As the night began announcer James Essex touted him as the winningest Late Model driver in the country with twenty-one victories on the season. Well we have a driver in the Quad Cities who has five more, okay make it four more wins than that this year now, but we get it, Billy Moyer’s twenty-two feature wins have all been on a big stage this year just like last night in Knoxville. Moyer, a Des Moines native, used just about every line around the hallowed half-mile Knoxville Raceway as he picked his way to the front to take the $7,000 victory on opening night of the Lucas Oil Late Model Nationals.
Sixty-one Late Models filled the pit area and the field was whittled down to twenty-four for the twenty-five-lap main event using Knoxville’s unique and fan friendly qualifying method of inverting ten cars in each of the five heat races. Even with the solid payout for the night’s efforts drivers were perhaps even more focused on the points that they accumulated through qualifying, the heat races and the C, B and A features as it would be those points that would determine where they would start in Saturday night’s big money finale paying forty grand to the winner.
Josh Richards and Tim McCreadie started on the front row of Thursday’s headliner with McCreadie rocketing out to a big advantage down the back straightaway on lap one. Richards came charging right back though and drove under McCreadie exiting turn four to take the lead on lap three. While most of the field ran the bottom line around the speedway, McCreadie started experimenting with a higher line and it worked as he closed in on Richards and behind them it was Billy Moyer who was jumping from line to line depending upon where his next victim was running as he was working his way up from a row six start. Throw in teenager Austin Hubbard and you had a very entertaining four-car battle at the front as McCreadie flew by Richards again on lap ten. As T-Mac and Mr. Smooth began to separate themselves from Richards and Hubbard it was now Scott Bloomquist who was on the move as he moved into the fourth position and it looked like we might have been setting up for a classic battle between arguably the sport’s two biggest names.
Moyer dispatched McCreadie on lap seventeen and pulled away though while Bloomquist seemed to level out and Moyer cruised the rest of the way for the win, his fifth career victory at Knoxville. McCreadie would settle for the runner-up honors while Bloomquist’s third-place run coupled with his performances earlier in the night will establish him as the high point man with 488 after night number one. Earl Pearson Jr. finished in the fourth spot while Brady Smith completed the top five.
Notes……It definitely seemed like an advantage to qualify early in the order as one of the first few cars out Jimmy Owens set quick time with the only lap in the 17-second bracket. However Bloomquist, as the 55th car to hit the track was second quick with a lap that was nearly half a second faster than any of the other drivers who qualified in the last half of the order…..Quick time was the only highlight of the night for Owens as he went nowhere in his heat race finishing ninth landing him in the C-Main where he ran second to the other driver who went nowhere in the first heat, Will Vaught. The two started on row eleven for the twenty-lap B-Main and while Vaught raced his way up to seventh at the checkers, Owens was credited with 18th…..Jeep VanWormer was a half a lap away from finishing third and transferring to the feature from the first heat race before he slowed going into turn three, yet he was still able to coast to the line to finish seventh putting both Owens and Vaught into the C-Main. Jeep was done for the night…..John VanDenBerg returned to the seat of a Late Model tonight driving the #18 car that Shannon Babb used to drive for Bill Moyer Sr. a few years back. VanDenBerg started from the pole of the second heat and held on to take the fourth and final transfer spot ahead of former event champion Brian Birkhofer……Birky would come back to win the B-Main and then would charge from 21st to eighth in the main event…..Darrell Lanigan suffered engine problems during his qualifying run, but as one of the first cars out he was still able to post a time that landed him in row two of the third heat race. He appeared to have things fixed as he was running away from the field only to have a caution wave with one lap remaining. Before the race would see the green again though Lanigan, the current World of Outlaws point leader, would pull to the pits handing the lead and the win over to Bub McCool who was enjoying his first visit to Knoxville…..Ryan Newman didn’t qualify well, missed the invert and started 11th in the third heat. But he was very impressive come race time as he charged up to fourth to make it to the feature event where he would later finish 17th…..At the start of the night I told my friend Gary Crawford to keep an eye on Kelly Boen as he is usually worth the price of admission. That statement was validated in heat race number four as Boen went to the outside to make it four-wide down the back stretch and when the squeeze was on he jumped the wheel of Chris Simpson sending the nose of Boen’s car skyward. It came back down on all fours though and, after a caution a couple of laps later for Simpson who had slowed on the speedway, Kelly was able to hold off Darren Miller for the fourth and final transfer spot…..Heat race number five saw the field bunch up in turn two on the opening lap leaving Jimmy Mars with no place to go and he spun sideways collecting Jill George. While the push truck worked to get George restarted, Mars went to the pit area for his crew to assess the damage. After being push started Jill turned down the track and jumped the berm on the inside of turn two. The resulting damage now required a hook and this gave Mars and his crew even more time to make sure that all was well on the #28. Jimmy returned to the track and restarted the race, but two laps later the left rear wheel and axle flew off his car and lodged into the track in turn four. Mars was unable to make repairs in time to start the C-Main so he will come back tonight (Friday) to try to get qualified……Moyer came from seventh to win the fifth heat..….Denny Eckrich fought off a late challenge from Dan Schlieper to take the fourth and final transfer out of the B-Main.
Thirty-seven IMCA Modifieds accepted invitations to race this weekend with Richie Gustin taking the win here on opening night. Outside of an early challenge from Ryan Ruter, Gustin was untouchable tonight as he stood in victory lane at Knoxville for the second time this season. Ruter came from eighth to finish second, Darrin Duffy who started next to Gustin on the front row finished third, Todd Shute flew up from row six to take fourth while Mark Schulte completed the top five.
With the twenty-one Modifieds who did not make the top sixteen in passing points out of the four heats being split into two B-mains, we would have liked to have seen one of those two being run prior to the Late Model C-Main rather than the twenty minute break that took place between that race and the final Late Model heat race. It was definitely a full night of action that concluded at 11:35 p.m. and they will wind ‘em all back up again tonight for night number two of qualifying at the 7th Annual Lucas Oil Knoxville Late Model Nationals.
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