Twenty-one-year old Tyler Erb powered past Mason Zeigler on lap seventeen and then drove away to a convincing win during Thursday's opening night of competition at the 15th Annual Lucas Oil Knoxville Late Model Nationals presented by Casey's General Stores. With the win the young Texan collected $7,000 and currently ranks third in the accumulated points that will determine the starting field for Saturday night's $40,000-to-win 100 lap finale.
Zeigler and Erb would start the twenty-five lap sprint together on the front row with Zeigler using the pole position to take the early lead. Fourth starting Chad Simpson would drop Erb to third and it would be Simpson who would take the lead from Zeigler on lap four, but before he could get back to the line to make it official the caution would wave for Jeremiah Hurst who had coasted to a stop in turn two.
On the restart Zeigler would hold off his two primary challengers until lap eight when Kyle Bronson's engine went up in smoke down the front stretch. Once back to racing Erb would takeover the second spot and go to work on Zeigler with the leader running wide around the cushion and the challenger working the low side. On his first charge to the bottom on lap eleven Erb would nose ahead in turn one, but when he clipped the inside berm in turn two his car turned hard right nearly collecting Zeigler in the process. Somehow Erb was able to make the save losing several car-lengths and now racing again side-by-side with Simpson.
It was obvious that Erb was on a mission though as he drove away from Simpson and steadily erased the gap on the leader once again diving to the inside in turn one. The two would race side-by-side off two with Zeigler edging ahead again on the back stretch, but when the young Pennsylvania driver jumped the cushion turn four that was all that Erb needed to power to the lead.
The caution waved one lap later for a stalled Bobby Pierce, but following the restart nobody had anything for Erb as he cruised to the win. Second-place was decided in the final two turns in dramatic fashion as Earl Pearson Jr. threw a big slider on Chad Simpson in turn three with Simpson having to turn the car completely sideways to avoid hard contact. Pearson would take the runner-up spot while Simpson made a great recovery to hold on for third, Jimmy Owens started tenth and finished fourth while third starting Frank Heckenast Jr. completed the top five. Quick qualifier Scott Bloomquist finished sixth, Brandon Sheppard had to win the B-Main to start nineteenth and he raced his way up to seventh, Chase Junghans had a solid showing in eighth, Chris Simpson was ninth and Zeigler faded to tenth.
Thursday Notes......Fifty-seven drivers signed in to compete in one of the most fan-friendly qualifying formats in the sport. More on that in a bit.....The field was split into two groups for qualifying, but the fastest overall time of the night was set by Scott Bloomquist who flat footed his car around the big half mile on lap one for a time of 17.231 seconds. This was just over a half a second faster than everybody else and even more impressive was the fact that he did it as the next to last driver out to take time. Bloomquist still had the speed in his heat coming from eighth to second, but after picking up three positions quickly in the feature after starting eighth he could not advance any further and even dropped a spot to finish sixth. The performance was still good enough to rank second in points for the night......Jeremiah Hurst ran the last six laps of the first heat race with smoke trailing from the Roberts Racing #58 as he held off Zeigler and Tim McCreadie to finish second, so it was no surprised when the mechanical gremlins returned early in the feature. It has been a solid 2018 season for Hurst as he nears his first All Iowa Points Late Model championship.....The second heat race had a dramatic late race change when Billy Moyer slowed with mechanical issues while running second with three laps remaining. Jimmy Mars was comfortably in the lead and appeared to be on his way to victory, Don O'Neal had charged up to third and looked to be a sure bet to capture the final transfer spot, Chase Junghans had faded out of the top three and Chris Simpson was struggling back in sixth. After the restart it was a completely different scenario. Junghans charged back to the front to take the win, Simpson found his speed and finished second, Mars held on for third and O'Neal dropped to fifth after being passed on the final lap by Mike Mataragas. And remember, under this format every position counts!......In his first appearance at Knoxville Austin Rettig spun in turn two while running second early in the third heat......After a less than stellar qualifying effort Brian Birkhofer came back to win the fifth heat race in the Jason Rauen owned "Dirty 30". Birky then started fourteenth in the feature and finished eleventh in his return to this event that he won in 2014 in dramatic fashion before announcing his retirement.....Shane Clanton was running strong and looked like a sure top five finisher in the main event before he jumped the turn two cushion on the final restart. The World of Outlaws regular dropped from fourth to sixteenth at the checkers......This past Tuesday night on Dirt Late Model Live on Dirt On Dirt Jason Feger was the chosen advocate for the "let's qualify and start the fast guys up front" qualifying format in a conversation that included promoter Tony Izzo Jr. taking the opposite side. Feger qualified twelfth in Group A starting him fifth in the third heat where he would have three faster qualifiers starting behind him in the eight car invert needing to finish in the top three to make the A-Main. Feger though faded to seventh at the checkers putting him on the inside of the third row for the C-Main where he finished fifth missing a transfer to the B-Main by one position. You can bet that this night did not change Feger's opinion on his chosen format, but then again it wasn't the format that produced this result. The Highside Hustler will get a chance to redeem himself tonight.....After a Friday night incident in last year's Knoxville Nationals Tyler Erb also had some less than favorable words about the Knoxville format. On this night Tyler qualified seventh fastest in Group B, tenth best overall, started his heat race from sixth and raced his way up to third which landed him on the outside of the front row for the main event. The difference from last year? The young man got up on the wheel and "raced" his way to success. It would be interesting to see if his perspective on the qualifying format has changed from one year ago......How can anybody complain about a format where every position matters? Earl Pearson Jr.'s slide job on Chad Simpson on the final lap earned him two extra points, just enough to give him the high point total for the night listed below. They line 'em up and do it all again tonight at Knoxville!
Thursday Point Totals (courtesy of the Knoxville Raceway website)
1 1 Earl Pearson Jr. 488
2 0 Scott Bloomquist 487
3 91 Tyler Erb 482
4 25S Chad Simpson 480
5 1S Brandon Sheppard 476
6 20 Jimmy Owens 474
7 99JR Frank Heckenast Jr. 473
8 32S Chris Simpson 467
9 76 Brandon Overton 463
10 25C Shane Clanton 459
11 5 Don O'Neal 458
12 18 Shannon Babb 453
13 25Z Mason Zeigler 452
14 18J Chase Junghans 448
15 30 Brian Birkhofer 448
16 1R Josh Richards 447
17 32 Bobby Pierce 442
18 40B Kyle Bronson 442
19 49 Jonathan Davenport 439
20 28M Jimmy Mars 424
21 1777 Jared Landers 422
22 00S Jesse Stovall 422
23 58 Dave Eckrich 418
24 14 Darrell Lanigan 416
25 58H Jeremiah Hurst 409
26 14J Jake Neal 407
27 39 Tim McCreadie 405
28 3S Brian Shirley 395
29 51M Joey Moriarty 395
30 20RT Ricky Thornton Jr. 392
31 51 Matt Furman 387
32 16T Tyler Bruening 378
33 33 Nick Marolf 376
34 83 Scott James 376
35 22 Greg Satterlee 375
36 56S Chris Spieker 373
37 39T Rob Toland 366
38 28 Dennis Erb Jr. 366
39 1M Mike Mataragas 359
40 25F Jason Feger 352
41 14M Morgan Bagley 351
42 37 Scott Ward 347
43 29D Spencer Diercks 337
44 1GRT Justin Zeitner 331
45 14Z Zach McMillan 328
46 94 Austin Rettig 319
47 93 Jay Johnson 319
48 21 Billy Moyer 316
49 15D Justin Duty 312
50 54 Mike Fryer 312
51 B1 Brent Larson 304
52 40 Joel Callahan 296
53 9 Lyle Zanker 294
54 22B Jonathan Brauns 293
55 4W JC Wyman 293
56 6H Al Humphrey 287
57 10C Junior Coover 281
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