The famous black dirt of the Knoxville Raceway was nearly turned over to Gravel Saturday night, but in the end it was track regular Mark Dobmeier who reigned supreme as the rain increased in victory lane.
A high school senior from Waterford, Connecticut, David Gravel ventured out to the Knoxville Raceway to make his first-ever appearance at the hallowed speedway and for the first half of the 410 feature Saturday night it looked as though he might just pull off a victory. Mark Dobmeier started the twenty-lap event from the pole with Gravel right behind him and the two ran one-two on lap one before the caution waved for Rager Phillips who had spun in turn two. On the restart Gravel made a run at Dobmeier down the backstretch and pulled even with him in turns three and four, but again Phillips spun in turn two slowing the event. As the field prepared for the restart a light rain started to fall on the speedway and if the cars did not get back up to speed quickly the track would be lost.
Back under green the battle continued between Dobmeier and Gravel and at one point it looked like the youngster had an opportunity to slide up and shut the door on the leader exiting turn two. But when he held his line down low, Dobmeier sprinted past him again down the backstretch and into turn three. This time Gravel tried to take a different approach as he followed the leader in to the low line into turn three and then drifted to the cushion in four. With nobody running the middle that groove had slicked up considerably from the light rain and Gravel lost a ton of momentum losing sight of Dobmeier and turning second over to Brian Brown. As the leader pulled away the race now became a battle for second with Brown, Gravel, Lynton Jeffrey and point leader Don Droud Jr. all involved. With the track now taking rubber on the bottom, getting increasingly wet/slick in the middle, and with the cushion pushed all the way out to the guardrail at both ends, passing became difficult. This was evidenced by the fact that Brown could not get around the lapped car of Bob Weuve over the final eight laps, but Droud’s experience here came into play and he slipped by both Jeffrey and Gravel in the closing laps. At the checkers it was Dobmeier comfortably out front for the win with Brown and Droud next in line. Jeffrey passed Gravel late to finish fourth and the kid from Connecticut will still have a pretty cool story to tell to his classmates when he returns home as he finished fifth.
The 360 Sprint main event came to a sudden halt on lap two when one of the top contenders Greg Bakker veered hard right exiting turn four and slammed the guardrail. Fortunately Bakker, like all of the other drivers involved in incidents here tonight, escaped serious injury. Once back to green there was no catching Josh Higday who was in a class of his own tonight. While Higday dominated, the battle for second through sixth was very entertaining as drivers threw slidejobs at each other throughout the event. Clint Garner started tenth and made a big move into the top five using the cushion on the lap two restart. And a few laps later he put a slider on Randy Martin for fourth that forced Martin to mash the binders or go for a ride. When the caution waved a few laps later Martin, who had faded several positions after losing his momentum, pulled up alongside Garner while the field circled the track under caution to say "hello" and then gave him a nice little bump on the rear bumper to express his displeasure. Once back to green Higday pulled away again and the battle for second between Jon Agan, Bryan Dobesh and Garner took center stage for the final five green flag laps. With Higday taking the win, Agan held his line well and finished second while Garner got past Dobesh late to come home third. Ryan Roberts, who started the 15-lap finale in row seven, rallied to a fifth place finish.
The 305’s were on the card tonight as well and it looked like the feature race would belong to Matt Stephenson, that is until disaster struck on the final lap. After taking the white flag and holding a solid lead over Austin Johnson, Stephenson ran the cushion through one and two as he quickly approached the slower cars of Nick Ross and Jamie Ball. Those two drivers exited turn two on the bottom groove and Stephenson cleared Ross on the high side, but midway down the back straightaway Ball and Stephenson ran out of room and the two made contact busting the left front of the leader. As his crippled mount came down the track Ross had no place to go and he hopped Stephenson’s wheel sending Ross for a tumble. It was a tough way to lose for the veteran from Altoona as his car came to a halt less than half a lap away from the checkers. On the restart there was no denying Johnson from his first career victory at the Knoxville Raceway. Steve Breazeale muscled his car in for second as his power steering had went away earlier in the race, Marty Stephenson came from eight to third while Bob Hildreth and Mitchell Alexander completed the top five.
Knoxville Notes……Due to open dates on schedules of regional series, rainouts at other tracks and who knows what other reasons, there were several "surprise" entrants tonight as 31 410’s, 35 360’s and 18 305’s filled the infield. Along with Gravel, non-regulars in the 410’s included Sid Blandford, Kyle Hirst, Bill Rose, Mike Reinke, Phillip Mock, Scott Uttech, Jacob Ossenfort, Tony Bruce Jr. and Mark Shirshekan. A rainout at Lake Ozark Speedway likely brought Randy Martin, Jesse Hockett and Haley Arnold to town in the 360’s……Hirst and Paulus had problems all night and never ran more than a lap or two in competition, while Reinke had a transfer spot locked up in his heat before something let go under the hood…..Two of the top young drivers in the 360’s were involved in a red flag incident late in the feature as Lee Grosz spun in turn two and collected Jonathan Cornell. Cornell went for a wing bending tumble as both drivers were eliminated after running in the top ten……While disaster for Matt Stephenson resulted in a victory for Austin Johnson, the kid from the Twin Cities avoided his own disaster during the first heat race of the night. As Johnson tried to make a pass on the inside of Alan Ambers in turn one, Ambers pinched him down sending Johnson for a spin. Steve Palmer took evasive action and barely missed Johnson only to make heavy contact of his own with the turn two guardrail sending #2 into a wild sequence of tumbles. Matt Stelzer was also involved……The red waved again at the start of the second 305 heat when veteran driver Bob Lamb hopped a wheel and took a wild end over end ride that forced flagman Doug Clark to take a quick step back on his perch. Lamb was obviously shaken as the rescue crew talked with him, but with their assistance he slowly exited his damaged ride and walked to the ambulance……The Knoxville Raceway crew did a spectacular job of pushing the show along as they were obviously paying attention to the weather radar that showed a band of activity slowly creeping toward the speedway throughout the evening. Of course when we left home mid-afternoon there was not even a mention of rain in the forecast! Even a five minute intermission would have meant that the show would not have been able to be completed as the rain picked up a bit during all three victory lane presentations that were put off until the final checkered flag waved. This attention to the weather and the effort made to push the show along as quickly as possible was a stark comparison to an experience for me at another track earlier this year (see older blogs for details).
I had the honor of filling in for "Hot Rod" Pattison on the night’s live internet coverage by Hoseheads Radio, joining Bill Wright for the call of the racing action. Pattison was back home in South Dakota celebrating the graduation of his daughter and I appreciated the invitation to sit in for the evening. You can catch every race night live from the Knoxville Raceway at www.hoseheads.com and by clicking on the Hoseheads Radio link on the right side of the page.
No comments:
Post a Comment