Justin Henderson is hotter than hot at the Knoxville Raceway. Last Saturday night when McKenna Haase grabbed the headlines, and rightfully so after being the first woman to win a feature race at the famous speedway, Henderson was having a pretty notable night himself by winning the 410 feature and running second in the 360 main event. Last night the driver from Tea, South Dakota, did it one better as he swept both divisions against stellar fields in an impressive fashion.
The car counts were phenomenal once again with 33 each in the 410's and 360's plus 25 cars signed in for competition in the 305 division, and with rain approaching from the south and west track officials were forced into "hurry up mode" from the first drop of the green.
The 305's were first up for features and the red flag waved on the opening lap when Mitchell Alexander got sideways in turn two, hopped the berm and went for a tumble collecting Don Dawson III in the process. Once under green pole-sitter Devin Kline threatened to make this a runaway only to have the caution wave on lap four when Dawson spun in turn three leaving Rob Weuve with no place to go. On the restart Stacey Alexander and Mike Mayberry swapped the second spot back and forth as Kline again pulled away and on lap eight the caution waved again when Corey Kautz spun in turn four with Rob Weuve again having to spin to avoid heavy contact.
At this point the crowd was starting to get a bit nervous as the wind cooled and picked up from the south indicating that the rain was getting closer and after one more lap under green Weuve spun on his own for another caution. On the next restart Trevor Smith went for a tumble under the scoreboard in turns three and four and after a quick cleanup the field was set for a green-white-checkers restart. But the caution waved again when Cody Ambers and Christian Bowman got locked together in turn two. The race would finally make it to the checkers following the next restart as Kline would take his second win in three weeks ahead of Stacey Alexander, Mike Mayberry, Ben Woods and Kevin Hetrick who muscled his way past McKenna Haase in the final set of turns.
The 15-lap 360 feature was quickly brought to the track and as soon as the green flag waved the third starting Henderson drove under the front row of Nate VanHaaften and Matt Moro to hold the lead at the flagstand. Unlike the caution plagued race before it, this one was clean until the white flag waved for Henderson and as he went to the cushion in turn one the lapped car of Sawyer Phillips running right behind the leader slapped the guardrail to bring out the only caution of the race. On the restart Henderson drove away once again to take the win while Clint Garner slipped by VanHaaften to finish second. Tony Shilling picked up a couple of spots in the final laps to finish fourth while Jon Agan chalked up a fifth place run.
The 410 feature was already pushing off as Henderson scaled his 360 ride and once making weight he quickly strapped into his 410 car that was slated to start on the pole position for the twenty lap finale. Bill Balog would join Henderson on the front row and when Balog swung high coming to the start the fourth starting Brian Brown said "thank you very much" and powered to he lead at the drop of the green. Brown had things well in hand until lap eleven when he slowed suddenly heading down the back stretch and he pulled to the infield as Henderson picked up the lead. The battle for second was the one to watch as Danny Lasoski, Tim Kaeding and Kerry Madsen were going at it well behind the leader. That trio was closing a bit on Henderson as the laps clicked away and when Matt Covington got upside down in turn two with four laps remaining it looked like we would have a wild finish in this one.
Lasoski made a run at Henderson on the restart only to have Justin brush it off and when Kaeding challenged to the inside and Madsen to the outside, Henderson pulled away as Lasoski threw the blocks that he needed to try to hold on to second. Henderson would go on to take his second win in the last ten minutes while Madsen, who flew back to Knoxville on a rare Saturday night off for the World of Outlaws, found a new shock package to his liking taking second from Lasoski at the checkers. "The Dude" finished in the third sport while Kaeding held off a late charge from Terry McCarl to finish in the fourth position.
As the crowd shuffled out, a check of the radar showed the rain less than ten miles from the track and you have to give credit to Race Director John McCoy, his crew and all the drivers for speeding through the show. Hot laps started shortly after 6:45 and the final checkers waved at 10:40 showing that it just takes some time to group qualify ninety-one sprint cars, run eleven heat races, two B-Mains and three feature races. There was absolutely no wasted time here this evening.
Tonight's (Sunday) Shottenkirk.com Sprint Invaders show at 34 Raceway in Burlington has been rained out and with that we will be taking about a two week break here on the Back Stretch. In the meantime please poke around in some of the archives that you can find over on the right of this page and definitely stay in touch with our other writers here at Positively Racing.
See you again soon here on the Back Stretch!
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