Third 360 Nationals Title For McCarl; Takes 410 Win As Well at Knoxville

This weekend belonged to Terry McCarl as the Altoona, Iowa, driver captured three wins in two nights following his Saturday night sweep at the Knoxville Raceway. The final checkered flag was McCarl’s third Knoxville 360 Sprint Car Nationals title.

McCarl started out the night with a victory in the weekly 410 show as for the second night in a row he passed Brian Brown to pick up the win. Last night it was on the final corner of the final lap, while tonight McCarl made his move on Brown following a restart on lap nine of the twenty-lap main event. Brown did not go down easily as he actually regained the lead from McCarl for half a lap before Terry established himself up front once again and drove away for the convincing win. Brown ran a comfortable second while point leader Johnny Herrera came from row four to finish third. Skip Jackson took home fourth-place money while Billy Alley came from sixteenth to pass Davey Heskin off turn four of the final lap to finish fifth.

After taking care of the victory lane celebration for his win in the 410’s, McCarl climbed aboard his Big Game Tree Stands #24 with the 360 cubic inch engine under the hood and started next to Alley on the front row for the 25-lap main event that would determine the 2009 360 Nationals Champion. McCarl opened up a big lead early only to have Alley start to reel him in while working traffic with less than ten laps remaining. With five laps to go the red flag appeared when the fifth place car of Shane Stewart tagged the turn three guardrail and got upside down.

On the restart McCarl pulled away as the battle for second heated up with Alley and Wayne Johnson swapping slide jobs back and forth over the next three laps. As McCarl cruised to the checkers Johnson held off Alley for the runner-up honors with Jason Johnson taking fourth and Brian Brown fifth. Travis Rilat was sixth, Jack Dover came from eighteenth to finish seventh, Gregg Bakker was eighth, Kaley Gharst started twenty-third and finished ninth while Tony Bruce Jr. rounded out the top ten.

It was a perfect weekend for McCarl who now puts on his promoter hat for the Monday and Tuesday events at the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa. Then, beginning Wednesday, we’ll see if he can become the first Iowan ever to win the Knoxville Nationals.

Saturday Notes……Pennsylvania youngster Cody Darrah set quick time for the forty-two 410’s entered tonight. He would later finish tenth in the main event…..Jesse Hockett rolled his 410 entry after contact with Pete Crall in the first heat race and he then later dropped out of the 360 D-Main. Hockett’s only highlight of the week came on Thursday night when he worked alongside Bill Wright on the Hosehead’s Radio internet broadcast…..Ben Gregg jumped the start from the pole position of the third 410 heat race and was immediately sent to the rear of the field…..In that third heat Johnny Herrera trailed quite a veil of smoke throughout the eight laps, but still finished in third…..Congratulations to our friend Alan Zoutte who held off former All Iowa Points champion Jody Rosenboom to win the 360 Nationals E-Main. We spend a lot of time with Alan’s family during Nationals week and they are some of the nicest people that you will ever meet…..Paul McMahan won the 360 D-Main, then started seventeenth and advanced to fifth in the twelve lap C-Main race. Unfortunately only the top two would advance…..The 360 B-Main went fifteen-laps without a caution as Matt Covington picked up the win. Justin Henderson was on the move after starting twenty-second and would have loved to see a caution as he finished eighth. Only the top four transferred with Johnny Herrera taking that last ticket to the A in his own #45x……During the red flag for Stewart’s flip in the feature race both Davey Heskin and Cale Conley were sent to the pits for the rest of the night “for rolling through the red”. Heskin was obviously upset with the call and searched out an official for further explanation……Sam Hafertepe Jr. was running fourth with two laps to go when his left rear tire blew apart. The young Texan pulled off the track without pulling a caution…..The USAC non-wing sprints take to the Knoxville Raceway on Sunday night with the 305 c.i. sprints joining the show in support.