When Sammy Swindell and Jason Johnson swapped sliders following a late restart it was exactly what Shane Stewart was hoping for as he locked up the victory in the 20th Annual Arnold Motor Supply 360 Nationals Saturday night at the Knoxville Raceway. In the companion 410 event, Johnny Herrera enjoyed the fruits of victory before later suffering the agony of defeat.
Two Knoxville regulars, Chad Humston and Dustin Selvage brought the field to the green flag for the twenty-five-lap National Championship with Humston vaulting to the early lead. Shane Stewart started directly behind Humston and took up the chase as the two leaders worked the low line around the hallowed half-mile oval. Stewart kept the pressure on Humston until the caution waved on lap eight for a blown motor on Brian Brown’s fourth-place car. During the caution track officials were taking a look at Humston’s car as it slowly circled the track noting that a brake caliper had fallen off. Humston appeared to acknowledge the situation and the green flag waved once again. Two laps later, as he exited turn four, the right front wheel folded under on the leader’s car and he shot up toward the front stretch guardrail. Humston avoided contact, but then the car turned left down the track as it continued to slow. The first few cars were able to avoid the limping mount, but the seventh-place car of Johnny Herrera could not as he clipped the front end and went for a wild side-over-side ride featuring some big air before coming to rest in front of the flag stand. Humston climbed out quickly and walked dejectedly back to the pits while Herrera took a little more time to exit his mangled ride before making that walk to the pits in the exact same manner.
Stewart inherited the lead for the restart and threatened to pull away as Sammy Swindell and Jason Johnson continued to move toward the front. Cautions on laps thirteen and fourteen for Davey Heskin and Brady Bacon respectively kept the field bunched together with Swindell and Johnson next in-line and ready to pounce. Johnson had actually passed Swindell for second prior to the Heskin caution and having come from a seventh row start it appeared that the “Ragin’ Cajun” was now the fastest car on the speedway. Once back to green Swindell was at first too busy fighting off the challenge from Johnson to focus on Stewart, but as the laps wound down Sammy started running the opposite line of Stewart and was making up ground on the leader. Stewart was still looking solid, but Swindell was close enough to take advantage of any slight mistake with two laps to go when the fifth-place car of Randy Hannagan slowed down the front stretch and coasted around the bottom of turns one and two forcing one last caution.
The stage was now set for a green-white-checkered shootout for the $10,000 top prize and Sammy made a good run at Stewart into turns one and two. But Johnson was right there as well and when he pulled alongside Swindell down the back straightaway, Sammy was forced to close off the top into turn three and that was all that Stewart needed to pull away over the final lap to take the win and “party like a Rockstar”. Swindell and Johnson were next in line while Dustin Selvage drove a fantastic race to finish fourth. Another local, Bronson Maeschen took the fifth spot ahead of Jack Dover who made a nice run up from row nine. Tony Bruce Jr. was solid in seventh, Danny Wood finished eighth, B-Main winner and twenty-first starter Tim Kaeding was ninth and his brother Bud Kaeding took tenth.
The full night of action also included a complete program for thirty-nine 410 sprints who went through qualifying, four heats, a B-Main and a twenty-lap A-feature as a tune up for next week’s 50th edition of the Goodyear Knoxville Nationals. Former track champion Skip Jackson started on the pole and would lead the first lap before defending track champion Johnny Herrera blew past him. Sammy Swindell who was the fastest qualifier, but drew the number 12 for the invert, was picking his way through the traffic and so was Dale Blaney who had started ninth. Both drivers were nearing the top five when the red flag waved as Ian Madsen and Tim Kaeding crashed in turn three with twelve laps remaining.
Jackson made a hard run at Herrera in turn one on the restart, but Johnny fought him off and again opened a comfortable lead. Blaney continued his march to the front and was up to fourth before his left rear tire blew going into turn one on lap thirteen. Blaney’s car slid up the track backwards and collided with the fence causing him to roll over one time. The frustrated driver from Ohio climbed out with no injuries, and perhaps a sense of optimism for next week given his performance before the tire failure. With seven laps remaining, and an open racetrack in front of him, there was no catching Herrera as he tallied his 17th career victory at the Knoxville Raceway. Jackson showed that he is still a contender by running a strong second and Swindell worked his way up to third at the checkers ahead of impressive Australian Jamie Veal. Mark Dobmeier was the hard charger on the night coming from 18th to finish fifth.
K-ville Saturday Notes…..Veal would have been starting much deeper in the field for the 410 feature had he not nipped Lynton Jeffrey at the line for the fifth and final transfer out of the third heat race….The fourth 410 heat saw six Australian drivers in the nine car field and they controlled the top three with Max Dumesney taking the win ahead of Skip Jackson and Trevor Green…..Rob Kubli and Jim Moughan both got upside down just past the chalk line at the start of the 360 D-Main…..Lee Jacobs was penalized two rows for jumping the original start of the 410 B-Main and he later came up one spot short of transferring at the checkers…..Davey Heskin was the fourth and final qualifier out of the 410 B-Main. Then, after intermission, he made passes of Matt Moro and current track 360 point leader Clint Garner to finish third and transfer into that A-Main as well. Garner was left on the outside looking in…..My son Morgan pointed out something tonight that I have known for quite some time, but have just never included in my writings. Mike Roberts does an absolutely fantastic job as the infield announcer at the Knoxville Raceway. His reports from the work area are detailed without being too technical and he always seems to know exactly the right questions to ask drivers during interviews and in victory lane……During the post-race press conference Shane Stewart made a pretty bold statement that, at this point in time, just might be true. Noting the high car counts and the draw format used by his series Stewart stated that it is harder to “make the show” at a Lucas Oil ASCS National Tour event than it is at a World of Outlaws event.
The headline on the sports page of this morning’s Des Moines Register reads “Knoxville to end live finale telecast”. I know that those of you who are unable to attend the Nationals for whatever reason are going to disagree with this, but HURRAY!!!! Ever since this event was taken “to the next level” by being telecast live in 2002 the attendance numbers have gradually declined. Plus, those of us who have purchased tickets year after year (since 1976 for me) were becoming increasingly annoyed by having to wait as much as a half hour between the D and C-Main for the telecast to begin, along with the extended breaks that were then taken between the final three races for TV to “do what they do”. Last year that wait was even more agonizing as we watched a thunderstorm cell approach on radar that eventually washed out the night’s action and moved it to Sunday…..without live television! I cannot tell you how happy it makes me to know that we, as a crowd, will not be told this week that we are going on air in three minutes, and when we do we need to make a lot of noise, wave our hands and show everybody at home just how much fun we are having. Last year I took that three minutes to scribble out the words “Live TV Sucks” on the back of my notebook, perhaps you saw it on some of those early crowd shots? If you are in the neighborhood this Saturday night, come on out and buy a ticket. Being there and experiencing this spectacular event firsthand is exponentially better than what it is on television. And, if you live far away, go out and buy a ticket to your local racetrack and enjoy a night of action there. After all, you can always watch the Nationals later on the Speed Channel on August 28th at 3:30 p.m. Central or on September 3rd at 2:00 p.m.
The non-wing USAC Sprints hit the big half-mile at Knoxville tonight with the 305 Winged Sprints running in support.
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