Change just one letter in one of his primary sponsors, TheSnowDominator.com, and you would have an accurate description of Terry McCarl's performance at the 25th Annual Arnold Motor Supply 360 Knoxville Nationals presented by Great Southern Bank. The Altoona, Iowa, driver earned the pole position in the 25-lap championship feature with a solid performance on Friday night and he then sealed the deal with a flag-to-flag run to collect the $10,000 top prize on Saturday.
With heavy rains in the forecast for later in the evening the Knoxville Raceway crew made the tough decision late in the morning to drop the 305 division from the show and move the start time up by a half hour and, as it turned out, it was a wise move as lightning began to flash to the north of the speedway as driver introductions for the main event got underway shortly after 9 p.m.
The preliminary events were not so much about who won, but who transferred and there was some entertaining racing to be found in each. Seven cars would move up from the E-Main to the D-Main and the race was dominated by Jake Bubak. Caleb Helms finished second, but then failed to go to the scales dropping him to the back of the finish and allowing Kris Miller to continue his evening.
Jeff Swindell ran off with the win in the D-Main where again seven drivers would move on up and that race for seventh was a thriller as Jack Dover had worked his way up from his seventh row starting spot. Tasker Phillips had just moved by Alan Zoutte for that seventh position with three laps to go and as the white flag waved Dover threw a slider at Phillips to take away the transfer. Tasker was not going to give in though and he came right back at Dover in turn three. The two were side-by-side exiting turn four and racing for the checkers with Tasker up high and Jack down low, and having a slight advantage Tasker squeezed his challenger down the track down the front stretch to earn the spot by inches putting an end to a disappointing weekend for Dover.
The C-Main got off to a rough start when Parker Price-Miller went for a tumble entering turn three on the opening lap. He was dazed, but uninjured and on the restart it was Ian Madsen racing out the the early advantage. Fourth starting Sam Hafertepe Jr. tracked down Madsen to take the lead and my attention was then drawn to the race for the fifth and final transfer position. Jonathan Cornell was trying to salvage a tough weekend by moving on to at least one more race, but he had ASCS National Series regular Seth Bergman hounding him. With two laps to go Cornell had survived the challenge only to have a caution wave for Danny Jennings who had slowed in turn four. The restart was exactly what Bergman needed as he picked off Cornell in the final laps and joined Hafertepe, Madsen, Lee Grosz and Scottie McDonald as transfers to the B-Main.
Ryan Roberts and Bronson Maeschen would bring the B-Main field to green with just the top four earning a spot in the championship event and the first three laps saw a torrid battle for the lead between Roberts and Billy Alley. Roberts would hold off Alley to then stretch a lead as Tony Shilling and Maeschen settled into the top four positions. Russ Hall was running fifth, working hard to mount a challenge and was given a huge opportunity when Willie Croft drew a caution with just two laps remaining. Looking back I wish that I would have taken note of where Davey Heskin lined up for the restart, but since I figured that the final transfer would be a race between Maeschen and Hall I got lazy. Hall could not make a run on Maeschen as the green flag waved, but mid-pack Heskin found a bite off the bottom of turn two and passed several cars heading down the Back Stretch. After taking the white flag Heskin powered under Hall in turn one and was closing quickly in on Maeschen entering turn three, but he needed one more lap that was not to be found on the score sheet.
Introductions were made, the field was set for the 25-lap championship feature and as they rolled to the green eighth-starting Danny Lasoski flared out and hit the throttle right as Justin Clark waved the green pinning sixth-starting Aaron Reutzel in the middle and dropping him back even further as Terry McCarl led the field down the back straightaway. As the leaders were about to complete lap one Ryan Roberts and Justin Henderson collided in turn three with both cars ending up in the guardrail and suffering front end damage. Henderson was able to return for the restart and this time Reutzel flared wide to not only thwart Lasoski's move, but to give himself a nice run around the top side of turns one and two where he quickly moved up to the third position as McCarl and Dusty Zomer established themselves as the leaders.
McCarl would stretch the lead to a full straightaway by lap ten before his first test of lapped traffic came when Billy Alley slid up in front of him in turn three. McCarl calmly tapped the brakes, turned the car the left and drove under the lapper barely breaking his momentum and from that move it was pretty clear that nobody was going to catch the veteran driver on this night. The laps clicked off of the scoreboard quickly and when McCarl had trouble getting around Jon Agan in the closing laps it really did not matter as Zomer was well back and fighting his own traffic in Jamie Ball. With the checkered flag McCarl made it five straight, and six of the last seven 360 Nationals where the winner went flag-to-flag (stats courtesy of track historian Eric Arnold) and the celebration was on in victory lane. Zomer would come home in second followed by Reutzel while Wayne Johnson and Sammy Swindell completed the top five. Clint Garner would finish in sixth, Brian Brown spent most of the race battling his uncle Danny Lasoski for seventh, Kevin Swindell was ninth and Bronson Maeschen was the Hard Charger moving from 24th to tenth.
With the 360 Nationals in the books followed by some overnight rain, the Knoxville Raceway is now poised for tonight's Capitani Classic showcasing a big field of the 410 Sprint Cars. Hope to see you there tonight!
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