In victory lane Bronson Maeschen told the crowd that he couldn’t win when Cappy was around so it was really nice to be the winner of the inaugural Capitani Classic. The young driver from nearby Pleasantville, Iowa, has been a weekly competitor for several years at the Knoxville Raceway as it was under the leadership of legendary promoter Ralph Capitani, but it took until this season for him to garner his first career feature win here on July 14th. On Sunday night Maeschen made it win number two at Knoxville with this one coming over a stellar field of 67 cars and in front of the event’s namesake himself.
Maeschen and former Knoxville Nationals champion Tim Shaffer lined up on the front row for the 25-lap main event on a track that had just been re-worked on both the bottom and top grooves with Maeschen jetting out to a big early lead. An early caution for a Kyle Larson spin in turn four brought the field back to him, but when the green flag returned so did Maeschen’s big lead as he again left Shaffer and everybody else in his wake. Another caution, this one for a slowing Wayne Johnson, bunched the field and once again the leader pulled away on the restart.
Now Bronson Maeschen has had a reputation for being ultra fast when on his own as he has always qualified well, but his lack of victories in the past perhaps suggested that he had issues dealing with racing conditions. As Bronson approached slower traffic with the laps winding down in this one a couple of forays out of his preferred groove allowed Shaffer, Joey Saldana and Cody Darrah to quickly close the gap and with five laps remaining this one looked to get very interesting. Perhaps sensing that his lead was shrinking fast, Maeschen stayed with his bottom line and got past Josh Schneiderman while Shaffer had to pause a bit as he dealt with Schneiderman exiting turn four. The lead was back up to half a straightaway after that and as Maeschen approached the slower car of Rager Phillips with two laps remaining you could almost sense his level of confidence as he powered around Phillips without missing a beat. The white flag waved and the big crowd cheered as the local driver brought it home for his second career feature win here and the healthy $5,000 top prize.
Shaffer would finish as the runner-up ahead of Saldana and Darrah while Tim Kaeding came from row seven to finish fifth. Sixth went to the driver who had started next to Kaeding, Brad Sweet, Brian Brown ran seventh, Jason Johnson came from row twelve to finish eighth while Danny Lasoski and Shane Stewart rounded out the top ten.
Cappy Classic Notebook
Jason Johnson started as an alternate when Donny Schatz scratched for the event. “The Ragin’ Cajun” finished as the first non-qualifier in the first of three B-Mains and was apparently considered to be the first alternate over the other two third-place finishers Brian Paulus and Danny Holtgraver.
Schatz won the sixth heat race and then was “given” the twelfth and final starting spot in the Dash during a Revenge Draw process. He scratched from that event when it was reported that he had lost his brakes in the final lap of the heat race and then later scratched from the main event as well.
With the huge car count the format for the evening saw six heat races with the top four cars inverted by qualifying times. The top three finishers would advance to the A-Main and there would then be three B-Mains with the top two out of each. The three B-Mains was a departure from the normal “alphabet” feature method here.
This format really placed an emphasis on qualifying as only 24 of the 67 drivers would make the heat race inverts and each driver would only get one lap on the clock. The first car out for qualifying, Brooke Tatnell set quick time driving the car #98 normally wheeled by J.D. Johnson. Guy Forbrook is serving as the crew chief on this car as well as they make a run at this week’s Nationals.
The event was a track point race toward the 410 Lucas Oil Championship Series and while several of the track’s regulars did well to make the A-Main against the heavy outside competition, point leader Davey Heskin did not make the show. Those that did and their finishing position were Maeschen (1st), Terry McCarl (12th), Tasker Phillips (16th), Rager Phillips (18th) and Josh Schneiderman (19th). McCarl had to come from outside of the invert and pace James McFadden late to transfer out of the sixth heat race and his efforts for the night moved him ahead of Heskin by just eight points with only one night of point racing remaining.
Ralph Capitani gave the command “Push Trucks, push ‘em if ya got ‘em” to get the $1,000-to-win Dash started. Danny Lasoski had this one well in hand until the throttle linkage broke with just four laps remaining. Stevie Smith then held off a hard charging Dale Blaney to take the win although he ran the final few laps trailing some smoke. Smith then had to scratch from his B-Main due to engine problems.
The Southern Iowa Sprint Speedweek action now moves to the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa for the Front Row Challenge on Monday night and the Ultimate Challenge on Tuesday night before returning to Knoxville for the 52nd Annual Goodyear Knoxville Nationals Wednesday through Saturday. I hope that you will check into the Back Stretch throughout the week for news and notes from these events and I also encourage you to visit Open Wheel News and Notes as well as Hawkeye Ovals for additional coverage.
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