Shaffer An Early Morning Winner At Nationals Opener

One red dot was all it took to make a huge impact on the opening night of the 49th Annual Super Clean Knoxville Nationals. Checking the south central Iowa radar at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday night would have revealed just one small cell, no more than five miles wide, sliding slowly from northwest to southeast and, of course, headed right for the Knoxville Raceway. When it started to sprinkle at 7:10 it looked like the rain would be light and short-lived. Then it got a little darker and it started raining a little harder, then a cool wind started gusting and it rained even harder. Then the sun peeked out from the west edge of that stupid little red dot, but it continued to rain and rain hard for another ten minutes even with the sunlight shining down and finally, after about twenty-five minutes, the rain stopped but the damage was done.

As we huddled with the masses under the grandstand we noted the small river that had formed on the front concourse and how it was carrying empty beer cans toward the flagstand that, by this time of the night, should have been seeing Doug and Justin Clark drop the green on the first heat race of the night. It had rained a lot and it was going to take some time to get the track ready for the opening night of the four-day event, and both drivers and fans knew that the night’s results would be greatly affected by this “little red dot.”

I was pleasantly surprised that the delay was as short as it was with John VanDenBerg being the first car to make a qualifying run at 11:22 p.m. The track was moist, narrow and very fast with Erin Crocker putting up an early lap of 14.764 for the rest of the field to shoot at. For quite awhile it looked as though Crocker may become the first female to set “quick time” at the Nationals until the seventeen-year-old from West Virginia, Cale Conley, turned a 14.628. Recall that Conley set the new track record for the 360’s last week so it would be fitting that he would be the fastest tonight, but then another youngster Cody Darrah went out and blistered the half-mile with a lap of 14.547 leaving the kids one-two in the all-important qualifying session that pays out a maximum of 200 points.

Heat races would get under way shortly after midnight and misfortune would strike right away for Darrah as he hopped the wheel of Davey Heskin in turn two of the opening lap with both cars going for a roll. The resulting damage was too much to overcome for either driver to return for the C-Main later in the evening…..err, morning. Native Australians Gary Brazier and Skip Jackson would finish one-two in that first heat. The start of the second heat turned into a scramble when Ed Lynch tried to go three wide down the frontstretch and he ran out of room when Johnny Herrera came up the track a bit. The contact sheered off the left front wheel of Lynch and fortunately it stayed within the catch fences as it raced away by itself while Matthew Reed and Conley slid to a halt in turn one. Lynch’s crew scrambled to change a front axle during the courtesy laps from the pace car, but came up just short of being ready as the green flag waved once again. The damage on Conley’s car became apparent though as he spun off turn two on the restart and Lynch was now able to restart as the pace car made another round of courtesy laps while Conley’s crew tried to make repairs in time, but they too would come up short. The race stayed green on the third try and Calvin Landis walked away with the win over Brandon Wimmer. Shane Stewart was running a strong third until the final lap when he ran out of fuel and dropped to eighth at the finish, a victim of the two full rounds of courtesy laps at the start of the race.

It was obvious that the fast narrow race track was hard to pass on and that theory would now be put to the test in the third heat race as three-time defending Knoxville Nationals champion Donny Schatz would line up on the outside of the fourth row. Speaking of which, it shows how little I have been paying attention as I had no idea that we were only going to invert eight cars in the heats now rather than the full field of ten like we have in the past. But given the effects of that stupid little red dot, it’s a good thing that change was made or we would have ended up with a loaded C-Main instead of a loaded B-Main. Back to Schatz, as he tried to make a move using a higher line off turn two of the opening lap it looked as if he slapped the guardrail on the backstretch allowing Ty Bartz to drive by him. With front-row starters Daron Clayton and Austin McCarl driving away for a one-two finish, the crowd watched as Schatz tried to mount a challenge on Bartz for the sixth position. With no disrespect to the Wisconsin driver who gets faster each year that he returns to the Nationals, you have to think that “I outran Donny Schatz at Knoxville” will be a story that Ty Bartz will tell for years to come, and he can leave off the part about it being for the sixth position in a qualifying heat.

With all of the storylines in the first three heats the final two ran off without incident as Justin Henderson and Jack Dover picked up victories from their front row starting spots and the drowsy crowd took a break in preparation for the C, B and A features. We took that time to introduce our designated driver for the night, Morgan, to the wonders of a NOS Energy Drink as he was the only one of us that did not have to be at work later in the morning.

Only four of the nine scheduled starters came to the track for the C-Main as Erin Crocker ran off for the win and in the process became the first female to hold a track record at Knoxville setting a new six-lap standard of one minute and thirty seconds flat. The B-Main was loaded with top name drivers including five World of Outlaw regulars while in the twenty cars already qualified for the feature, there were only two Outlaw regulars. Schatz walked away with the win followed by Paul McMahan, Jonathan Allard and a fueled up Shane Stewart leaving the 2008 Nationals runner-up Jason Meyers one spot out of qualifying for the main in fifth and the all-time winningest driver at Knoxville, Danny Lasoski, a distant seventh. This left Meyers 16th and Lasoski 20th after the points were tallied up at the end of the night so they will definitely have their work cut out for them on Saturday night.

Jason Johnson shot to the lead from his pole-position start in the twenty-five lap A-Main with the rest of the field in hot pursuit on the still lightning quick surface. With lapped traffic playing a factor Tim Shaffer reeled in Johnson and drove past him to become the new leader with just six laps remaining. With Shaffer still working traffic, and Johnson, Craig Dollansky, Sam Hafertepe Jr. and Lucas Wolfe close behind we were setting up for an interesting finish until western Australian driver Greg Hall slid up the track and nailed the guardrail in turn four just ahead of the leaders. Dollansky had been one of the few to find the high line to be productive, but it bit him hard now as he was unable to avoid the stopped car of Hall and went for a tumble.

Dollansky’s crew, including car owner Kasey Kahne, worked frantically during the red flag period to make repairs knowing that every point counts and when Austin McCarl slowed on the restart it was the break that Dollansky needed as he was able to rejoin the field with five laps remaining. With an open track in front of him there was no stopping Shaffer as he picked up his second career feature win at Knoxville. Johnson held off a challenge from Hafertepe to finish second while Chad Kemenah passed Lucas Wolfe late to wind up fourth and Danny Smith fought off Schatz over the final laps to take sixth. Donny’s run from twenty-first to seventh was very impressive given the conditions and the three-time defending champ still emerged as the leading point man with 466 markers. It will be interesting to see how many Thursday night qualifiers will top that total as Morgan predicts that there will be at least four. Hafertepe sits second in points with Shaffer, McMahan and Allard next in line. Dollansky’s extra effort landed him in the eighth position of the first night points.

The final checkered flag waved just before 2:30 in the morning and our NOS-fueled driver had us back in Mt. Pleasant at 4:20 so I’m working on just a little over two hours sleep today. If you catch me dozing off in Section I tonight give me a nudge, and please, no more LITTLE RED DOTS!!!