Defending Champ Aaron Reutzel Opens Knoxville 360 Nationals With A Win

Using lapped traffic to get by California driver Colby Copeland with five laps remaining, Aaron Reutzel opened up the 2023 edition of the Knoxville 360 Sprint Car Nationals with a preliminary night victory on Thursday. Reutzel held off fellow Texan Sam Haftertepe Jr. over the closing laps and while he knows that he left some points on the table, Reutzel comes out of Thursday on top of the all important point standings that will determine the lineups for Saturday night's Championship event.

Winner Aaron Reutzel - Barry Johnson photo

Copeland would ride the bottom to take the lead from the pole position while Reutzel dispatched Jason Martin and Jamie Ball quickly to go from fourth to second. The caution would wave on lap four of the twenty lap headliner when Timothy Smith spun in turn two and during the caution it was noted that Scott Bogucki had charged from fifteenth to sixth in the first two miles of the race. 

Hafertepe was also on the fly coming from a fifth row start and he would now pick up the chase in third as one more lap would be scored before Tasker Phillips spun and then tipped over onto his side in turn four. Once back to racing and with Copeland still glued to the bottom, Reutzel was able to get up to the right rear of the leader while running the middle, but he could not make the pass as the grip was good off the bottom on both ends.

With six laps remaining Copeland had put some distance on both Reutzel and Hafertepe, but when he tried to squeeze under the slower car of Smith in turns one and two, it broke his momentum and the race was back on. Reutzel closed quickly down the back stretch and when Copeland drifted up the track in turns three and four, Aaron nearly jumped the cushion as Hafertepe tried to get to the low line. When Copeland again left the bottom in turn one that allowed Reutzel, Hafertepe and Bogucki to get around him during the lap as the race long leader dropped to fourth.

Early leader Colby Copeland - Barry Johnson photo

Hafertepe would make one last run at Reutzel with three laps remaining, but when Aaron closed the door in turn one he then pulled away to score his fifth 360 win of the season here at Knoxville. Hafertepe was the runner-up just ahead of the hard charger Bogucki, Chase Randall came from twelfth to finish fourth with Copeland holding on for fifth. Ball and Martin were next in line for sixth and seventh, Austin McCarl advanced six spots to finish in eighth, Kelby Watt was ninth and Tuesday's High Limit Sprint Car Series winner Justin Peck filled out the top then.

Runner-up Sam Hafertepe Jr. - Barry Johnson photo

The Rest of the Story......The 360 Nationals use the same qualifying points format as Knoxville's 410 Nationals with 200 points dropping two point increments for both qualifying and the A-Feature while each heat race winner earns 100 points with three point increments. The difference between the two events is that only six cars are inverted in the heat races this week while eight cars will make the invert next week. You have to be in the top four in the heats to make the A-Main for that evening......Drawing a low number for qualifying is vital to your success as the track just naturally gets slower as more cars go out and tonight it would be the second driver on the track, Kaleb Johnson that would set quick time. Reutzel felt like he left points on the table here as even though he was the fourth car out to time, he had the fifth fastest qualifying lap. Bogucki on the other hand was the 38th car out for qualifying and he could only muster the 25th fastest time which is why he landed in row eight for the A-Main.....While the top ten qualifiers really struggle to make the top four in the 410 Nationals, the 360 drivers have it a bit easier needing to come from fifth or sixth into the top four......Johnson was already up to third on the opening lap of the first heat race locking himself into the A-Main where, as the top point driver making the show from the heats, he would start eighth and then fade to thirteenth in the A-Main. How important is that low pill draw? Kaleb is fourth in the points after night one.......Young Tanner Holmes was impressive as the Oregon driver went from fifth to third on a lap one restart in the second heat only giving third back to Hafertepe a lap later......Timothy Smith got sideways exiting turn four as he paced the third heat to a start and that would allow Jason Martin to go from fourth to first and take the win. Smith made a nice recovery to finish second.....The battle for third was the race to watch in the fourth heat as Copeland and Kelby Watt swapped the position a couple of times. Watt would prevail for third and those extra three points would put him second on the points list after night one......As Bogucki ran away with the win in heat five, the race for the fourth and final transfer position was a good one featuring Justin Henderson, Reutzel and Rico Abreu. Reutzel would complete the pass on Henderson at the mid-race mark and that would then put him in a position to close out the night with the win......Both Henderson and Abreu would make the transfer out of the B-Main by finishing second and third respectively. Ryan Leavitt would take the win while Kade Morton would take the final transfer in fourth.......The only two significant incidents on the night would come in the first two tries at a start of the B as seventh starting Jack Anderson slid his car up the track in turn one and backed into the wall. Amazingly everybody was able to avoid him. On the second try at a start the C-Main winner Liam Martin would get upside down entering turn one.......The final checkers waved about ten minutes prior to ten o'clock and we look forward to night number two of qualifying on Friday.

Scott Bogucki - Barry Johnson photo

33rd Annual Xtream Powered by Mediacom 360 Knoxville Nationals Presented by Great Southern Bank Night #1 Points courtesy of KnoxvilleRaceway.com

1. Aaron Reutzel 483

2. Kelby Watt 472

3. Ryan Timms 470

4. Kaleb Johnson 470

5. Tanner Holmes 467

6. Jason Martin 464

7. Jamie Ball 461

8. Sam Hafertepe Jr. 460

9. Colby Copeland 457

10. Chase Randall 449

11. Scott Bogucki 448

12. Austin McCarl 440

13. Ryan Leavitt 440

14. Rico Abreu 433

15. Brenham Crouch 430

16. Justin Peck 429

17. Kade Higday 429

18. Kade Morton 423

19. Tasker Phillips 420

20. Justin Henderson 414

21. Chris Martin 410

22. Tyler Groenendyk 410

23. Tanner Carrick 409

24. JJ Hickle 402

25. Colton Hardy 401

26. Tony Rost 399

27. Timothy Smith 397

28. Blake Hahn 363

29. Jack Anderson 362

30. Jacob Hughes 359

31. Dustin Selvage 358

32. Chance Morton 358

33. Calvin Landis 357

34. JT Imperial 345

35. Ryan Roberts 337

36. Sammy Swindell 330

37. Ayrton Gennetten 329

38. Kelly Miller 322

39. Cody Ledger 321

40. Liam Martin 318

41. Brandon Anderson 315

42. Alan Zoutte 303

43. Howard Moore 300

44. Kyler Johnson 299

45. Christopher Townsend 284

46. Tuesday Calderwood 283

47. Gage Pulkrabek 282

48. Cody Ihlen 272

49. Tyler Graves 261

50. Aaron Werner 260