It's Shark Week At Knoxville!

Following up on his teammate's victory on Wednesday night, Jacob Allen made it a clean sweep of the qualifying features for Shark Racing when he captured the Thursday A-Main win at the 61st NOS Energy Drink Knoxville Nationals presented by Casey's. It would be Allen's fist win at the world famous Knoxville Raceway and it would be well earned after fighting off a late charge from former Nationals champion Brad Sweet. The results of the qualifying night wins for the two teammates, however will be quite different when it comes to their setup for Saturday night's finale. More on that later.

Jacob Allen - Barry Johnson photo

Allen would start to the right of Zeb Wise on the front row for the twenty-five lap main event with Wise getting an early advantage before the second generation driver from Hanover, Pennsylvania, swept around the outside to be the official leader of lap one. With Allen starting to build up a lead, the third starting Brad Sweet would soon move to second and the chase was on. Meanwhile, back in the pack I wish that I would have paid more attention to Kyle Larson in the first four laps.

Barry Johnson photo

Starting from twenty-second after qualifying through the B-Main, the defending Knoxville Nationals champion Larson rocketed up to tenth in those first two miles and he was not done yet. As Larson continued to advance to the front the focus of the race went back toward the leaders in the non-stop event as Sweet was slowly reeling in Allen and looked like he was sizing up his prey for a late race pass.

With four laps remaining the move was made as "The Big Cat" put the slider on Allen in turn three only to have Jacob perfectly execute the crossover in turn four to take back the advantage coming to the front stretch. Sweet would keep the pressure on over the final laps, but with Allen working the lapped cars like a driver who has been to victory lane often here, Sweet would not get another clear shot at the leader before the checkered flag waved.

Carson Macedo had pulled within striking distance of the lead duo when Sweet made his late bid and he was ready to pounce on any mistakes while finishing third. Austin McCarl closed out a strong night by racing from seventh to fourth at the checkers, a performance that will put the third generation driver on the pole for Saturday's fifty-lap headliner. Larson would get all the way up to fifth at the checkers and one has to wonder if he would have been able to go all of the way to the front had there been just one caution mid-race.

The pole-sitter Wise slipped to sixth, Tyler Courtney also had a solid night running seventh and he will start next to McCarl on Saturday, Kasey Kahne advanced four positions to finish eighth, Lynton Jeffrey faded from a second row starting spot to come home ninth and J.J. Hickle locked himself into his first Championship main event at the Nationals after closing out the top ten.

Tasker Phillips - Barry Johnson photo

The Rest of the Story.....While it was still important to draw an early qualifying position, the track did hold it's speed longer than it has over the four nights of the Nationals qualifying (360's and 410's) as local favorite Tasker Phillips went out third and put up a time that would hold up through the full field of fifty drivers. Austin McCarl was aided by having the fourth qualifying spot and one has to wonder what could have been for Lynton Jeffrey. Pushed off eighth in the qualifying order, Jeffrey pulled to infield with mechanical issues before completing a lap and then came out at the end for just one lap on the clock. It was still good enough for 17th, better than most of the second half of the roster......Carson Macedo and Tanner Carrick banged wheels not once, but twice as Macedo made the pass for the fourth and final transfer spot in the first heat race.....Jeffrey would get by Matt Juhl coming to the white flag in the second heat race to take the fourth transfer position.....The makeup of the third heat would change when pole-sitter Chris Martin was penalized a row for jumping the start and on the second drop of the green J.J. Hickle went from sixth to first on the opening lap. He would go on to score the win while Chris Windom fought off the challenges of Brooke Tatnell to qualify in fourth.....As usual on the qualifying nights the race for fourth was the one to watch in the fourth heat as well with three cars involved in a heated battle. Tyler Courtney would take the spot from Kraig Kinser mid-race and Anthony Macri might have been able to mount a charge on Courtney if he had not been caught behind Kinser for an extra lap. Courtney would be the first driver of the week to actually start the ten lap distance from the fourth row and then crack the top four......Another thrilling three car battle for fourth would close out the heat races as Ryan Roberts did all he could to ward off the challenges of Austin McCarl and Rico Abreu. McCarl would prevail at the checkers making him the only driver who had started from eighth to make a transfer spot this week. And that is a big reason why he will lead the field to green for fifty laps on Saturday night......Brooke Tatnell was racing in fifth, one spot out of a transfer in the B-Main when his left front wheel came off on lap three. With Daryn Pittman well out front, the big crowd was thrilled by the battle for second as Tasker Phillips went back and fourth with Kyle Larson. After a couple of big sliders and a wheel bang or two, Larson would prevail by less than a car length to get the biggest crowd reaction of the week thus far. Spencer Bayston was holding on to the fourth and final transfer until the final lap when he slowed and pulled to the infield handing a gift to Buddy Kofoid. Without it, Kofoid does not lock himself in to the Championship feature.....As I predicted yesterday, only six drivers from Wednesday night were among the sixteen that you will find listed below and that means for the first time in the long history of this prestigious event, a qualifying night feature winner will still have to race his way in to the Championship event. Logan Schuchart will start Saturday's B-Main from the outside of row one. 

The first eight rows of the A-Main are now set with Friday's "Hard Knox" program to add four more drivers who will lineup in rows eleven and twelve. The final four starters will come from Saturday night's B-Main. There are still plenty of tickets for tonight's program, but they were within a couple of hundred tickets from selling out for Saturday night. If you cannot attend in person, you can dial up the Knoxville Nationals live on DirtVision.

Saturday's A-Main Qualifers

Austin McCarl - Tyler Courtney

Donny Schatz - David Gravel

Carson Macedo - Kyle Larson

Brent Marks - Daryn Pittman

Brad Sweet - J.J. Hickle

Jacob Allen - Parker Price-Miller

Justin Sanders - Buddy Kofoid

Tasker Phillips - Aaron Reutzel

Carson Macedo - Barry Johnson photo

Knoxville Nationals Opener To Logan Schuchart

In a race that was a virtual replay of Sunday night's Capitani Classic, Logan Schuchart started up front with Donny Schatz in the fourth row. Schuchart would build a big lead, only to be chased down by Schatz late with Logan making a late move to preserve the lead and take the win, this time on the opening night of the 61st NOS Energy Drink Knoxville Nationals. While the feature race was familiar, the qualifying night as a whole was something that has not been seen before in the long history of this event as the majority of the drivers that qualified well were unable to transfer out of their heat race where the top eight starters are inverted and must race into the top four.

Barry Johnson photo

First the feature. World of Outlaws regulars Logan Schuchart and James McFadden started the twenty-five lap A-Main from the front row with Schuchart shrugging off a charge from McFadden before racing out to a solid lead. Giovanni Scelzi would soon close in enough on the leader to make it interesting while the real charge was coming from Schatz after starting seventh. Donny would drive past Scelzi with eight laps remaining and a full straightaway behind the leader, but that gap would shrink quickly.

As lap twenty-two went into the books Schatz was within two car-lengths of Schuchart before Logan made the move of the race by executing a big slider on the lapped car of Carson Short in turns one and two. The momentum from the big drive into turn one followed by the kick off the cushion in turn two allowed Schuchart to again drive away from his challenger down the back stretch and Schatz would be unable to make another run before the checkers waved.

David Gravel would drive from eighth to finish third dropping Scelzi to fourth in the final laps while McFadden slipped to fifth. Aaron Reutzel who flirted with the top five early would finish in the sixth position, Justin Peck dropped from fourth to seventh, Knoxville Nationals rookie Cole Macedo had an impressive showing in eighth with another event rookie Corey Day running ninth while Roger Crockett completed the top ten.

Logan Schuchart - Barry Johnson photo

The Rest of the Story......Actually this might be the real story of the night as drivers who qualified well were unable to pass anybody in the heat races. I'm assuming that most of our readers are aware of the qualifying format here at Knoxville, so here is just a quick tutorial. The field of around 100 is split so a driver runs on either Wednesday night or Thursday night to accumulate points. Qualifying, two laps on the clock at the start of the evening, earns as many points (200 with two point increments) as the feature finish while heat races award 100 points with three point increments for each position. The qualifying order is determined by a pill draw as drivers sign in. Heat races have the top eight cars by time inverted with only the top four qualifying for the A-Main. On this night only three of the top twenty in qualifying were able to race their way into the top four during the five heat races, something that I am almost sure that Knoxville's record-keeper Eric Arnold will confirm as being unprecedented. In the post-race Press Conference, the three drivers on the podium all noted how tough it was to come from the fourth row to make it into the top four tonight apparently forgetting that none of them actually started their heat race from the fourth row, but more on that and my proposed solution at the end of this entry.....The top ten in qualifying went out in the following positions in the qualifying order: Parker Price-Miller (10th), Brent Marks (3rd), Justin Sanders (17th), Ian Madsen (6th), Josh Schneiderman (9th), Ayrton Gennetten (24th), Sawyer Phillips (2nd), Sheldon Haudenschild (12th), Shane Golobic (11th) and David Gravel (20th). Meanwhile, drivers who went out 32nd or later included Schatz, Schuchart, Peck, McFadden, Dobmeier, Eliason, Scelzi, Reutzel and more, so can you see why it would have been tough for those top ten drivers to get past some of those names in front of them? Even with this spectacular fan-friendly qualifying system, it is all about the draw that determines the qualifying order and as soon as I saw it posted an hour before hot laps, I knew that we would be in for a night like this.....Starting sixth in his heat race, Schatz would have been relegated to the B-Main if not for a late pass of A.J. Moeller. The regular weekly competitor is known for his speed early in the night and was running second mid-race, but he was running a line that nobody else was in and he was soon ate up by Reutzel, Schuchart and, on the final lap, Schatz......California drivers took three of the four transfer spots in heat two while New Jersey's Kyle Reinhardt joined Corey Day, Colby Copeland and Cole Macedo on their way to the A-Main. Brent Marks went from eighth to fifth, but could not chase down Macedo.....Brandon Wimmer coaxed his badly smoking car to the victory in heat three while. Aussie newcomer to Knoxville Lachlan McHugh drove an aggressive race to take the final transfer ahead of Justin Sanders. Dustin Selvage expressed his opinion of McHugh's first lap slider during a restart....Gio Scelzi challenged Scotty Thiel early in the fourth heat until his engine started sounding rough. Thiel would take the win while Scelzi's crew executed a quick engine change before feature time....Reported contact with David Gravel would flatten the left rear tire on Marcus Dumesney's car on the opening lap of the fifth heat race and that would slide Gravel up to the third row for the restart. So while "officially" he would be the only car to crack the top four tonight from a fourth row starting position, Gravel actually started the ten lap distance from row three in a race won by Mark Dobmeier. Gravel would cross the line in a virtual dead heat with Mike Wagner with the transponder giving Wagner third by 0.013 seconds.......Despite being loaded with drivers who had qualified well, the B-Main was rather uneventful with the top four finishers Price-Miller, Marks, Madsen and Sanders coming from the first two rows.

Parker Price-Miller - Barry Johnson photo

The unusual qualifying night once again has some fans, and I'm sure some drivers trying to make the case for reducing the heat race inverts from eight to six. I disagree with that argument for two reasons. First, as always under this system the cream has risen to the top with your top ten in points from night one looking like this.

Donny Schatz 469

David Gravel 469

Brent Marks 462

Parker Price-Miller 457

Justin Sanders 456

Aaron Reutzel 447

Gio Scelzi 445

Logan Schuchart 444

James McFadden 441

Justin Peck 441

Second, in my opinion the issue is not the invert, it is the importance of the pill draw that needs to be addressed so if you reduce the invert to six you only hurt those drivers who are forced to qualify late in the order even more by not giving them the chance to prove their strength in the heat races and the feature.

Last week during the 360 Nationals I felt that it was more noticeable than ever before that the track "fell off" in speed quickly during qualifying, meaning that if you didn't go out early you had no chance of cracking the top ten. That was repeated here tonight with the 410's, so if there is going to be any kind of a change in the format for the Nationals going forward, this would be my suggestion.

Give the drivers each one lap on the clock in the order of the pill draw and award 100 points to the quick time with increments of one point going down. Then, reverse the order and have them take another lap on the clock with another points award of 100 points on down to even the playing field. You would then line up your five heat races similar to what you do now using the point totals after qualifying with the top eight inverted.

Keeps the racing for the fans while somewhat mitigating the importance of the pill draw in the process.

Something to look for tonight (Thursday) is the pill draw and whether or not several of the pre-race favorites are in the top twenty-five. If they are, my prediction is that only six of the drivers from Wednesday will have enough points to crack the top sixteen that will be locked in for Saturday night's championship race. It is very likely that Logan Schuchart could miss the cut and I can guarantee you that it would be the first time that a qualifying night winner did not lock in for the finale.

Good or bad, it is the true beauty, excitement and intrigue of the Knoxville Nationals!

Jeff's pre-race favorite to win on Saturday night, Donny Schatz - Barry Johnson photo

 

Aaron Reutzel Unchallenged In 360 Knoxville Nationals Championship Drive

Starting from the outside of the front row Aaron Reutzel vaulted to the lead at the drop of the green, then pulled away from a talented field of drivers to go virtually unchallenged for thirty laps to win the 32nd 360 Knoxville Nationals presented by Great Southern Bank. Thursday night's winner Sam Hafertepe Jr. made a valiant effort to reel in the leader late in the race, but would come up short in the non-stop event at the world famous Knoxville Raceway.

Reutzel had a put a full straightaway on the field by the time that Hafertepe, who had started seventh, slipped past pole-sitter Lynton Jeffrey with fourteen laps remaining. Now running second, Sam would slowly cut into the lead until a big run off of turn two while Reutzel was negotiating traffic would get the crowd's attention with just five laps remaining. You could see several fans, at least in my section, trying to coax Hafertepe closer and closer as the final laps wound down and after taking the white flag he would charge deep into turn one nearly pulling even with Reutzel, but when his challenger drifted off the bottom Aaron would drive away down the back stretch and through the final two turns to take the victory.

In addition to the winner's purse of $15,000, Reutzel will collect another fifteen grand in lap money making it a $30,000 night, one of the richest events that you will find in 360 c.i Sprint Car racing. Hafertepe would take the runner-up honors while the race for third was the one to watch as Jeffrey and Clint Garner would go wheel-to-wheel for several laps. At the checkers it would be Garner taking the position ahead of Jeffrey while Terry McCarl passed Brian Brown in the closing laps to finish fifth.

Cory Eliason started twelfth and finished seventh, Ayrton Gennetten took eighth with the Rookie of the Nationals, seventeen-year-old Chase Randall coming from eighteenth to ninth. The defending 360 Nationals champion Gio Scelzi completed the top ten while the defending 410 Knoxville Nationals Champion Kyle Larson finished eleventh after starting from the outside of the eighth row. 

The 2022 360 Knoxville Nationals Champion is Aaron Reutzel - Barry Johnson photo

The Rest of the Story.....With a temperature nearing one hundred degrees, the schedule for the evening was pushed back an hour and racing would start as the sun was setting. The eight lap E-Main was a single file affair on a green race track with Texan Jett Carney taking the win......My friend, photographer and Positively Racing colleague Barry Johnson had the perfect description for the D-Main saying "the 'D' is for destruction" as a couple of grinding crashes would happen before a lap could be scored. The first one would see the seventh starting Seth Brahmer get sideways on the front stretch sending the rest of the field scrambling, but coming from the twelfth row Ryan Bowers could not see him in time and drilled Brahmer at full throttle. Thankfully the momentum of the spin had lifted the front end of Brahmer's car just before impact, but that would send Seth upside down into the catch fence just before the flagstand. There was a sigh of relief when both drivers climbed out of their mangled rides uninjured......After ten minutes of fence repair the second try at a start would see the third starting Rusty Hickman jerk the car sideways to keep from hitting Collin Moyle going into turn one and the result was a six car pileup that included Hickman, Sam Henderson, Tony Rost, Clayton Christensen, Ben Brown and Kelly Miller. Again it was great to see all drivers emerge the junk pile unscathed.....Once the race was able to get past the first turn, it would stay green for ten laps with Californian Colby Copeland winning from the pole position. Nine cars would make the transfer to the C-Main with Luke Verardi holding off Ryan Timms at the checkers to take that last qualifying position in an event that took forty-three minutes to complete.....Four cars would make the move from the C to the B and the top four, Kaleb Johnson, Cam Martin, McKenna Hasse and Kyle Reinhardt would quickly separate themselves from the rest of the field. With no cautions to slow the field, the leaders would get into traffic during the closing laps and that would allow Brooke Tatnell to close quickly on Hasse who was now on the bubble. As the white flag waved it looked like Tatnell was going to have a run on McKenna, but when Jake Bubak surprised him with a big slider in turns one and two, the crossover would take away Tatnell's momentum allowing McKenna to ease to that final transfer spot.......The B-Main would also go non-stop with eighteen laps to determine the final four starters in the Championship race. Pole-sitter Tyler Courtney would take the win with Parker Price-Miller making the big move from eighth to finish second. Young Brady Forbrook had an impressive weekend as he took the third spot and fourth went to Indiana's Cole Thomas. I was following the progress of Anthony Macri who found some speed mid-race and then quickly came from thirteenth up to sixth. "The Concrete Kid" would run out of laps in this one, but keep your eye on him next week during the 410 Nationals.

The chance of rain has been greatly reduced for Sunday in Knoxville so look for a big field of 410's for the 11th Annual Capitani Classic. The Pro Sprint division is also on the schedule with hot laps to get underway somewhere in the vicinity of 7 p.m. Then on Monday night the action moves over to the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa for the 27th Annual Sage Fruit Front Row Challenge. 

Flag-to-Flag From Third, Brian Brown Dominates Friday Qualifier At Knoxville

Christopher Thram and defending ASCS National Tour champion Blake Hahn made up the front row for Friday night's twenty lap main event at the Knoxville Raceway, but they were no match for the driver that was lined up third on the twenty-four car starting grid. With a great start as the green flag waved, Brian Brown swung to the outside entering turn one and then rode the cushion to the lead on the opening lap, a lead that he would not relinquish on his way to victory in the second of two qualifying nights for the 32nd 360 Knoxville Nationals presented by Great Southern Bank.

Brian Brown at speed - Barry Johnson photo

A three car tangle involving Kaleb Johnson, Davey Heskin and Kelby Watt produced a red flag with seven laps completed when Heskin went for a tumble. And after climbing from the car uninjured Davey would go and exchange greetings with Ian Madsen whom he felt had a part in the accident. The race stoppage would bring the field back to Brown who had opened up a full straightaway advantage and on the restart Thram would make a run for the lead hugging the low line.

Terry McCarl - Barry Johnson photo

It would take Brown a couple of laps to shrug off that challenge and by the time that Terry McCarl was able to finally clear Thram for second, the six remaining laps were nowhere near enough to reel in Brown who was on his way to victory in a dominating performance. The twelve time All Iowa Points champion McCarl was solid in second with Lynton Jeffrey making a late charge up to third, and coupled with his results earlier in the evening, that would make the native Australian the pole-sitter for Saturday night's finale.

Thram was the night's upstart posting one of his best finishes ever here at Knoxville in fourth with another of Knoxville's long-time regulars in the 360 class, Clint Garner coming home fifth. Wayne Johnson who is racing with back pain from a crash about a month ago was battling McCarl for third during the early stages of the race before fading to sixth while Cole Thomas held off Kyle Larson on the final lap to finish seventh. Larson, who had to win the B-Main to get qualified, had charged from twenty-first to tenth in the first seven laps, but could only pick up two more positions before the checkers. Tasker Phillips and Blake Hahn would fill out the top ten.

The Rest of the Story.....I can't think of another event where the two laps of qualifying at the start of the night are so important to the outcome than they are here at both the 360 and 410 Nationals and, since more often than not the speed of the track falls off quickly when the sun is still out, that makes the pill draw for the qualifying order almost equally as important. On this night the first two cars out were Kelby Watt and Dylan Westbrook. Watt's best lap was a 16.422 and it would stand up to be the best of all fifty-five cars that took time. Westbrook's best lap was a 16.835, good enough for sixteenth in the final rundown, however when he drove straight to his trailer rather than going directly to the scales, Westbrook's time was disqualified and his 360 Nationals essentially over. The Canadian could have started at the back of the C-Main, but chose to load it up for the night instead.....The surprise quick timer Watt backed it up by coming from sixth to finish third in the opening heat race where young Chase Moran from Fultonville, New York, drove straight into the turn one fence on the opening lap and then went end over end two or three times. Still hoping to make his first competitive lap at the famous Knoxville Raceway, word is that Moran's crew is searching for a chassis so that he can try it again on Saturday night......In the second heat young Cam Martin was looking good after returning from a shoulder injury that has kept him on the sidelines for the past two months and would have likely taken the win if not for a caution with two laps remaining when the third running Daryn Pittman had a motor let go. Both Tasker Phillips and Terry McCarl would get past Martin on the restart while Jake Bubak would take advantage of Pittman's misfortune to become the only driver from outside of the six-car invert to transfer out of a heat race this week.....Austin Miller would be the only driver to win a heat from the pole position tonight, but all eyes here in heat three were on Kyle Larson who had started fifth. With the eighth fastest time on the night, and an eight car invert in the feature, a top four finish here would have likely landed the versatile superstar on the front row of tonight's main event, but a slow start found him still in fifth at the midway point of this eight lap distance. Carson McCarl was about ten car lengths ahead of him and while Larson was able to show him a nose diving into turn one, he could not make it stick in two as Carson would again pull away down the back stretch. At the checkers the youngest McCarl still had five car lengths on Larson who now have to run the B-Main, and his hopes to start up front in the feature now in the wind......This is another example of what I love about the Knoxville Nationals format, and the reason why "The Rest of the Story" is even longer than the lead, is that little things that happen through the night have such a big impact on how the end plays out. One small change and the faces in victory lane would be completely different!......I'd have to see a replay in order to describe it accurately, but drivers were four wide for second in turn one on the opening lap of the fourth heat race. This race would go a long way to building Lynton Jeffrey's top point total as he would come from the sixth starting spot to take the win. Brian Brown came from fifth to second while Harli White held down third. A star in the 360's in California, Justin Sanders driving the Swindell Speedlab #39 would hold off Brady Bacon for the final transfer position.....On of my long time favorites, Bobby Mincer from Burlington secured a 360 c.i. engine to compete this week and after posting the 25th best time on his first lap, that motor went south on the second lap so he would give up his second starting spot in the fifth and final heat. This is a huge advantage for the drivers scheduled to start fourth and sixth in the lineup as they would now slide up a row for the start. In my opinion this is one of the flaws in the Nationals' race procedure as those two drivers would now be starting ahead of drivers that they had actually outqualified. With the points being such a huge determining factor it would make more sense to cross the field over where the driver originally slated to start third now moves to second, the driver scheduled to start fourth moves to the inside of row two and so on, and so on. It would be Tyler Courtney that would move to the front row and he and Ian Madsen would wage a thrilling battle for the lead over the first four laps. Madsen would finally ease away and that would allow our attention to go back to a great three car battle for the final two transfer positions featuring Cole Thomas, Blake Hahn and young Brady Forbrook. When Thomas stumbled on the cushion in turn four with two laps to go, Forbrook had to check up to keep from hitting him and that would leave Guy Forbrook's son out of a transfer position after clocking in fifth fastest earlier in the evening. By the way, after setting that fast lap, infield announcer Wade Aunger reported that Forbrook's car had weighed in exactly at the 1,500 pound minimum......The 2007 IMCA Modified Harris Clash champion here at the Knoxville Raceway, Spencer, Iowa's Clayton Christensen would win the C-Main......Kyle Larson would start the B-Main from third and blow past the front row of Ryan Roberts and Forbrook on his way to a convincing victory. Brady Bacon charged from sixth to second while Roberts held down third. Veteran driver Jeff Swindell was running fourth in the final laps, but Forbrook was not about to come up one spot short of making the A-Main again as he put a tight slider on Swindell in turn three coming to the white flag. Jeff would express his opinion of the move on the cool down lap, but it had to be just as much the frustration of missing out on the final transfer spot in the closing laps that had him a little hot under the collar......One of the storylines to follow this week has been the performance of teenage sensation Ryan Timms. At fifteen, the Oklahoma driver who has won eleven times already here in 2022 had to get an exemption from the insurance company in order to compete here at Knoxville and made his first appearance here last week with a disappointing ninth-place run in the B-Main. With a night under his belt at Knoxville the team was looking for bigger things on this night, but a late pill draw and using a line that nobody else had been running left the youngster mired in 48th on the qualifying chart. If you kept your eye on him in the third heat race you could see the potential as he quickly moved to sixth and was actually closing in on Kyle Larson mid-race before Larson had to go elbows up to try to get to a qualifying spot. Despite the run from tenth to sixth, his slow qualifying effort would bite him again as the B-Main is not lined up by heat race finishing position, but instead it reverts to your qualifying time and that would start him in the tenth row of the B-Main. Timms would advance several positions before slowing and pulling to the infield mid-race. Knoxville can be a humbling experience, let's see how the kid does on Monday at Osky's Front Row Challenge. 

Ryan Timms - Barry Johnson photo

With the points all tallied up from both night's of qualifying, here is how tonight's 30-lap Championship feature will lineup:

Lynton Jeffrey - Aaron Reutzel

Clint Garner - Terry McCarl

Brian Brown - Ayrton Gennetten

Sam Hafertepe Jr. - Gio Scelzi

Christopher Thram - Wayne Johnson

Thomas Kennedy - Cory Eliason

Garet Williamson - Justin Henderson

Tasker Phillips - Kyle Larson

Blake Hahn - Chase Randall

Matt Juhl - Kelby Way

Plus four B-Main transfers

Saturday night's pole-sitter Lynton Jeffrey - Barry Johnson photo

Yes, it will be a hot one today and that is why the Knoxville Raceway has pushed back the schedule by one hour with hot laps now getting underway at 7:45. That means the sun will be down when we are ready to go racing so head on out to the Sprint Car Capital of the World for what should be an entertaining finale to the 360 Knoxville Nationals!  

Hafertepe Takes Knoxville's 360 Nationals Opener

Five-time ASCS National Tour champion Sam Hafertepe Jr. from Sunnyvale, Texas, drove under Canadian Thomas Kennedy on lap seven and then pulled away to take the win in the twenty-lap main event on the opening night of the 32nd 360 Knoxville Nationals presented by Great Southern Bank. Thursday's victory is Hafertepe's second win at the famed Knoxville Raceway half-mile oval in 2022, but under the event's unique qualifying method where drivers earn points in qualifying, heat races and the main events his effort puts him third in the points after night one of two for qualifying.

Kennedy would outduel fellow front row starter Garet Williamson to take the early lead with Hafertepe looking strong from the fourth starting slot. The Texan would drive by Williamson on lap four and using a low line he would pass Kennedy on the seventh circuit just before the only caution of the event waved for a two car tangle on the front straightaway. Contact between Matt Covington and Alex VandeVoort would send VandeVoort sliding sideways while Covington would suffer a flat left rear tire that he would be able to change prior to the restart.

Sam Hafertepe Jr. - Barry Johnson photo

After the restart Gio Scelzi, Ayrton Gennetten and Aaron Reutzel would make their moves to try to get to the front with some great racing action using the entire width of the race track. Scelzi, the defending champion of this event would move to second with six laps remaining and while he was able to cut into the lead a bit, Gio was unable put a challenge on Hafertepe who would take the convincing victory.

Aaron Reutzel's drive from seventh to third, along with his efforts earlier in the evening would put him on top of the points list for the night at 487,. Williamson would fade a bit to fourth with Kennedy holding on for fifth. Briefly getting as high as third during the second half of the race, Gennetten slipped to sixth at the checkers, but still earned the second highest point total for the evening. Chase Randall moved from eleventh to seventh, Matt Juhl finished eighth, Cory Eliason was ninth and Parker Price-Miller advanced six positions to complete the top ten.

Early leader Thomas Kennedy - Barry Johnson photo

Following Reutzel, Gennetten and Hafertepe in the first night point standings are Sclezi, Kennedy, Eliason, Williamson, Justin Henderson, Randall and Juhl. They will now wait to see how their points match up with Friday's qualifiers to see how Saturday's Championship race will lineup.

The Rest of the Story.......Considered to be one of the pre-race favorites, Shane Golobic would start his night in fine fashion earning 200 points with the quick time in qualifying. But the highs and lows of Knoxville would be quickly demonstrated when Golobic hopped the right rear tire of McKenna Hasse in turn three on the opening lap of the first heat race sending him hard into the guardrail. The mangled car would then take a couple of tumbles before coming to rest and thankfully Shane climbed out uninjured, but with his chances for a Saturday night championship all but washed away......He did somehow tally 361 total points ranking him 28th in the standings for the night so apparently drivers still earn points for races that they do not participate in. This assumption is backed up by the fact that Chase Porter earned 230 points despite never taking a lap after popping a motor in hot laps......Once back to green in that first heat race, Scelzi would come from fourth to nip Hasse at the line on lap one and then cruise to an easy victory. McKenna would then ward off a late charge from Ryan Giles to secure the fourth and final transfer position.....After starting third, seventeen-year-old Chase Randall would charge to the lead on the second lap and then drive away for the win in heat race number two. Sawyer Phillips who had posted the second best time in qualifying would have his night come to an end on lap two with mechanical issues and the battle for the fourth and final transfer spot would get wild on the final lap. Matt Covington had passed Garet Williamson for the position, but when Covington got a little out of shape in turn two, Williamson would have a big run on him down the back stretch. Entering turn three Covington went toward the bottom, the same line that Williamson was heading for and that would lead to nose-to-tail contact as Williamson tried to make a quick lane change to the top. Covington would save his car from a spin while Williamson also tried to salvage momentum and they would now exit turn four side-by-side. One more bit of contact would occur as Covington tried to ride him out, but it would be Williamson who would take the position that would eventually land him on the front row of the main event. This is what I love about Knoxville's format, because if this battle for fourth comes out differently, it completely changes everything else for the remainder of the night!.....Heat three would see Parker Price-Miller win from the front row with Kennedy, Eliason and Henderson coming from fourth, fifth and sixth respectively to make the transfer.....A three-car battle for fourth during the early laps of the fourth heat was worth the price of admission in itself as Aaron Reutzel, Austin McCarl and Sam Hafertepe Jr. duked it out trading sliders and crossovers amongst themselves before Reutzel was able to clear himself from that battle and then charge to second at the checkers behind Rookie-of-the-Nationals contender Corey Day. McCarl had to stand on the brakes to keep from being pinched into the guardrail by Hafertepe exiting turn two mid-race and once again the results of one of these heat race battles goes a long way in determining the outcome of the evening as Hafertepe would race on to third while McCarl was not able to catch Alex VandeVoort in time to crack the top four.....Hometown driver Devin Kline would be the only pole-sitter to win a heat race tonight in the fifth qualifier with Ayrton Gennetten moving from sixth to second to help him toward his second best point total on the night.....The B-Main had some trouble getting started as on the first attempt a scramble mid-pack would send Ryan Giles backing into the guardrail just before the entrance to turn one. On the second try Scott Bogucki would get crossed up exiting turn two with Nathan Mills being the victim of a rollover as drivers tried to avoid. Once the twelve lap event was able to get underway four of the top five starters, McCarl, Covington, Jack Dover and Riley Goodno would claim the final four starting spots in the night's A-Main while pole-sitter, and the first driver to take time earlier in the night, Tyler Blank would fade to sixth.

Scelzi, Hafertepe and Reutzel joined by Mt. Pleasant native Abby Liechty in Victory Lane - Barry Johnson photo

My evening started with the most friendly and happy young lady at the Credentials building who greeted me as if I were a long lost friend. I wish that I had asked her name, because she deserves a mention for her hospitality especially when some of us media folk can be real jerks at times. I hope that she maintains that smile throughout the next ten days because it is infectious. (Saturday follow up, her name is Angie) I then made my anticipated visit to the Italian restaurant on the square, Baggio's for a great meal followed by a cold one and some good conversation with Spencer Watts and his crew who have to have one of the best camping spots in town.

We do it all again tonight with an absolutely stacked field of drivers including Kyle Larson, Terry McCarl, Brian Brown, Tyler Courtney, Blake Hahn, fifteen-year-old sensation Ryan Timms and Thursday night's BC39 Midget feature winner at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's dirt track, Buddy Kofoid all in action. Hot laps will get underway sometime after 7 p.m. with racing to follow. Tickets are primarily General Admission and if you cannot attend in person be sure to tune in the action on DirtVision.