It was Danny Lasoski and Kyle Larson putting on a show over
the final eight laps that had everybody in attendance on the edge of, or up out
of their seat in a race that no matter who you were cheering for you could not
be unhappy with the outcome. And that was confirmed when the winner, perhaps
not the one that most were cheering for, was graciously applauded while in
victory lane. As this one lined up with Larson starting on the outside of the
front row next to Danny Dietrich, and with Lasoski starting right behind Larson
in fourth, one had to assume that it would evolve into a race where Larson
could possibly run away and maybe have Lasoski track him down in traffic. That
assumption was wrong.
As the green flag waved for the twenty-lapper Larson slipped
high in turns one and two and found himself in fourth as he raced down the back
stretch while it was “The Dude” who would go from fourth to first on that
opening lap. Larson recovered quickly though driving past both Dietrich and Lee
Grosz going into turn three and he slid up behind Lasoski coming off of four in
the second spot for lap one. With Lasoski riding the cushion and Larson trying
to keep pace on the bottom, the lead pair steadily pulled away from the field
and when the back of the field started to come into play just past the mid-race
mark that is when this one started to get fun!
The all-time winningest driver at the Knoxville Raceway,
Lasoski has been to this dance before and he had no problem disposing of the
lapped cars, but neither did the kid behind him and on lap fourteen Larson
powered by Lasoski on the low side of turn two to take the lead down the back
straightaway. Lasoski came right back though and drove the Mark Burch
Motorsports #1M back by Larson in turn four to regain the lead at the stripe
and the veteran then closed the door on his challenger by driving to the low line
in turn one. I can’t even imagine how many times Lasoski has done this over the
years, heck I am not even a regular here and I can remember several of them and
usually it breaks the momentum and the spirit of his challenger to the point
where he then pulls away and posts a convincing victory. With Larson though, it
was almost like waving the red cape in front of the bull. (An ironic reference
given one of Lasoski’s t-shirt slogans of the past!)
Larson regained his momentum, maintained his spirit and made
up the ground that he lost over the next three laps and as the white flag waved
the crowd knew that they were in for one whale of a final lap. The kid built
his momentum around the top side of one and two, pulled even with Lasoski
midway down the backstretch and then drove hard into turn three to once again
take the lead much to the delight of that Thursday night throng. Lasoski proved
why he is the best here though as he kicked off the cushion in turn three,
aimed for the bottom to exit turn four where he would regain the lead, and he
then held off the high line charge of Larson to win by no more than a half car
length. Amazing! And you want to talk about the mis-leading stat of the night?
When you look at the lap leaders in the official results it will show “Lasoski
1-20”.
Were there other cars in the race? Yes, twenty-two of them
to be exact and it may sound bad but after lap ten I couldn’t tell you anything
about the rest of them since the lapped cars did not cause any issues and the
drivers running for positions third, fourth, fifth, etc. were just too far out
of the spectacular picture that played out up front. Looking at the results
today I can tell you that fast qualifier Wayne Johnson made a nice run up from
eighth to third and his performance throughout the evening gave him the most
points after night number one with 490. King’s Royal champion Brad Sweet
finished fourth and he ranks second in the points so far while Lee Grosz had a
solid run in the fifth position. Jason Johnson started seventh and finished
eighth, yet he still ranks ahead of both Larson and Lasoski, third, in the all
important point standings after opening night.
With the threat of rain to the north and west the Knoxville
Raceway crew headed up by John McCoy ran off the night’s events in fine fashion
with the final checkered flag waving at ten minutes before ten o’clock and
while I would have loved to have gone to the post-race press conference it was
good to be home before midnight for a normal night of sleep before on last day
of work for the week. Tonight it is back up to Knoxville where another fifty or
so drivers will be in action looking to score points and maybe provide the same
type of action that they themselves witnessed on Thursday. Those drivers know
that they have a tough act to follow.
See you at Knoxville!
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