Ian Madsen was unstoppable, while Clint Garner and Kade Higday both had to chase down another driver to win on Slideways Karting Center night at the Knoxville Raceway, a night that was punctuated by a pair of scary crashes. Thankfully in both, no drivers were injured.
The first of those came during the running of the B-Main for the 360's as Alex Hill and Alan Zoutte battled for position near the front of the field. Hill, the young lady from British Columbia, passed Zoutte on the inside racing down the front stretch and then drove up in front of him entering turn one. When doing so her car jerked sideways and Zuotte, with absolutely no time to react, t-boned her at full speed, When Hill's car started to roll side-to-side this vaulted Zoutte's car high into the air, so high that he cleared the tall guardrail and crashed through the Slideways billboard ending up outside of the race track. Now if you have never been to Knoxville before, the apex of turns one and two is no more than ten yards from Highway 14 so not only was there concern for the safety of the two drivers involved, but a quick prayer went out that nobody had been walking along the sidewalk and, that if the car had reached the road, that nobody else had been in harms way.
One of track's fantastic safety crew scaled the rail fence that has to be at least fifteen feet tall to get to Alan as quickly as he could and it was soon announced that the drivers were okay and that nobody else outside the track had been effected. I have seen three cars flip over the fence in turn three over the years, but this is the first one that I have seen leave the park in one and two and it definitely makes your stomach drop each time. In all instances though the driver has amazingly escaped injury although for the low budget hometown racer Zoutte, it will be awhile before he can rebuild and get back to racing.
The second wild crash occurred early in the 305 main event as three cars got upside down in turn four. Matt Stephenson and Corey Kautz both went for a tumble, but Joe Simbro had the scariest ride when he jumped a wheel and sailed virtually head on into the guardrail. Simbro too had some serious air time and came close to clearing the fence, but when it was all over the drivers were able to walk away from the mangled mess of Sprint carnage.
In that fifteen lap 305 feature Mike Mayberry would lead the first two laps before he slid sideways in turn four. He was able to recover after jumping the inside berm, but gave up eight positions before doing so as Brad Comegys assumed the lead just before the caution waved on lap four when Brandon Whittington spun in turn four. The red flag slowed the action soon after that and once back to racing Comegys did his best to hold the top spot. Eric Bridger had come from the fourth row to second and looked like he would be the man to challenge, but Kade Higday was able to pass Bridger on a restart then, with four laps to go, he drove around the outside of Comegys to take the lead. It was all over from there as the quick qualifier on the evening drove away for his first win in 2017. Comegys was strong in second Ryan Leavitt fought his way back to third, Bridger was fourth and Matthew Stelzer was fifth.
Sawyer Phillips and Matt Moro started from the front row in the 18-lap feature for the 360's and they had a spirited battle going early as Phillips was elbows up holding off Moro. Just after Moro was able to complete the pass the caution waved for John Anderson's spin in turn four and on the restart Phillips' bid to retake the lead was stopped at lap six when Anderson spun again at the same place on the track. On this restart Clint Garner flexed his muscles and drove around Moro for a lead that he would not relinquish on his way to victory. Cap Henry doing double-duty in the Buffalo Wild Wings ride stayed close, but never mounted a challenge in second, Moro came home third with Phillips in fourth and Ryan Giles completed the top five.
The first three rows of the 410 finale were stacked with two Madsens, two McCarls a Tatnell and a Brown and it would be Ian Madsen going from the pole to a quick lead at the drop of the green. Tim Kaeding's spin on lap two brought the field back to Ian and while Brooke Tatnell chased the leader, the racing for position just behind him was intense. So much so that when Tasker Phillips spun with four laps remaining there were some drivers pulling alongside each other under caution to communicate their thoughts on some of the action.
On the restart it was no surprise that Ian was able to drive away once again to score the flag-to-flag win over Tatnell. Current point leader Brian Brown slipped by Kerry Madsen late to finish third while Austin McCarl finished fifth, one position ahead of his father Terry who will be inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame here next Saturday night when the USAC Sprint Cars will be the headliner,
Tonight (Sunday) the Shottenkirk.com Sprint Invaders will be at 34 Raceway west of Burlington and due to post-race travel I will not have a report here on the Back Stretch. I encourage you to check in on Bill Wright's OpenWheel101 for that race story as well as all of the other news from the world of open wheel racing.
Have a safe and pleasant Memorial Day while keeping in mind the real meaning of the holiday.
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