Having won seven of the last eight Knoxville Nationals, and in the midst of another potential championship season with the World Outlaws , there is no doubt that Donny Schatz is the man to beat here at the Knoxville Raceway this week. But with his win in Thursday night's qualifier, and with his performance in the past few Nationals being reminiscent of what Schatz himself went through before winning his first Nationals in 2006, Brian Brown has positioned himself as the driver most likely to bring down the champ.
Schatz had a pair of near misses before winning his first Nationals, Brown has come up just short the past two years and it is a popular notion that to win the Nationals, you must first "lose one". And then you must have the breaks go your way and Brown had one of those tonight as his heat race came to the green. With the wet weather over the past twenty-four hours the track was fast and narrow making it extremely difficult for the fastest qualifiers to move from their fourth row starting spots into the top four positions to transfer to the A-Main. For Brown though, his task was made much easier when the two drivers starting directly ahead of him, Austin Johnson and Dale Blaney, both flared out wide coming off of turn four leaving Brown with a clear path to go from eighth to fourth before the field even went down the back stretch for the first time. That would be all the further that he would get, but that was all that Brown needed to be one of the only four top ten qualifiers to go directly to the A-Main from the five heat races.
Starting fifth in the feature Brown would gradually move toward the front as Jeff Swindell raced out to a big lead. Sam Hafertepe Jr. caught Swindell in traffic and made the pass for the lead on lap fourteen just as Brown worked past Bryan Clauson for third. Brown had moved to second by lap nineteen, but found himself well behind the leader Hafertepe when the red flag waved for an incident involving Kevin Swindell. For the second race night in a row here the younger Swindell had started deep in the field and was racing to the front when the steering broke on his Indy Race Parts #71 this time putting him hard into the turn four guardrail. Kevin crawled out of his broken race car uninjured, but obviously frustrated with another part failure.
During the closed red flag where crews were unable to work on the cars, Brown realized that he was down to just three tear offs to use for the final six laps. Running behind Hafertepe was not an option so Brown tried to get under the leader going into turn three following the restart, but Hafertepe protected his lead by chopping off the line of his challenger. Brown lifted to preserve his second spot, but when he got a nice run off of turn two the follow lap he once again drove to the inside of Haferepe entering turn three. This time Hafertepe stayed up on the cushion and the crowd cheered as Brown took the lead and closed out the final four laps for the victory.
Hafertepe who finished second behind Brown in last Saturday night's 360 Nationals finale repeated that performance tonight in just his fifth 410 race of the 2014 season. Kerry Madsen came from the fourth row to finish third and that, coupled with his qualifying time and an impressive performance in his heat race landed the Australian driver at the top of the point standings on night number one. More on that heat race performance later. Terry McCarl closed out a solid performance with a fourth-place run and USAC champion Bryan Clauson posted his most impressive performance with a wing bringing the Buffalo Wild Wings #82 in for fifth.
Jeff Swindell suffered mechanical issues late in the race taking him out of the top five and back to 16th at the checkers, but the fact that the veteran driver was even in competition tonight was noteworthy. Swindell almost exclusively runs 360's now and when he popped his 410 engine at Sunday's Capitani Classic, Jeff figured that he would be a spectator for this week's Nationals. Instead the Buffalo Wild Wings Blazin' Racin' crew loaned Swindell a motor and he ended up starting on the front row of tonight's feature right next to Clauson.
The 26th car to take time, Paul McMahan turned the fastest lap with a 14.633 and the World of Outlaws regular wasted no time racing into the top four of the first heat race. A caution waved with three laps remaining in that heat when one of the track's ambulances needed to go out of the gate on the back stretch to take care of an incident and on the restart both McMahan and Ryan Bunton were able to shuffle Chris Shirek out of what had appeared to be a sure third-place finish and a spot in the night's A-Main. McMahan would start eighth in the feature and finished sixth putting him in third in points for the evening.
Prior to the start of the second heat you could see eighth-starting Kerry Madsen rolling in the higher groove as he tried to figure out how he would be able to pass on the fast and narrow surface. He and Brown had talked earlier about what it would take just to qualify for the feature and Kerry said that he was prepared to "put four in the fluff" and run above the cushion. The strategy worked nicely as Madsen picked off a car a lap until he got into second as Jon Agan held on to take the win.
Terry McCarl also used that higher line to advance from eighth to fourth in the third heat race that saw front row starters Jack Dover and Cole Wood finish one-two. Matt Moro drove the #10 car tonight that was originally entered with Garrett Dollansky as the driver and Moro put the car in the main by finishing third.
Ian Madsen driving a throwback paint scheme of the Jensen Construction #55 won the third heat after posting a disappointing 34th best qualifying lap. After running eleventh in the feature the current track point leader ranks 18th in the points likely putting him deep in Saturday night's B-Main.
The fifth heat was an illustration of just how much one driver's Nationals can change due to one finishing position. One of Pennsylvania's hottest drivers this season, Brent Marks is making his Knoxville Nationals debut and after qualifying 15th he was racing fifth in the final heat race. Marks was digging around the bottom and was closing in on James McFadden needing to make one more pass to put himself in the feature where he would have then started in the first two rows. When Marks left the bottom though he lost ground allowing McFadden to get away and send Marks to the B-Main where he could only muster a ninth-place finish. Had Marks been able to get by McFadden he would have likely put himself into the Championship feature on Saturday night. Instead he now ranks 24th likely putting him mid-pack in the C.
And on the opposite end of the story you have Ryan Bunton who benefited from the ambulance call in the first heat where he then had to coax an ailing motor over the final lap to the checkers. After a motor change Bunton started fourth in the feature and faded to fifteenth, but his point total still leaves him eighth after opening night with a total that just might get him into the big show. At worst he will be starting near the front of Saturday's B-Main.
Known for his qualifying prowess this season, Joey Saldana may have been disappointed with his eighth-best time and he failed to transfer out of his heat. The Brownsburg Bullet recovered nicely though running second in the B and he then ran up to eighth in the A to rank him perhaps a surprisingly sixth in points.
How fast did the rain make the Knoxville Raceway Thursay night? Twenty-one of the fifty drivers were in the fourteen second bracket and Randy Hannagan's lap of 15.866 that was the quickest of seventy-one entries on Sunday night would have been the slowest qualifying time tonight.
The show that was rained out on Wednesday night will be run tonight, Friday, while Friday's show will be run during the day on Saturday with hot laps beginning at 11 a.m.
No comments:
Post a Comment