Schatz Headed For Number Twelve?

The 62nd NOS Energy Drink Knoxville Nationals presented by Casey's got underway Wednesday with defending champion Donny Schatz getting by National's rookie Chase Randall with three laps remaining to take the qualifying night feature victory. His 479 point total tops the list of the fifty-two drivers in competition on this first night and, while it may not be high enough to put Schatz on the front row for Saturday's championship event, it will definitely have him in a good position to pursue his twelfth Knoxville Nationals title, a feat that would tie him with "The King" Steve Kinser for the most wins in Sprint Car racing's most prestigious event. 

Donny Schatz - Barry Johnson photo

Top notch announcer Tony Bokhoven shared the interesting fact that this would be Donny's first qualifying night feature win since 2003, a year that another Tony Stewart owned car was driven to victory by Danny Lasoski and that means that in all of his eleven Nationals title, Schatz did not win on his qualifying night.

Barry Johnson photo

He probably would not have won this year either if not for a grinding crash involving Justin Peck on lap seventeen of the night's twenty-five lap finale. Peck, who had qualified second quick to start the night, was in a position to put his Pella Corporation sponsored #13 on the pole for Saturday night, but when he ran up over the right rear of Sheldon Haudenschild while racing for fifth exiting turn four, his car shot to the right and he slammed the outside guardrail at top speed with his car then ricocheting across the front stretch. Luckily all of the oncoming cars were able to miss him and thankfully Peck was able to climb out of the mangled race car under his own power. 

At the time of the accident young Chase Randall was challenging race long leader Blake Hahn and appeared to have Hahn cleared before the red flag flew. If the race would have stayed green, and with Schatz nearly a straightaway back in fourth behind Kerry Madsen, this one would have likely gone to Randall, but as we saw here this past Saturday night, "it's never over until it's over!" 

With Hahn bringing the field back to green, Randall again got a big run off the top of turns one and two and the threw the slider in three and four to take the point on lap eighteen. Schatz made quick work of both Madsen and Hahn to get to second, and it seemed inevitable that he would fly by Randall as well. But the kid did not go down easy as he crossed over the first pass by Schatz to regain the lead down the back stretch and then blocked his challenger in turns three and fourth causing the large Wednesday night crowd to get loud. 

Chase Randall (2KS) takes the lead from Blake Hahn - Barry Johnson photo

Gone are the days when Schatz would hear the boo birds prominently here at Knoxville and with this one being a battle between a legend and a prodigy, you had the sense that this crowd would be happy with either result. Randall did his best to ward off the challenge until lap twenty-two when Schatz put a strong slider on him in three and four to take the lead and soon the victory. Randall's runner-up finish should lock in the Troy Renfro owned #2KS to Saturday night's finale while Sheldon Haudenschild's run from twelfth to third at the finish will still leave him a bit short when it comes to the point totals. Kerry Madsen finished fourth, Hahn faded to fifth, Sye Lynch finished sixth and Hunter Schuerenberg drove the Swindell Speed Labs #39 to seventh. Dustin Selvage posted his best finish of the season here at Knoxville running eighth after starting second, Brandon Wimmer showed his old form running his retro Gold Eagle ride to ninth and Gio Scelzi nipped Tasker Phillips in the closing laps for tenth.

Scelzi and Phillips both had to transfer out of the B-Main so Gio's tenth place finish started from twenty-first. Phillips had to pass Jamie Ball on the final lap to claim the fourth and final transfer position from the B-Main and he was absolutely flying during the early laps of the feature moving from twenty-fourth to eleventh in the first nine laps. 

Two of the night's pre-race favorites were effectively eliminated on the opening lap of their respective heat races.

David Gravel showed his speed when, as the 34th car out to time, he posted the night's fastest lap of 15.458 seconds. This is by far the latest that we have seen a quick qualifier go out in recent memory and it may have been due to a track prep process that was a bit out of the norm. After some morning showers, the forecast was for a round or two of thunderstorms during the afternoon so no water was added until about five o'clock when the blue skies overhead made it obvious that the forecast was wrong. Usually during qualifying here at Knoxville, the 410's ride the cushion pushing it further and further up the track, but on this night the fast way around was by using the bottom, especially on the exit of turn four and that was what Gravel did to lay down his quick lap.

Starting eighth in the first heat race though, Gravel got sideways in turn four as he tried to make a move under McKenna Haase and he was then clipped by Justin Sanders. The contact sent him nose first into the outside guardrail and even though he was able to stay in motion after a full spin, he drove straight to the work area with heavy front end damage. Unable to restart and being scored in tenth, this would send Gravel to the C-Main, a race that he would win to start him twenty-first in the B-Main where he then raced his way up to eleventh.

With the Friday night "Hard Knox" opportunity to still make Saturday's A-Main by finishing in the top four of the main event, it was a bit of a surprise that Gravel and his team chose to run the C and the B as it sill left him 21st on the points list from night one.

Barry Johnson photo

Despite being the first car out for qualifying Aaron Reutzel posted the twelfth best lap and when he collided with Dustin Selvage on the front stretch while taking the green in the second heat race, Reutzel spun and made contact with the outside rail entering turn one. There would not be enough time to replace the front end in the work area, so his team called it a night with the opportunity to come back strong on Friday.

The other half of the field is set to go tonight and with the relatively low point totals posted by Wednesday's competitors the front row for Saturday's headliner is likely on the line.

Wednesday's points courtesy of the Knoxville Raceway website:

1 15 Donny Schatz 479

2 39 Hunter Schuerenberg 462

3 55 Kerry Madsen 459

4 18 Gio Scelzi 458

5 14 Corey Day 458

6 2KS Chase Randall 449

7 13 Justin Peck 449

8 83 James McFadden 447

9 9 Kasey Kahne 446

10 7TAZ Tasker Phillips 437

11 7W Dustin Selvage 435

12 17 Sheldon Haudenschild 434

13 42 Sye Lynch 434

14 52 Blake Hahn 429

15 4W Jamie Ball 416

16 7TW Brandon Wimmer 415

17 10L Scott Bogucki 414

18 19 Brent Marks 412

19 21H Brady Bacon 408

20 21T Cole Macedo 403

21 2 David Gravel 403

22 1X Jake Bubak 401

23 22 Riley Goodno 399

24 1 Justin Henderson 394

25 39M Justin Sanders 392

26 7S Robbie Price 382

27 83T Tanner Carrick 382

28 26 Zeb Wise 381

29 1M Don Droud Jr. 380

30 27 Carson McCarl 380

31 50YR JJ Hickle 379

32 2K Lynton Jeffrey 377

33 9P Parker Price-Miller 373

34 16 Brooke Tatnell 370

35 49X Tim Shaffer 357

36 24T Christopher Thram 350

37 1C Brenham Crouch 344

38 55T McKenna Haase 340

39 1A Chase Dietz 340

40 8 Aaron Reutzel 333

41 91 Kyle Reinhardt 327

42 95 Matt Covington 315

43 70 Kraig Kinser 315

44 17X Terry McCarl 300

45 24H Kade Higday 294

46 13JT Mark Dobmeier 272

47 44 Chris Martin 270

48 2M Davey Heskin 269

49 2KK Kevin Ingle 267

50 15JR Cole Mincer 255

51 37 Ayden Gatewood 238

52 9H Landon Hansen 235