Larson made his schedule as good as it could get for his
busy day by cruising to the feature win during Friday’s final night of
qualifying at Knoxville locking himself to the 17th position on the
starting grid for the $150,000-to-win Nationals Championship. “Yung Money”
served notice earlier in the evening when he made a seemingly improbable
comeback during his qualifying heat race. With a stout field of 71 cars on hand
passing was not easy in the six heats where only the top three would advance to
the night’s headliner. Starting fourth Larson would fade to sixth on the
opening lap getting hung out in the middle of turn four. It would take him a
full lap to get back up to speed and it wasn’t long before he was headed back
to the front proving his strength by making a three-wide pass through the
middle of turns one and two. Absolutely the first to make that groove work all
night, Larson continued the run all the way up to second and closing on winner
Randy Hannagan as the checkers waved.
The phenom would lineup third for the 25-lap main event
where the top four finishers would earn their way into Saturday’s grand finale,
but the race would come to a grinding halt in turn one of the opening lap.
James McFadden would get turned sideways mid-pack at the end of the front
stretch and in the scramble the cars of Rager Phillips, Robby Wolfgang, Tim
Shaffer and Austin McCarl would all get upside down. Thankfully all drivers
emerged unscathed and after the long delay the remaining cars went back to
green.
With no invert in tonight’s feature lineup, fast qualifier
Chad Kemenah would go to the lead from the pole position but that lead was
short-lived as Larson blew by him on the second lap. Even with a couple of restarts to bunch the field
there was nobody that was going to stay with Larson so the focus was now on the
other three “transfer” positions. Kemenah was holding down second while crowd
favorite Jac Haudenschild ran third and it was Cap Henry who appeared
vulnerable on the bubble in fourth. Henry has had a tough season especially in
the engine department and when he was able to sell his tow rig a week or so ago
it gave him enough funds to put another thumper under the hood and make the
trip to Knoxville, thanks to the courtesy of the new rig owner who allowed him
to use it for the week.
Henry was on a mission and he was able to make the bottom
work to move from fourth to second at the checkers. Kemenah would hold on to
the third spot and it looked like it would be impossible to take the smile off
of Haudenschild’s face after he completed the distance in the fourth position.
Jason Johnson and Brandon Wimmer looked as though they might be able to
challenge for that final transfer, but “The Wild Child” never gave them a
chance in the closing laps. Wayne Johnson was the hard charger racing from 19th
to 7th. With the Speed Sport World Challenge still to run Larson
would skip the post-race press conference to catch his flight back to New York
comfortable in knowing that he was not only in the show for Saturday here, but
that he also had a car that was the class of the field on this night.
The World Challenge had an added element of interest this
year as the winner (or second or third if the others were already qualified)
would earn “the golden ticket” to be the 25th starter in Saturday’s
championship feature. And, with none of the first nine starters already locked
in, that ticket was going to be every bit as valuable as the $10,000 top prize.
Jason Johnson would pace the field for the first fifteen laps before Brooke Tatnell
put the slider on him with ten laps remaining. Tatnell has had a tough season
and is still walking with a visible limp after breaking three toes, but the way
that he will remember 2013 would change dramatically as held back a late charge
from Tim Kaeding to take the win. Daryn Pittman was impressive coming from
tenth to third in a successful tune up for Saturday when he will start
eleventh. Johnson faded to fourth while Donny Schatz found some speed late to
move up to fifth.
The other big story of the night involved Sammy Swindell who
just a couple of years ago looked to have his second Nationals victory in sight
before shredding a tire just laps from the finish. Last year Sammy failed to
qualify for the main event and one as to wonder if the veteran driver will even
attempt to run tonight (Saturday) given the monumental task now before him.
Sammy qualified third quick on the evening and was an early favorite to secure
one of the transfers from tonight’s show, but when Dustin Selvage raced his way
back around him on the final lap for the third qualifying spot in the third
heat race he then found himself on the pole position for the first B-Main. This
twelve-lap race seemed to take forever to run with drivers stopping on the
track with issues multiple times and the entire field did a lot of laps under
caution. Swindell would show a puff of smoke as he accelerated for each
restart, but it was nothing mechanical that would eventually do him in. As the
checkers were about to wave Swindell slowed having run out of fuel, but he was
still able to coast across the line in the third and final transfer position.
He was then pushed to the scales to check for the minimum weight where
reportedly he was just a few pounds short of being legal. The resulting
disqualification now has Sammy scheduled to start in the third row of Saturday
night’s E-Main. Will he try to make the ultimate “Alphabet Run” or will he
choose to just be a spectator and a mentor for his son Kevin who will start
ninth in tonight’s Championship?
The field is set with an intriguing mix of veterans and
young upstarts and my prediction is that we will see a new name added to the
list of Knoxville Nationals champions.
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