Moyer Cruises At Knoxville

We have seen it before,  we will likely see it again, and perhaps very soon as Billy Moyer powered past Shannon Babb on lap eight and then drove away to a convincing victory in Thursday night’s opener to the Lucas Oil Knoxville Late Model Nationals. Moyer loves coming back to his original hometown of Des Moines and he obviously loves racing at the Knoxville Raceway. Pair that with the fact that he is having a very strong season and the result just could be a valuable weekend sweep at the legendary oval.

“The California Kid” Tyler Reddick would drive around Denny Eckrich coming off of turn four to lead lap one and the sixteen-year-old would pace the field until Shannon Babb threw a slider at him in turns three and four on lap number six. Moyer had started next to Babb in the second row and he obviously went to school on Babb’s move as “Mr. Smooth” executed a similar slider two laps later to take the lead. The only caution of the event waved a lap later when Austin Hubbard coasted to a stop in turn four and on the restart Babb did his best to keep pace with Moyer.

It did not take long though for Moyer to pull away and by the time that the checkers waved on this 25-lapper the winner had more than a straightaway advantage. Babb would fight off a mid-race challenge from Steve Francis to finish second and Brian Birkhofer chased Francis in for fourth. Jimmy Mars would follow his business partner in for fifth after starting in the ninth position.

Notebook….. 80 Late Models signed in for the first of three nights of racing and it was a diverse field as evidenced by the geographic range of hometowns and by the range of the size of the haulers……Scott Bloomquist was the fifth car out for qualifying and set a quick time that was a full two-tenths of a second faster than anyone else…… North Central Illinois driver Rich Bell surprised many by ranking number two on the qualifying list.  Bell raced his way forward in the heat race and had an opportunity to get into a top four transfer position late, but could not quite get it done and he also did not make the transfer out of the B-Main…..Jason Rauen had the 25^th fastest time, but it was disallowed when he did not go to the scales right after his qualifying effort......The first heat race was stacked with Lucas Oil series champions Jimmy Owens and Scott Bloomquist, plus this year’s winningest tour driver Don O’Neal as well as Brian Birkhofer. And if not for a late race caution Matt Furman would have taken the win, but instead it was “Birky Time” as he came from eighth with Furman second, Bloomquist third and Terry Casey fourth……Owens and O’Neal would not make the show tonight as neither were factors in the B-Main. Look for a bounce back from both on Friday…..John Blankenship looked to have the second heat race in complete control, but when he spent a full lap and a half trying to find his way around Alonzo Grosse that allowed Jesse Stovall to power by and take the win in Al Humphrey’s car #6…..Jimmy Mars tracked Bub McCool over the final six laps of heat race number three before driving around him on the outside coming off turn four to the checkers. The margin of victory for Mars was 0.009 seconds……Texas driver Morgan Bagley qualified in the third spot in his Knoxville debut…..Moyer served notice that he was the man to beat by winning the fourth heat. Chad Simpson charged up to third only to break a rod thus ending his night. Ray Guss Jr., making his first-ever Lucas Oil Late Model Series start, qualified in the third position and Kent Robinson edged out Rob Moss by 0.006 seconds for the fourth and final transfer. All of us in the booth thought that Moss had beat Robinson to the line, but the transponders don’t lie…..I guess…..Tyler Reddick came from the fourth row to win the fifth and final heat race with Mike Fryer surviving a late charge from Mark Burgtorf to finish fourth by just 0.003 seconds…….Earl Pearson Jr. who dropped out of his heat race while running in a transfer position came back to win the D-Main with Will Vaught and Tim McCreadie close behind. Those two started 15^th and 16^th respectively. Pearson then scratched out of the C……The C-Main was the most entertaining of the night with drivers racing two, three and even four wide for the majority of the 15-lap distance. Frankie Heckenast’s pass of Lance Matthees for the lead off turn four took my breath away as he couldn’t have had more than a couple of inches of clearance on either side with Matthees to the left and the big guardrail to the right. Jared Landers and Bobby Pierce were second and third while McCreadie kept his alphabet run going coming from the back to finish fourth. To do that though he had to edge out Vaught who put it on the trailer for the night after finishing fifth…..Other than McCreadie racing up to ninth and Heckenast to tenth the B-Main was rather uneventful as Brady Smith, Jason Feger, Chris Simpson and Terry Phillips became the final four qualifiers for the A-Main.

Hot laps started right on time at 6:45 and the checkers waved over Moyer a few minutes before 11 p.m. capping a perfect racing evening. I had the pleasure of joining Bob Wilson in the booth as he kept the internet followers up-to-date and it was a treat to listen to Lucas Oil Late Model Series Race Director Ritchie Lewis communicate to the drivers on the Raceceiver. It is no wonder why the series events are presented in such a professional manner.

I hate missing the remaining two nights at Knoxville, but I am really looking forward to two nights of action now with the Sprint Invaders as they run the big ½-mile in Davenport tonight and then race the 3/8-mile high banks of 34 Raceway on Saturday. Perhaps I will see you there!