Johnny Herrera fought off a slide job by Terry McCarl on the final lap to win the 410 Sprint feature at the Knoxville Raceway Saturday night, while Bryan Dobesh dominated the field in the 360 c.i. Sprints.
Young Josh Schneiderman blew by pole sitter Mark Dobmeier and quickly opened a sizable lead in the twenty-lap finale for the 410 division. A caution for a spinning Pete Crall on lap three wiped out that advantage though and on the restart Johnny Herrera drove by Schneiderman for the lead in turn one. With Herrera now comfortably up front, the show was mid-pack as Terry McCarl was steadily picking off cars after starting in the twelfth position. With five laps remaining McCarl slipped by Lynton Jeffrey for second, but he was still a full straightaway behind Herrera. The race changed dramatically two laps later though when the hub broke on the right front wheel of the car of Billy Alley bringing out the caution and setting up a three-lap showdown. Alley was running fourth at the time of his misfortune.
On the restart Herrera went low into turn one to block McCarl's first attempt and again in turns three and four he entered low and then drifted to the cushion. Herrera drove the same line in both sets of turns the next lap and it looked like McCarl would not even be able to make a bid for the win. As the leaders took the white flag though Herrera stayed up on the cushion going into turn one and "T-Mac" took his shot with the slider. As McCarl drifted up the track Herrera had to give just a bit of ground to keep the two from making contact, but he maintained his momentum and the lead down the backstretch. McCarl made one last run at him off the low side of turn four heading for the checkers and Herrera won it by a little more than a car length at the stripe. Jeffrey followed the duo in for third with Brian Brown fourth and Kerry Madsen fifth.
Bryan Dobesh left little doubt as to who would win the 360 main event starting outside of row one and dominating the entire fifteen-lap distance. Last week's winner Ryan Roberts started next to Dobesh and had to fight off a mid-race challenge from Jonathan Cornell to hold on for the runner-up finish. Point leader Clint Garner put on a show coming from sixteenth to take third with Cornell and Matt Moro completing the top five.
Knoxville Knotes.....Madsen started next to McCarl on row six of the feature and was still in eighth for the final restart. He passed three cars in the final three laps to crack the top five.....Mark Dobmeier changed motors after qualifying and then won the third heat in dominating fashion. In the feature though his pole position start resulted in just a sixth-place finish.....After setting quick time Terry McCarl noted that he is just having fun this season and not chasing points anywhere. He said that a #24 car would be at Knoxville the rest of the year and, if it wasn't him in the seat, it would be Lynton Jeffrey in the backup car.....Chad Humston followed up an ASCS Midwest Region win on Thursday night at the I-80 Speedway in Nebraska with a sixth-place run in tonight's 360 main event.....The two upside down incidents of the night came during the first two attempts at starting the 360 B-Main. Chad Heimbaugh got into the turn one fence and ended up on his side while Travis Porter also took a bit of a tumble in turn one. Neither driver was injured.....Jon Corbin dropped out of the B-Main with three laps remaining while running second allowing infrequent Knoxville visitor Ryan Bickett to pick up the final transfer position.....the USAC Midget Nationals take center stage at the Knoxville Raceway next weekend. On Friday night the mighty midgets will be joined by the annual Masters Classic and on Saturday night the 410's will be on hand.
Morgan and I spent Friday and Saturday in Des Moines watching the human races on the blue oval at Drake Stadium for the Iowa High School co-ed track meet and we were originally set to be in Burlington Saturday night for the World of Outlaw Late Model show. A quick check of the radar though showed some heavy rain around southeast Iowa so we hung around Pella until we heard the news that the show at 34 had been rained out. The World of Outlaws are looking for a possible make-up date for that event so keep an eye out for that announcement. Also, the West Liberty Raceway was rained out on Saturday so they will now run a full program on Memorial Day Monday night with extra money on the line in the NASCAR Late Models.
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