On a night that had been uncharacteristically short on excitement, the final event of the night more than made up for it and sent a large crowd home from the Knoxville Raceway Saturday buzzing and ready for the next race night. Davey Heskin held off Brian Brown and Terry McCarl for his second career victory in the 20-lap 410 Sprint main event, a race that for the first sixteen laps had me to the edge of my seat, leaning left, leaning right and about to cover my eyes as drivers made daring moves and had near-misses as they weaved in and out of traffic battling for position.
The half-mile surface was wide and a bit dry with a steady north breeze making the dirt fly, so finding a grip around the bottom groove in both sets of corners was not an easy thing to do. And, when the track is like this, a slide-job is the way to go and it seemed like there was one being thrown just about every lap. Third-starting Davey Heskin blew past pole-sitter Bronson Maeschen in three and four to take the lead on the opening circuit and as those two drivers pulled away, the race to watch was definitely the one for third. A pack of six including Lynton Jeffrey, Mark Dobmeir, Ian Madsen, Terry McCarl, Ryan Bunton and Brian Brown were throwing sliders at each other and shuffling positions back and forth in a high speed fashion that is every sprint car fan's dream.
The action was amazing and all drivers showed their talent and professionalism as they narrowly missed each other, but still gave each other enough room to do so. With all of the position swapping going on nobody was making up any ground on the leaders as McCarl and Brown emerged from the pack. That changed though when Heskin encountered the back of the field who was doing their own version of two and three wide racing and as he had to show some patience to find some racing room, Maeschen, McCarl and Brown closed in fast. McCarl moved to second with Brown following and the crowd cheered as those two then swapped slide-jobs for the second spot. With five laps to go Brown was now in second and had Heskin in his sights with plenty of lapped traffic still in play, but the caution waved a lap later when Bunton tangled with the lapped car of Wayne Modjeski in turn two.
The crowd now had a chance to catch its breath as did Heskin who even though he had both Brown and McCarl restarting right behind him, now had open track in front of him with only four laps to go. The green flag waved and Heskin drove to the bottom of turn one to make sure that there would be no slide-job coming at him. His #56 stuck to the bottom and he pulled away down the back stretch to go unchallenged over the final two miles for the win. Brown would take runner-up money with McCarl third, Jeffrey fourth and Madsen fifth at the checkers.
Jon Agan was in control of the 360 main event until lap ten when Matt Covington pulled to the topside of turn two and slowed to a stop. Agan was coming out of turn four as the caution waved, got a little loose, over-corrected a bit and then slapped the frontstretch guardrail with his right rear breaking both the birdcage and the shock, ending his night. Wayne Johnson assumed the lead for the restart and there was no stopping the ASCS National Series point leader who cruised the final eight laps for the victory. Ironically Johnson won the 410 feature here a week before and the only reason that he was back tonight was because the ASCS event at I-30 Speedway in Little Rock had been rained out overnight on Friday. Clint Garner had started right behind Johnson in sixth and he would finish second while pole-starter Tony Shilling had perhaps his best career finish in third. Matt Moro came from eighth to fourth while Randy Martin pulled a slider on Joe Beaver in the final turns to take fifth. The 360 field was extra stout tonight due to the ASCS rainout as Covington and Logan Forler also made the trip north.
Larry Ball Jr. started on the pole of the 305 main event and was never challenged en route to victory. Matthew Stelzer moved from the outside of row four to finish in the second spot, mid-Missouri driver J Kinder took third followed by last week's winner Steve Breazeale and tenth-starting Alan Ambers.
For a full rundown of the results and to check the schedule for when you can next visit "The Dirt Racin' Capital of the World" take a look at the Knoxville Raceway website.
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