for the pandemic. He was in good standing financially and in health to make for an easier path across the border.“If the thing would’ve hit the year prior, we might not have been set up to cross,” Williamson said. “We just weren’t set up professionally. We didn’t have the people in place that made crossing the border easy. All the bad that came out of it ended up being good timing really.“Fortunately, we got through it. I didn’t get fired from any cars. We’re back here in hopefully a normal summer and get back to winning again.”This year, he’s focused on getting back to normal. Getting back into a rhythm.“At the end of last year, we kind of got into some normalcy with OktoberFAST and [winning at] Port Royal,” Williamson said. “That, I think, helped me out personally. Everyone, even the crew, kind of get into a rhythm and they know what to do when you race often. Last year, we weren’t doing that. We kind of have a game plan with what is happening with the world and what is going on this summer. Like I said, we’re looking forward to it and hope to get back into the winning ways.”He scored three top-five finishes and six top-10s during the six-day OktoberFAST event in New York last year and then backed up that performance with two top-fives and three top-10s during the four-day DIRTcar Nationals event at Volusia Speedway Park in February – a non-points event for the Super DIRTcar Series. Williamson knew he was at a disadvantage going into the DIRTcar Nationals with not having raced as much as other drivers in the field. However, he left Florida feeling like he and the team started to find their rhythm that’s been at rest, waiting to end its hibernation.While chasing the 2021 Super DIRTcar Series championship will be Williamson’s main focus in 2021, it’s not the only title he’s after.“This year we’re going to do Friday nights at Ransomville, where we haven’t won a championship at yet,” he said. “We’re going to really chase that and we’re going to chase the Super DIRTcar championship. One we’ve got before and the other we haven’t. Both we’re looking forward to.“We’re going to race as much as possible. Probably going to race at Orange County [Fair Speedway] some Saturday nights and race some Thursday nights. Probably going to race back home at Merrittville [Speedway in Ontario] at every opportunity that we can. It’s going to be a good year. We’re looking forward to it. The biggest goal is obviously the Super DIRTcar Series championship and win some big money races.”Two of those big races circled on his calendar are the World of Outlaws Bristol Throwdown, April 22-24, and the return of the prestigious NAPA Auto Parts Super DIRT Week at Oswego Speedway, Oct. 6-10. Along with trying to defend his Super DIRTcar Series championship title, Williamson will aim to defend his 2019 Super DIRT Week win, as well. He also has a target on his first Small Block win at Oswego.Bristol Motor Speedway will be a new experience for all Super DIRTcar Series drivers, as the April event will be the first time in history the Big Blocks grace the famous half-mile track for two $10,000-to-win Features. That has the Canadian excited.“There’s a lot of good drivers in the Big Block series,” Williamson said. “I think we can put on a good show and show the world what we can do on such a big stage.”There are several big stages available for Williamson to stand on this season. But when the calendar turns to November, he’s focused on standing atop the championship stage during the World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte with the championship still firmly on his head.For the full 2021 Super DIRTcar Series schedule, CLICK HERE.If you can’t make it to the track, you can watch all the action live on DIRTVision with the annual Platinum FAST PASS subscription for $299/year or the monthly FAST PASS subscription for $39/month.

The Super DIRTcar Series is brought to fans by many important sponsors and partners, including: DIRTVision (Official Live Broadcast Partner), Hoosier Racing Tire (Official Tire), SIS Insurance (Official Insurance Provider), VP Racing Fuels (Official Racing Fuel), Chevy Performance Parts, iRacing (Official Online Racing Game) and NAPA Auto Parts. Contingency sponsors include: ARP (Automotive Racing Products), ASI Race Wear, Bicknell Racing Products, Billy Whittaker Cars & Trux, Cometic Gasket, COMP Cams, Drydene, Fox Factory, MSD, and Wrisco (Exclusive Racing Aluminum); along with manufacturer sponsors, including: FireAde, Intercomp, and Racing Electronics.

Larson, Stewart, Kahne, Stenhouse Bring NASCAR Spotlight to The Greatest Show on DirtBRISTOL, TN – March 24, 2021 – The wait is over. The entry list for the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series at Bristol Motor Speedway is set.Here’s who is heading to the Bristol Throwdown on April 22-24:1A – Jacob Allen (Hanover, PA)1S – Logan Schuchart (Hanover, PA)2 – David Gravel (Watertown, CT)2C – Wayne Johnson (Oklahoma City, OK)3Z – Brock Zearfoss (Jonestown, PA)5 – Brent Marks (Myerstown, PA)7BC – Tyler Courtney (Indianapolis, IN)7S – Jason Sides (Bartlett, TN)9 – James McFadden (Alice Springs, NT, AUS)9JR – Derek Hagar (Marion, AR)11 – Ian Madsen (St. Mary’s, NSW, AUS)11K – Kraig Kinser (Bloomington, IN)13 – Justin Peck (Monrovia, IN)15 – Donny Schatz (Fargo, ND)15H – Sam Hafertepe Jr. (Sunnyvale, TX)17 – Sheldon Haudenschild (Wooster, OH)18 – Gio Scelzi (Fresno, CA)19 – Parker Price-Miller (Kokomo, IN)19P – Paige Polyak (Tiffin, OH)20 – Ryan Taylor (Perkasie, PA)21 – Brian Brown (Grain Valley, MO)23 – Paul McMahan (Nashville, TN)24 – Rico Abreu (St. Helena, CA)24R – Jac Haudenschild (Wooster, OH)24M – Kerry Madsen (St. Mary’s, NSW, AUS)26 – Cory Eliason (Visalia, CA)27 – Tucker Klaasmeyer (Paola, KS)33M – Mason Daniel (Springville, CA)41 – Carson Macedo (Lemoore, CA)44W – Austen Wheatley (Lake Stevens, WA)49 – Brad Sweet (Grass Valley, CA)57 – Kyle Larson (Elk Grove, CA)71 – Spencer Bayston (Lebanon, IN)72 – Tim Shaffer (Aliquippa, PA)73 – Scotty Thiel (Sheboygan, WI)83 – Aaron Reutzel (Clute, TX)83R – Lynton Jeffrey (Sydney, NSW, AUS)85 – Dustin Daggett (Portland, MI)Highlighted by 15 full-time World of Outlaws teams, an additional 23 of the best sprint car drivers in the world will join them for the Bristol Throwdown.Among the leading storylines is Kyle Larson making his return to The Greatest Show on Dirt aboard Paul Silva’s #57. In 2020, Larson topped a Series best 12 World of Outlaws features and dropped jaws nationwide along the way. This year alone, Yung Money has already won the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals, a Dirt Late Model event, and a NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas. He’ll be the only one of 38 drivers with laps on this current layout of Bristol dirt, having competed in the Bristol Dirt Nationals last weekend and the NASCAR Trucks and Cup Series races this weekend.The NASCAR ties don’t end there, though.Tony Stewart, Kasey Kahne and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. are all owners of championship contending teams with high hopes. In fact, all three organizations are inside the top five in World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series points through the first eight of a scheduled 84 events this year.Tony Stewart/Curb-Agajanian Racing – Donny Schatz drives the Carquest #15Kasey Kahne Racing w/ Mike Curb – Brad Sweet drives the NAPA Auto Parts #49Kasey Kahne Racing w/ Mike Curb – James McFadden drives the Karavan Trailers #9Stenhouse Jr. / Marshall Racing – Sheldon Haudenschild drives the NOS Energy Drink #17Included in the 38-car field are five drivers that competed in the 2000-01 World of Outlaws events at Bristol. Those returning to The Last Great Colosseum with prior sprint car experience are 10-time Series champion Donny Schatz, “The Wild Child” Jac Haudenschild, “The Steel City Outlaw” Tim Shaffer, “Pauls to the Wall” Paul McMahan, and “Double Down” Jason Sides.Schatz, 299-time Outlaws winner, is the only of those five returning with a victory under his belt at the .533-mile, high-banked oval. On June 8, 2001, he charged from 10th-to-first for a win over Jeff Shepard and Sammy Swindell. In the 20 years since, the Fargo, ND native has become a living legend on tour.”The magnitude of it was surreal,” Schatz recalled on his first trip to Bristol. “It was a big ordeal. It’s a really unique setting, like it’s truly a colosseum. It was fast. We did a lot of things to cars back then 20 years ago to make sure they would withstand the speed and the banking. Everybody has their concerns now as to what it will do. Modifieds, Late Models and NASCAR have seen it, but obviously we’re going the fastest. There are some questions. What’s gonna happen? Who knows. The idea is awesome. It’s certainly a thrill for many to be back.”Of the 38 competitors, 25 are former World of Outlaws winners. However, none of the newbies have faced an animal quite like Bristol.The six winners from this season including Brad Sweet of Kasey Kahne Racing, Sheldon Haudenschild of Stenhouse Jr. / Marshall Racing, Logan Schuchart of Shark Racing, David Gravel of Big Game Motorsports, Aaron Reutzel of Roth Motorsports, and Carson Macedo of Jason Johnson Racing will all be making their first appearance on the daunting half-mile.Some are pumped. Some can’t wait. Others are admittedly intimidated. No matter the feeling, it’s all everyone is talking about.Prior to the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Cars show at Bristol Motor Speedway on April 22-24, the Series has a busy month of racing through the Midwest. Eight events across four weekends will take the traveling series to Missouri’s US-36 (3/26), Lake Ozark (3/27), and I-55 (4/2-3), followed by Indiana’s Kokomo (4/9) and Tri-State (4/10), before an excursion to Oklahoma’s Lawton (4/16) and Texas’ Devil’s Bowl (4/17) leads them to Bristol, Tennessee.Racers will have Thursday, April 22 to use as a practice night before the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars are joined by the Super DIRTcar Series Big Block Modifieds for two nights of racing. Friday’s program offers a standard $10,000-to-win purse, while Saturday’s finale pays $25,000-to-win.For tickets to the World of Outlaws Bristol Throwdown, go to BristolMotorSpeedway.com.If you can’t make it to the track, catch all of the action on DIRTVision with the annual Platinum FAST PASS subscription for $299/year or the monthly FAST PASS subscription for $39/month.Photo – Jacy Norgaard

The World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink® Sprint Car Series is brought to fans across the country by many important sponsors and partners, including: DIRTVision (Official Live Broadcast Partner), Drydene (Official Motor Oil), Hoosier Racing Tire (Official Tire), iRacing (Official Online Racing Game), Morton Buildings (Official Building), NOS Energy (Official Energy Product), SIS Insurance (Official Insurance Provider) and VP Racing Fuels (Official Racing Fuel); contingency sponsors include ARP (Automotive Racing Products), Cometic Gasket, COMP Cams, KSE Racing Products (Hard Charger Award), MSD and Slick Woody’s (Quick Time Award); manufacturer sponsors include FireAde, Intercomp, K1 Race Gear, and Racing Electronics.Founded in 1978, the World of Outlaws®, based in Concord, NC, is the premier national touring series for dirt track racing in North America, featuring the most powerful cars on dirt, the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series and the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series. Annually, the two series race nearly 140 times at tracks across the United States and Canada. CBS Sports Network is the official broadcast partner of the World of Outlaws. DIRTVision® also broadcasts all World of Outlaws events over the Internet to fans around the world. Learn more about the World of Outlaws.

NASCAR CUP SERIES BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY FOOD CITY DIRT RACE TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT MARCH 24, 2021

KYLE LARSON, NO. 5 FREIGHTLINER CAMARO ZL1 1LE, Press Conference Transcript:  EVERYBODY HAS TALKED ABOUT YOU BEING A FAVORITE FOR THIS RACE. DO YOU FEEL THAT YOU’RE A FAVORITE? WHY OR WHY NOT?“I don’t know; I think I’m considered a favorite probably at most race tracks right now. But I think with it being a dirt track, yes, I think people look at me with all the experience that I have on dirt as being even more of a favorite. But these cars are way different than what I typically race on dirt. They don’t drive anything like what I’m used to with a sprint car, midget or now a dirt late model. These cars are way heavier and have a lot less horsepower than I’m used to on a dirt track. I still think I’ve got a good shot, but I don’t really know if I have an advantage over anybody, other than just being able to kind of read the track surface; know kind of how that’s changing, where to find grip and things like that. Really, I think that’s probably the only advantage any of us dirt guys have over somebody who hasn’t had much dirt experience.”
OF ALL THE DIRT TRACK RACES YOU’VE EVER RAN; HAVE YOU EVER RAN ANYTHING REMOTELY CLOSE TO 250 LAPS IN A SINGLE RACE AND WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT?“I guess Eldora in the truck would be the only other thing and I don’t really remember how many laps it was; I think 150. But yeah, it’ll be long. The track will change a lot, so just have to stay on top of that and hopefully our Freightliner Chevy is good and we can stay out front for most of it.”
YOU HAVE YOUR FOUNDATION ON THE IRACING CAR TONIGHT. WAS IT DIFFICULT, AT ALL, TO DECIDE TO DO THAT BECAUSE YOU KNOW THAT WOULD POTENTIALLY BRING LIGHT TO THE VENUE WHERE THE INCIDENT HAPPENED.“No, I mean I’ve been on iRacing for awhile now. It was easy to get back on as soon as they unsuspended me on there towards the tail-end of last year. I’ve used iRacing quite a bit over the off season and even really to get ready for the road course race at Daytona; I used it a bunch. So, yeah, now to be able to have the opportunity to showcase my foundation, I think that’s exciting and hopefully it gets a lot of coverage.” 
WITH YOU HAVING ALREADY BEEN TO PHOENIX THIS YEAR, WHICH YOU GUYS CALL A SHORT TRACK, BRISTOL IS GOING TO BE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT, IN TERMS OF SHORT TRACK, WITH THE DIRT. WILL IT BE MARTINSVILLE BEFORE YOU HAVE A REALLY GOOD HANDLE ON WHERE THINGS ARE WITH YOUR SHORT TRACK PROGRAM? AND HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT RACE? “Yeah, I don’t know. I mean I felt really, really good at Phoenix. We had kind of an awkward set of tires there that last run that we think got us off. But if not for that, I felt like we had the first or second, maybe third, best car there that day. So, I would say judging off that, our short track program is good. But also, judging off of how they were last year as an organization, they were great.”“Martinsville is a place that I struggle at, I think, more than my equipment that I’ve had in the past. So, I’m definitely curious to see how I’ll be there, being with a team who just won the last event there at Martinsville. Hopefully I’m better than normal. I’m pretty confident kind of going to any race track right now. I think our team has been doing a great job.”
YOU MENTIONED IN THE PAST THAT ELDORA WOULD GET SO SLICK, IT WOULD KIND OF BE LIKE A WORNOUT PAVEMENT TRACK. I’M CURIOUS, AFTER RUNNING AT BRISTOL LAST WEEK, DO YOU ANTICIPATE THAT BEING THE CASE AT BRISTOL, WHERE IT BECOMES MORE LIKE THAT WORNOUT TRACK? IF SO, DOES THAT TAKE AWAY THE ADVANTAGE THE ADVANTAGE A DIRT GUY HAS OVER SOMEBODY WITH LESS EXPERIENCE?“Yeah, I mean I don’t know how it’s going to be. But yes, I would assume that it’s going to be really slick; it’ll probably slow down a lot. I don’t think it’s going to drive like an aggressive-style dirt car that I’m used to. So yeah, I think that if anything, evens the playing field a lot for guys that don’t have dirt experience. We’ll see how it goes. I don’t know what to expect; I think I have a little bit more of an idea now after racing there last week. But still, there’s a lot of unknown because the cars are different; the tires are different than what I ran last week. So, we’ll see.”
CHRIS WINDOM SAID HE’S TALKED TO YOU LEADING INTO THIS EVENT TO KIND OF GET A LITTLE BIT OF EXPERIENCE AND AN IDEA ABOUT IT. HOW DO YOU THINK SOMEBODY LIKE HIM CAN DO AND WHAT IT MEANS TO YOU TO SEE SOME OF THE DIRT GUYS BE ABLE TO TAKE PART IN THIS EVENT WITH YOU?“Yeah, I think it’s awesome. Chris (Windom) and (Shane) Golobic are two guys that I’ve raced with for a long time now. So, for them to have the opportunity to go out there and hopefully do a great job is something that I’m going to be paying attention to. I would love to see them run up front and battling for a win, but I think that will be really hard, just because even though it’s a dirt track and we’ve never done it, a team like Hendrick Motorsports has way more knowledge and experience of setting up a car to go to Bristol than the teams they’re racing for. I still think that they’ll be kind of fighting an uphill battle, but I think with their driving talents, hopefully they can crack inside the top-20 or if it is really even, maybe into the top-15 or 10 and have an awesome day.”
I’M SURE YOU GUYS HAVE HAD A CHANCE TO DEBRIEF OVER THE LAST COUPLE OF DAYS ABOUT ATLANTA. ANY TAKAWAYS FOR YOU, CLIFF (DANIELS) AND THE TEAM ABOUT HOW THE RACE WENT AND MAYBE HOW YOU WOULD HAVE HANDLED IT DIFFERENTLY IN THE FINAL RUN?“First off, a lot of positives from the day. We had a dominating car and did a great job as a team really all race long. I think it just kind of falls in my lap of just playing out that last stage wrong. I think (Ryan) Blaney got a lot better; the track picked up a lot of pace with it cooling down and we had longer runs. That was probably as hard as I ran all race, just because I was trying to get out to that big-ish lead that I had before. I wasn’t getting that big lead, so I was still trying really hard to get out there and get away. I wish I would have just realized that I wasn’t getting away as quickly as I thought I could and kind of aborted that plan and went into tire save mode. That way, I still think maybe he would have caught me by the end of the race, but I would have had more tire to maybe hold him off and more tire to get by Joey (Logano). And just run my own pace there at the end, rather than try to fight off Ryan (Blaney) and work really hard to get by lap cars.”
THERE WAS SOME DISCUSSION, KYLE, ABOUT WOULD IT HAVE HELPED YOU IF YOU WOULD HAVE HAD MORE INFORMATION ON WHERE (RYAN) BLANEY WAS RUNNING. OBVIOUSLY, HE WAS RUNNING A HIGHER LINE THAN YOU, ESPECIALLY IN A COUPLE OF THOSE TURNS. WHAT’S YOUR TAKE ON THAT – WOULD IT HAVE HELPED YOU IF YOU WOULD HAVE HAD MORE INFORMATION? WERE YOU SURPRISED HE WAS ABLE TO GET THAT KIND OF MOMENTUM AND RUN YOU DOWN FROM THE HIGH-SIDE?“Well, it wasn’t like he was running the high-side every lap. So, I could look in my mirror and I knew where he was running. I asked I think a couple of times where he was running, just to really know if he was running like a few feet different than me that I could maybe try and find some extra grip. He just did a really good job managing his stuff that last run and I didn’t, and he capitalized on my error in strategy for that final run to the end.”
YOU’VE ALREADY GOT A WIN HEADING INTO THIS WEEKEND. HOW MUCH RELIEF IS IT THAT YOU’VE ALREADY GOT THAT WIN AND YOU DON’T HAVE TO WIN THIS RACE TO GET INTO THE PLAYOFFS?“I mean I don’t think I would have viewed it any differently; I don’t think I view any weekend differently. I want to win every weekend. So, it doesn’t relax me any more; it wouldn’t have made me any more stressed going in there. It’s still early in the year and we’ve been running well. I’ve been confident that we were going to make the Playoffs no matter what, based off of just sheer speed and being with a great team. Had we started the year off badly or average and been around that bubble spot right now with no win going into Bristol – yeah, I would probably have a lot more pressure on me to go win. But we’ve been running well, so that doesn’t change my mindset now going into Bristol.”
YOU’RE A DIRT GUY, SO I CAN IMAGINE THERE’S GOING TO BE SOME DIFFERENT CHANGES AROUND THIS WEEKEND, EVEN THOUGH YOU’RE IN A STOCK CAR, THAT NASCAR FANS LIKE ME AREN’T USED TO. WHAT SHOULD WE REALLY LOOK OUT FOR? OBVIOUSLY, THERE ARE QUALIFYING RACES AND THERE’S A BUNCH OF DIFFERENT FORMAT CHANGES.“Yeah, I think NASCAR has tried to adapt a short track, dirt track format into their event, which I think is pretty cool. With the random draw for where you start and then passing points, I think is cool. It’s still a different passing points format than say we would have at the Chili Bowl. Chili Bowl, you get penalized for going backwards. Where here at this event, to keep it simple so NASCAR fans who aren’t used to passing points can follow along, it’s just really you only get points for going forward; you don’t lose any for going backwards. Which is simpler for the fans to understand, but as a competitor from dirt tracks, I wish there would be a penalty for going backwards in the heats.”
“Other than the format, I don’t really know off the top of my head what’s different from a normal race. You still have stages; we don’t have live pit stops. It’ll be similar to kind of how Eldora was, aside from just the way they lined up the heats.”
IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING THAT YOU’RE ONE OF THE CLEAR FAVORITES FOR THE BRISTOL DIRT RACE THIS WEEKEND. BUT WHO DO YOU CONSIDER TO BE YOUR BIGGEST OPPONENT THIS WEEKEND? “I would not be shocked if a pavement guy went there and was fast right off the bat because I don’t think it’s going to be dirt like we’re used to. But it’s hard to also not look at the guys that have a lot of dirt experience as being a favorite. I think Christopher Bell; I think he’s obviously one of the most talented race car drivers I’ve ever watched, especially on dirt. So, I think for sure he’ll be one of the guys to beat. Austin Dillon is another one I look at. If anybody has more experience racing on this type of stuff, it’s him. I’ve got probably still under 10 dirt late model events under my belt, where he grew up racing modifieds and late models. So, he’s used to the heavier types of cars. He just raced a crate late model there, so he’s used to less horsepower and stuff in a full-body car. I think Austin, if anybody, probably has the most advantage. But I also wouldn’t be surprised if a guy like Kyle Busch, who’s so talented and can adapt to anything, can go there and win.”
“I wouldn’t be shocked either if the finishing results weren’t much different than a normal Bristol race.”
YOU MENTIONED NO LIVE PIT STOPS DURING THIS EVENT. JAMIE LITTLE WITH FOX SPORTS TWEETED OUT: TALKED TO A HENDRICK CREW CHIEF; SOME/MOST TEAMS AREN’T BRINGING THEIR PIT CREWS TO BRISTOL. ROSTER LIMITATIONS MEAN MECHANICS AND FABRICATORS ARE ESSENTIAL. WITHOUT GIVING TOO MUCH AWAY, WHAT KIND OF ADJUSTMENTS HAVE YOU AND YOUR TEAM HAD TO MAKE IN PREPARATION FOR THIS EVENT?“I don’t know – I really couldn’t give you an honest answer because I haven’t talked to anybody about that. Obviously, I knew there was no live pit stops, so I assumed we wouldn’t have our pit crew there. But that’s really not a big deal. I don’t know what the amount of time is that they allow us on pit road for pit stops, but we won’t be in a rush if we don’t have damage and stuff like that. So, that’ll be good.”
“And two – as far as car stuff that they’ve had to change, I don’t know. I don’t ever get into that stuff. I just kind of show up, put the steering wheel on and hit the gas pedal.”
WITH THE VICTORY AT LAS VEGAS AND THE DOMINATE EFFORT AT ATLANTA LAST WEEKEND, DID YOU EXPECT TO BE THIS COMPETITIVE COMING BACK RIGHT NOW AT THIS POINT IN THE SEASON WITH A NEW TEAM?“I had hoped that we could start the year off this strong, or close to being this strong. I didn’t know and honestly expected that we wouldn’t start off this good with just me being out of the car for a long time, going to a new team and organization, and being with a whole new crew. I just didn’t know if things would be way different and I would have to have a lot of things to adapt to. But our cars have been really good, and fast, and it’s made things easier than I thought to come back in. I’ve also worked really hard to get up to speed as quickly as I’ve been; studying more than I’ve ever studied and just trying to prepare more than I’ve ever prepared. With no practice, you kind of have to put in that work during the week, which is fun as a driver.”
WE SAW YOU RACE ELDORA IN A TRUCK, SO WE CAN EXPECT WHAT WE SAW AT ELDORA ON HOW THE TRUCKS RACED TO BE KIND OF SIMILAR TO THE WAY THE CUP CARS WILL RACE AT BRISTOL? OR DO YOU THINK THE DIFFERENCE IN THE TRACK, THE BANKING, IT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE THERE’S A CUSHION – WILL IT BE TOTALLY DIFFERENT?“I think it will be similar, but different. Eldora didn’t really have a cushion either. I guess when I won it, it kind of had a cushion. Bristol, I don’t think will have a cushion; it’s just that type of surface doesn’t really pack up and build a cushion. I think it will be a similar style of race, but I think with Bristol having more banking, you’ll kind of have more grip than we had at Eldora. So, we’ll have the confidence probably in our cars to be able to move around. I actually think it’ll be a better race because of it. I watched the street stocks and stuff this past weekend and they were able to run like three or four- wide at times and it was fun racing. So, I think it will be similar to that, if you want to pull up some street stock highlights, Bob (Pockrass), and take a look. I think it’ll be similar to that style of racing.”
SO, IF I PULL UP THE HIGHLIGHTS OF YOU TEARING THE RIGHT SIDE OFF OF THE TRUCK, I SHOULDN’T EXPECT THAT ON SUNDAY?“Well, the wall is a lot lower at Bristol. So, if I’m up that high, I’m cheese-grading the right side of my car probably with the catch fence. I hope to not have to lean on the wall like that to be fast.”
YOU’VE BEEN LOOKING AT DATA MORE NOW THAN YOU HAVE EVER OVER THE COURSE OF YOUR CAREER. WHEN YOU LOOK BACK AT DATA FROM ATLANTA, IS THERE A PIECE OF DATA OR STAT THAT YOU’RE LOOKING AT AS EXTRA VALUABLE FOR MANAGING YOUR STUFF BETTER FOR THE REST OF THE SEASON? HOW VALUABLE IS THAT DATA TO LEARN MORE THINGS ABOUT BEING IN THOSE SITUATIONS?“Honestly, I haven’t looked at any data after Atlanta, just because I’m pretty confident in knowing what I did wrong. I think Ryan (Blaney) was just more disciplined than I was and did a better job of not running one hundred percent and saving his stuff. As far as driving style, it’s hard to really look at that stuff. I ran all race a certain driving style way; throttle, brake, whatever steering inputs and stuff. If I look at Ryan’s stuff and he has less wheel input or something like that – I don’t know if it’s going to teach me a ton in that moment. But I think what teaches me is watching the race and kind of just how good he was on long runs; how he paced his lap times, didn’t slip a tire and took care of his stuff.”

 

March 24, 2021

As he heads into this weekend’s Food City Dirt Race at Bristol Motor Speedway, the Cup circuit’s first appearance on clay since 1970, Matt DiBenedetto is confident he’ll have a strong run in his No. 21 Menards/Quaker State Mustang.

He’s basing that on his experience racing on dirt early in his career, when he was racing Outlaw Karts on northern California dirt tracks like Cycleland Speedway in Chino and the track in Red Bluff, Calif.

DiBenedetto is one of several drivers, including his fellow Cup competitors Kyle Larson and Tyler Reddick, who learned their craft on those tracks in their native California.

Although DiBenedetto hasn’t done as much dirt racing since he joined the Cup Series as some of his peers, he believes he’ll adapt quickly once he hits the track at Bristol, which was covered in clay for this weekend’s NASCAR races as well as a host of support events.
 
“Any time I’ve hopped in a dirt car or a sprint car, it’s been like riding a bike,” he said. “It’s all come back to me pretty quickly.”

DiBenedetto said he didn’t pursue a ride in one of the Late Model races run at Bristol last week, as some Cup drivers did to prepare for this weekend. But he did follow the action, paying particular attention to how the racing surface was prepared.

“Watching it was valuable,” he said. “I feel pretty comfortable, especially since we have practice and heat races before Sunday.”

He said that one of keys to success will be keeping up with the changing conditions of the racing surface as the races progress. Dirt tracks usually lose moisture during an event, and some grooves will take on rubber.

“The track can change so much,” DiBenedetto said. “You have to continuously adjust your driving and keep up with what other drivers are doing.
 
“We’ll have to figure it out on the fly.”
 
This weekend’s race will be the first on dirt for many Cup teams but the 33^rd dirt race for the Wood Brothers.
 
They have one dirt win, at Richmond Raceway in 1960 with Speedy Thompson driving. In their last race on dirt, on May 30, 1964, at Greenville-Pickens Speedway in South Carolina, Marvin Panch qualified the No. 21 Ford on the pole and led the first 55 laps before an encounter with the wall led to an 11th-place finish.
 
Leonard Wood, who was turning wrenches on the No. 21 at that time, said he had looked over some competitors’ cars that season and determined that the fastest ones had more arch in their rear leaf springs.
 
So he hammered some more arch into the springs on Panch’s car, polished them up, and reinstalled them.
 
In dirt races leading up to the pole-winning run at Greenville-Pickens, Panch went on quite a run, posting four second-place finishes and a third.
 
“We didn’t run as much dirt as Richard Petty and Ned Jarrett and some of those guys,” Wood said. “But we had some success with it. [Brother] Glenn ran really good on dirt.”
 
Glenn Wood was a regular competitor on the NASCAR Convertible circuit, which ran on more dirt tracks than asphalt ones.
 
He had five career wins in that series, two of them on dirt tracks – at Richmond in April of 1957 and at the Charlotte Fairgrounds track that fall, with Curtis Turner driving in relief for him.
 
Of Wood’s nine poles, four came on dirt tracks, including the pole for the final race of the Convertible Series, at the Charlotte Fairgrounds on Aug. 23, 1957.
 
Leonard Wood said that while racing has changed tremendously since the Cup Series last raced on dirt, some things about dirt racing are the same.
 
“You just have to have the talent to do it,” he said. “Some drivers can hang on without spinning out, and some just aren’t cut out for it.”
  
There will be two practice sessions at Bristol on Friday, at 4:05 and 6:35 p.m. Eastern Time, with TV coverage on FOX Sports 1. There will be four qualifying races, beginning at 6 p.m. on Saturday with TV coverage on FOX Sports 1.
 
The 250-lap main event is set to start just after 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, with TV coverage on FOX. Stage breaks will be at 75 and 150 laps.

 

Illinois natives Brandon Sheppard and Dennis Erb, Jr. will be on the hunt for a home-state winFARMER CITY, IL – March 24, 2021 – The month of money continues for the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series, April 1-3, at Farmer City Raceway for the Illini 100 with an overall top prize of $26,000 on the line between the two Features.The best Late Model drivers in the country on Friday, April 2, will compete in a $6,000-to-win Feature, and then, on Saturday, April 3, they’ll go fender to fender for the $20,000 top prize. Saturday’s event will also award $10,000 to second and will pay $1,2000 to start. Thursday, April 1, will be a practice session for all classes.The April event will be the Series’ first time back to the quarter-mile track since 2019 and 17th visit there overall.The event is a favorite to drivers and fans alike due to the small track’s ability to create exciting racing and the fun atmosphere of the town. For Illinois-born drivers like three-time defending champion Brandon Sheppard and Dennis Erb, Jr. it’s also a chance to race close to home and in front of family.“It’s a track in Illinois that I have a lot of laps around,” said Erb, of Carpentersville, IL – about two hours from Farmer City. “I used to go there every Friday night back in the day. I haven’t gotten to run too much there lately. I always look forward to going back to tracks I have a lot of laps around and are close to home. It’s a lot nicer to run those places, rather than being 13 hours away from home. When you get back to tracks you have a lot of laps on you definitely feel more comfortable.”Erb has four wins in total at Farmer City but has yet to win there with the World of Outlaws. Sheppard, of New Berlin, IL – about an hour away from the track – won the Series’ last event at the track in 2019. He has two wins with the World of Outlaws there and currently holds the track record with an 11.750 sec. lap.Sheppard is still on the hunt for his first win of the season and first top-five finish. If that win is achieved at Farmer City, not only will he get to celebrate another home-state win, but he’ll celebrate his 70th career World of Outlaws victory.The defending champion is currently second in points behind Series points leader and Rookie of the Year contender Kyle Strickler. The Pennsylvania native has had a strong start to the Series, claiming his first two career Series wins at Volusia. Strickler is still the only driver this season with multiple victories. The Illini 100 will be his debut at Farmer City with the World of Outlaws.For tickets to the April 1-3 Illini 100 at Farmer City Raceway, CLICK HERE.COMPETITOR NOTES: https://bit.ly/2OTpHpG ORDER OF EVENTS: Friday – https://bit.ly/3tM8htI / Saturday – https://bit.ly/3rdrUt6The Illini 100 will lead into the April 8-10 World of Outlaws Bristol Bash at Bristol Motor Speedway, which keeps the month of money rolling for the Series with the Friday, April 9, event paying $10,000-to-win and the Saturday, April 10, event paying $25,000-to-win. For tickets go to BristolMotorSpeedway.com.If you can’t make it to the track, you can watch all the action live on DIRTVision with the annual Platinum FAST PASS subscription for $299/year or the monthly FAST PASS subscription for $39/month.PREVIOUS FARMER CITY RACEWAY WINNERS 2019 – Brian Shirley on April 5; Brandon Sheppard on April 6 2017 – Brandon Sheppard on March 31; Brian Shirley on April 1 2016 – Josh Richards on April 2, 3 2015 – Scott Bloomquist on April 17; Brandon Sheppard on April 18 2014 – Shannon Babb on April 26 2013 – Billy Moyer on April 6 2012 – Jimmy Mars on March 31 2010 – Billy Moyer on April 10 2009 – Shane Clanton on April 4 2008 – Billy Moyer on April 5 2007 – Shannon Babb on April 27 2006 – Billy Moyer on Aug. 14

The World of Outlaws Morton Buildings® Late Model Series is brought to fans across the country by many important sponsors and partners, including: DIRTVision (Official Live Broadcast Partner), Drydene (Official Motor Oil), Hoosier Racing Tire (Official Tire), iRacing (Official Online Racing Game), Morton Buildings (Official Building), SIS Insurance (Official Insurance Provider) VP Racing Fuels (Official Racing Fuel); in addition to contingency sponsors, including: Arizona Sport Shirts/Gotta Race, ARP (Automotive Racing Products), Cometic Gasket, COMP Cams, MSD, Penske Racing Shocks, Quarter Master, Slick Woody’s (Quick Time Award), and Wrisco (Exclusive Racing Aluminum); along with manufacturer sponsors, including: Capital Race Cars, FireAde, Integra Shocks, Intercomp, K1 Race Gear, Racing Electronics, Reliable Painting, and Rocket Chassis.Founded in 1978, the World of Outlaws®, based in Concord, NC, is the premier national touring series for dirt track racing in North America, featuring the most powerful cars on dirt, the World of Outlaws NOS® Energy Drink Sprint Car Series and the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings® Late Model Series. Annually, the two series race nearly 140 times at tracks across the United States and Canada. CBS Sports Network is the official broadcast partner of the World of Outlaws. DIRTVision® also broadcasts World of Outlaws events over the Internet to fans around the world. Learn more about the World of Outlaws.

NASCAR CUP SERIES BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY FOOD CITY DIRT RACE TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT MARCH 23, 2021

AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER OFF ROAD CAMARO ZL1 1LE, Press Conference Transcript:  I WAS TALKING TO KYLE LARSON AND I SAID ‘KYLE, TELL ME WHY YOU’RE NOT THE GUY THAT’S GOING TO WIN BRISTOL’. AND HE SAID, YOU’D BE REALLY SURPRISED – AUSTIN DILLON IS A GUY WHO COULD PROBABLY WIN. WHAT MAKES YOU GOOD AT THE BRISTOL DIRT TRACK? “I think just dirt racing, in general, I’ve got a little bit of a background in it. From Eldora, winning the first Truck race there, I’d say that’s what he’s talking about. Kyle (Larson), he’s good at anything he gets in and I’m just glad that he mentioned me; that’s pretty awesome, really. It makes my day, so now I have to step-up and perform. Last weekend, I was able to win that crate race there in a late model and I think that was good experience, just to see the track. We were pretty dominate in all three of the races that we were in. I think from the knowledge side of things, I can probably do a pretty good job of getting what we need, when it comes to down to race time. 250-laps around a dirt track, you don’t really get that many laps on a track in a race on dirt. So, it’ll be a learning curve and I think we’ll be as prepared as anyone for it; that’s the one advantage, I think.”
DOES THE WEIGHT OF THE CARS PLAY INTO YOUR FAVOR?“From sprint cars to late models, I definitely think there’s some experience there that helps. Kyle (Larson), he’s driving late models now and doing really well. He about won the big race this past weekend in the super. The weight in those late models, they drive so much different than our Cup cars or a truck. A truck, from what I know in the past, the history that I have in my mind is that they are heavier. You don’t really drive them, I would say, like a late model or a sprint car. Definitely the weight is the biggest thing in the difference in how you drive.”
“Side force, too, I’ll throw that in there. Our cars don’t have the bodies that the late models and sprint cars have wings; they’re just built a lot different to rely on downforce.”
LET’S GO BACK TO THE FIRST ELDORA RACE. YOU WIN THAT ONE AND I REMEMBER AFTER THE FIRST COUPLE OF PRACTICE SESSIONS, THERE WERE A LOT OF GUYS WHO DIDN’T PREP FOR THE RACE; THEY WERE COMPLETELY LOST. YOU WIN THAT RACE; YOU GO BACK IN 2014 – DID YOU SEE AN EVOLUTION IN HOW MUCH GUYS TOOK IT MORE SERIOUSLY OR STRIVE TO GET BETTER AT IT? DO YOU THINK THAT THE BRISTOL RACE IS GOING TO BE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BECAUSE YOU DO SEE SO MANY GUYS DOING MODIFIEDS, LATE MODELS, JUST TO GET SOME DIRT EXPERIENCE?“Yeah, the competition in the Cup Series is just, all-in-all, a higher level. I think it’s the highest form of motorsports; the best drivers in the world. All of them are doing their job, preparation-wise, off the track; running other cars that they aren’t comfortable running in, just to get on dirt and understand what the transition of the track is. There’s a lot of smart dirt crew chiefs out there, also, that people are probably bringing in trying to understand how they can make their cars drive better on dirt.” “The biggest difference from 2014 – I just stepped in another truck and the difference between the truck we took the first time to the second time, there was a difference and we weren’t ever really able to find that feel that we had the first race around. So, going this time, I think there’s some guys obviously with less dirt experience that are going to be surprised; it’s just an experience thing. But there’s so many good race car drivers at the Cup level that have dirt experience, or some sort of dirt experience, that they’ll be able to lean on. Not many of the guys at this point at the Cup level, maybe a couple, that have not ever been on dirt. I think everybody has some sort of dirt racing experience at this point.”
ONE THING THAT I’VE HEARD CONSISTENTLY ENOUGH THAT ONCE THE TRACK TAKES ENOUGH RUBBER, IT MIGHT BE A SLOWER VERSION OF WHAT BRISTOL USED TO BE WHEN IT WAS KIND OF BOTTOMING-FEEDING, BUMP-AND-RUN. IS THAT KIND OF FAIR TO SAY?“I think there’s definitely going to be a point where there’s going to be a dominate line everybody is going to be fighting for. The one thing, though, that I noticed at the dirt track last weekend was that you can kind of move around, momentum-wise, to find speed, which is nice. That’s what’s great about dirt racing. As the track goes through transitions, it’s always going to change. There might be a point in the race where, ultimately, you have to be on the bottom and you’ll be fighting for it. But the great thing about dirt racing is that the track is always changing. So, it’ll go through so many transitions throughout the race and that’s what’s cool about dirt racing. You have to be comfortable with change because it changes throughout the race and to be good at it, you have to search constantly. Even when you’re the leader, the leader is always kind of a moving target. They have to be comfortable; they can’t just get in a line and think that line is going to win them the race. We’re going 250 laps on a dirt track. After 25, the dirt track changes drastically with a lot of cars out on it. So, that’s the great thing about it. It’ll go through so many transitions and the team that is willing to change and move will be the best by the end of it.”
TALK ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PRACTICE SESSION AT BRISTOL. YOU GUYS HAVEN’T HAD A LOT OF PRACTICE AND THAT IS CERTAINLY GOING TO BE AN UNIQUE ENVIRONMENT THAT NOBODY KNOWS WHAT TO EXPECT. AND THEN THE HEAT RACES, HOW DO YOU LOOK AT THE PRACTICE AND HEAT RACES?“It will be nice to have some practice to just test and tune. I think the difference between an asphalt track and a dirt track is we have so many notes on things that we don’t do. A dirt track is where you can go to it with an open mindset and do things that you wouldn’t normally do to find speed and that’s what’s going to be fun for all of the crew chiefs, car chiefs and mechanics out there to really do things opposite. The thought process has to be so open-minded when we get there to the track. Not only are you worrying about the setup, but you’re worried about the car. Make sure the heights are right, you’re not rolling the nose under – there’s a lot of things that we do at a dirt track to just make the car go around the track. And then it might not always be like ‘hey, we needed just a little more wedge to be perfect’. It might be ‘we need more clearance so I don’t hit the track right here and get tight’. There’s a lot of fun stuff about the practice.”
“The heat races – they’ll be challenging. It’s a short amount of time and you’ll want to get as many passing points as you can. Your starting position matters at any type of racing level. The draw – I haven’t really looked into how that’s going to go down or where we start in the heat races yet. But I think the whole process is going to be fun. I was hoping we would go off of a regular race weekend and go off of the past race, because we would have a pretty good starting position after our run at Atlanta this past weekend, and I think starting up front would be really good for us. I’m not really worried about where we start in the dirt race because I feel like if you do your job and practice that you should be able to move forward through the race.”
“I watched the stock car race and I felt like the stock car race was probably one of the best races this past week when I was there at the Dirt Car Nationals, and that’s what I’m hoping you guys get to see from the Cup level. All the guys that are preparing the track – I’ve been in touch with some of those people, trying to just give feedback to give it the best show we can put on for all the fans out there. I think they’re prepared; I think the knowledge they gained form the Dirt Car Nationals last week will really go a long way when it comes down to it of what you see this coming week.”
ISN’T THAT HIT OR MISS THEN, IF PEOPLE ARE TRYING STUFF. AREN’T WE TALKING ABOUT HIT OR MISS ON THE PRACTICE WHEN IT COMES TO THE RACE AND THE HEAT RACES? “For sure. There’s definitely going to be some guys that hit it or miss it; go forward or have to make some drastic changes to try and get the car better. But I think the biggest thing you’ll see, when it comes to movers or guys that are falling back, is the transition with the track is going to be the same. When somebody’s car is too tight at the beginning, they might be really good at the end. Somebody might be really fast at the beginning and really slow at the end. So, you’ll go through those transitions throughout the race. Somebody that doesn’t look good at the beginning and might just stay on the lead leap that, all of a sudden, just comes forward.”
KYLE LARSON SAID THAT YOU’RE A FAVORITE, BUT IT SEEMS GOING INTO THIS RACE, A LOT OF FOLKS OUTSIDE THE GARAGE HAVE SETTLED ON HIM AND CHRISTOPHER BELL AS THE TWO BIG FAVORITES. WITH THAT IN MIND, DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE GETTING SHORT-CHANGED IN THAT CONVERSATION, THAT YOU SHOULD BE CONSIDERED THAT THIRD BIG FAVORITE? OR ARE YOU CONTENT PLAYING DARKHORSE GOING INTO IT?“I feel like I’m playing that role a lot. It’s a good role to be in; like the spoiler side of it. But it does mean a lot to me that Kyle (Larson) said that. I really respect his opinion on a lot of things and his talent level, everybody talks about it in the media center. He’s a very talented driver, so for him to throw me in there means a lot and drives me to want to get after it even more this weekend than I already do.”
THE HIGH-BANKS ON THE BRISTOL DIRT, THE CONFIGURATION STANDS OUT. WHAT ARE SOME OTHER PARTS OF THIS TRACK THAT STRIKES YOU AS EITHER VERY SIMILAR OR VERY DIFFERENT FROM DIRT TRACKS THAT YOU’VE RACED IN THE PAST?“Well, I think the dirt itself is interesting. The type of dirt they choose to lay down on Bristol is not a dirt that you see in the Midwest; it’s a sandy-dirt. When you really get into the dirt track racing world, you start talking about the type of dirt that you’re racing on and certain dirt puts on better races, and certain dirt goes through different transitions than the other. The good thing is that the dirt, I feel like, came from a track that I kind of grew up racing around and I kind of know the transitions and what it takes, I think, to create speed throughout the transitions that it’s going to go through. So, if anything, maybe that helps me. But it’s not a dirt that I believe you’re going to see a cushion built; it doesn’t do that. This stuff kind of creates a fluff and it gets up there; you can gain grip because it might be wet up there for a while, but it’s not something that you can use as a curb to catch you, which is different. And I’m glad that it came from around here because I feel like I’ve ran on it a lot and know when it has grip and when it doesn’t.” 

Ross Bailes Returns to site of only World of Outlaws Late Model WinGAFFNEY, SC- Sometimes the best remedy when you’re struggling, is coming home again.That’s the case for Clover, SC driver Ross Bailes, as the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Models return to South Carolina at Cherokee Speedway Friday and Saturday, March 26-27.It’s a place “The Boss” hopes will get him back on a track after a rough start to the 2021 season in the first six races.So far, he has one top-10 finish, coming at the DIRTcar Nationals at Volusia Speedway Park in February. He’s currently 10th in the points standings, and second in the race for Rookie of the Year, behind current Series points leader Kyle Strickler.The lack of top-10 finishes has the Big Frog Motorsport #58 team going back to the drawing board before three straight weekends of racing.“We have to get back to a basic package, something that works so when we unload, we’re in the ballpark,” Bailes said.With Cherokee being the next track on the schedule, he has the chance to find some momentum at a place where he’s had a lot of success.Bailes has 10 wins at the speedway overall, including a World of Outlaws race in May 2019 – his first career victory with the Series. Bailes also has a victory the with Drydene Xtreme DIRTcar Series in 2019 at Cherokee and holds the track record of 14.568 sec.“I think going to [Cherokee] will be good, because I know what kind of speed we have to have, and we’re going to go test on Thursday to see where we stack up,” Bailes said.This weekend’s Rock Gault Memorial will be the biggest payday in the track’s history. Friday night’s twin features pay $5,000 each to win. Then, Saturday night’s event pays $40,000 to the winner – one of the biggest winning purses of the year – $15,000 for second, and $10,000 for third.“If I could pick a track to go to that pays a lot of money that would be the track I pick, because it’s my home track and I have a lot of laps around it,” Bailes said. “I feel confident, but it still doesn’t mean it’ll be easy to outrun the field.”While the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Models have been off for a few weeks, “The Boss” has been able to build a bit of momentum before the Cherokee event. He had a pair of top-fives at Cochran Motor Speedway in Georgia, March 12-13.Even though he’s happy with those finishes, he knows Friday and Saturday will be a different animal.“It gets really slick at [Cochran] and I don’t think we’ll see the same track condition [at Cherokee], but when Cochran had a little bit of grip in it, I felt good,” Bailes said.He hopes coming home again will be the best remedy to end his struggles.If you can’t make it to the track, catch all the action Live on DIRTVision with the annual Platinum FAST PASS subscription for $299/year or the monthly FAST PASS subscription for $39/month.

The World of Outlaws Morton Buildings® Late Model Series is brought to fans across the country by many important sponsors and partners, including: DIRTVision (Official Live Broadcast Partner), Drydene (Official Motor Oil), Hoosier Racing Tire (Official Tire), iRacing (Official Online Racing Game), Morton Buildings (Official Building), SIS Insurance (Official Insurance Provider) VP Racing Fuels (Official Racing Fuel); in addition to contingency sponsors, including: Arizona Sport Shirts/Gotta Race, ARP (Automotive Racing Products), Cometic Gasket, COMP Cams, MSD, Penske Racing Shocks, Quarter Master, Slick Woody’s (Quick Time Award), and Wrisco (Exclusive Racing Aluminum); along with manufacturer sponsors, including: Capital Race Cars, FireAde, Integra Shocks, Intercomp, K1 Race Gear, Racing Electronics, Reliable Painting, and Rocket Chassis.Founded in 1978, the World of Outlaws®, based in Concord, NC, is the premier national touring series for dirt track racing in North America, featuring the most powerful cars on dirt, the World of Outlaws NOS® Energy Drink Sprint Car Series and the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings® Late Model Series. Annually, the two series race nearly 140 times at tracks across the United States and Canada. CBS Sports Network is the official broadcast partner of the World of Outlaws. DIRTVision® also broadcasts World of Outlaws events over the Internet to fans around the world. Learn more about the World of Outlaws.

Mar 16, 2021 | Featured, Race Results, Rachel Meyer

Rachel Meyer scored her first national event victory in her NTK Sensors Top Alcohol Dragster at the 52nd annual Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals while teammate Julie Nataas qualified in the top half and went to the quarterfinal round of the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series.

“Going into my first national event of the 2021 season, I was nervous.” Rachel said. “I felt like I have big shoes to fill following my sister’s back-to-back championships as well as having some amazing sponsors I want to keep happy.”

At the end of qualifying, Julie Nataas led the team as the No. 4 qualifier with a 5.21 ET at 271 mph, and Rachel wasn’t far behind in the No. 5 spot with a 5.22 ET at 278 mph.

First round, Nataas crossed the finish line with a 5.246 ET at 274 mph to take out No. 12 qualifier James Stevens’ 5.30 ET. Meyer followed a few pairs later with an identical 5.246 ET at 277 mph to turn on the win light against Dan Mercier. The girls were set up to run each other for the second round of eliminations, with lane choice going to Meyer who had the faster speed.

It was a Randy Meyer Racing take-all to the semifinals as Meyer and Nataas staged up against each other at Gainesville Raceway. Julie had the starting line advantage over Rachel by .028-seconds but as she went immediately into tire smoke, Rachel showed the entire category that she was a force to be reckoned with as she crossed the finish line first with a 5.180, 273 mph.

In the semifinals, Rachel had a first-time matchup against Karen Stalba. With the track temperature hitting almost 120 degrees, Rachel got the starting line advantage over Stalba and never trailed for the victory. Meyer clocked in with a 5.257, 278 mph while Stalba had trouble and lost traction.

In the final round, Rachel had another first-time matchup against Jackie Fricke. Once again, Rachel had the starting line advantage over her competition and her 5.227, 277 mph blistered by Fricke’s 5.29 ET for the win. In her second ever national event final, Rachel adds national event winner to her already impressive racing resume. 

“I was nervous every round. I was off my game on my lights and I really didn’t want to lose on a hole shot. We were running consistently in the 20’s every round, as well as all our competitors, so it was a though field all weekend. I want to thank JJ and Kris for the awesome work on the car as well a Julie for helping with fuel. Thanks to Rich, Roy, and Dale for help between round when we didn’t have much time and especially my dad for giving me a great, consistent car all weekend and to my mom and sister for the constant support.” Rachel said.

Watch the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series 2021 GatorNationals on FS2 Thursday, March 25 at 8/7pm CT