Having been rained out five of the last seven weeks, drivers and fans alike were excited to return to the Knoxville Raceway Saturday night. And, with perfect weather forecast, and delivered, the pits were full with ninety-seven Sprint Cars across three divisions and a large crowd filed in on 3M night at the speedway. With the two weeks of Nationals quickly approaching several drivers were doing double duty and two of them would find victory lane on the evening while the third winner was hoisting a trophy at Knoxville for the very first time.
Wayne Johnson and Ian Madsen brought the field down for the green in the twenty-lap feature for the 410 division with Johnson racing to the lead. As one of the six drivers who raced in both the 410's and the 360's on the night, Johnson was hoping to improve on his DNF in the 360 main, but his lead was short-lived as Madsen drove by him on lap three. The caution waved on lap seven when Brad Loyet slowed at the top of turn two and on the restart it was Justin Henderson who would now race to second and try to keep pace with the Aussie Madsen. The interval between the top two remained between five to ten car lengths until lap fifteen when lapped traffic became a consideration. Madsen handled it well but when he would have to change from his preferred line it gave Henderson the opening that he was looking for and when the white flag waved you had a new leader. Madsen tried to find his way back to the front on the final lap, but it was not to be as Justin Henderson recorded his sixth career feature win at the Knoxville Raceway. Madsen was second, Johnson took third, Dusty Zomer wrapped up a solid night for him in fourth, more on that in a moment, and Brian Brown made a bold move in turn three on the final lap to steal away the fifth spot from Sammy Swindell. Clint Garner, Terry McCarl, Davey Heskin and Craig Dollansky completed the top ten.
Calvin Landis would set the pace for the opening laps of the 18-lap main event for the 360's before yielding to Dusty Zomer on lap three. Zomer then quickly opened up a full straightaway lead before the race was slowed on lap six for debris off of Sawyer Phillips' car in turn one. Once back to green Zomer again put some good distance on the field and he would have no problem cruising to the feature win. The battle for second was a good one though that saw Justin Henderson nip Landis at the finish line by a fraction of a second. Jamie Ball posted a solid fourth-place showing ahead of the veteran Jeff Swindell, Joe Beaver was sixth followed by Lee Grosz, Russ Hall. Jarrod Schneiderman and Jason Johnson.
Devin Kline is in his first season of wheeling a 305 cubic inch winged sprint car as part of the Larry Ball Jr. led team and he looked nothing at all like a rookie when he pulled away from the field at the drop of the green for the fifteen-lap main event. With a full field on hand for the division the traffic was thick and while Kline handled it nicely, it still allowed for veteran driver J Kinder to quickly close the gap and with just five laps remaining Kinder went storming past for the lead. Most drivers, let alone a rookie, would have been done at that point, but Kline used the traffic to his advantage to regain the lead on the following lap and he then held on over the final four circuits around the legendary half-mile to score his first career feature win. Veterans Kinder and Steve Breazeale would settle for second and third on this night while the native Hawaiian Keoni Texeira was fourth. Kevin Hetrick picked up fifth-place money ahead of Stacey Alexander and Jeff Wilke while Mitchell Alexander, Kade Higday and Mike Philbin completed the top ten.
Knoxville Knotes......35 410's, 34 360's and 28 305's made up the 97-car field and, at least as far as my memory serves, that is as many as has been seen here since the track went to three divisions for the weekly program......It was also the first time that I could remember that a B-Main was needed for the 305 division. There have been nights where the class has drawn more than 24 cars, but attrition during prelims would trim the field to the point where the last chance qualifier would not be needed...... Besides Henderson, Zomer and Wayne Johnson, the other double-duty drivers were Jamie Ball, Bronson Maeschen and Jason Johnson...... Sammy Swindell has stepped away from the World of Outlaws schedule to focus on Knoxville and after setting quick time he dropped to seventh on the first lap of his heat race, then came back to take the fifth and final transfer spot. Sammy then started eighth in the feature and he was running fifth until the final set of turns when Brian Brown slipped under him on the bottom of turn three.....Rico Abreu was also looking to get some more Knoxville experience tonight and after failing to transfer from his heat, Abreu was the final transfer out of the B-Main putting him at the back of the 24-car feature field. Rico made some big progress early but then settled into a 14th-place finish......Young Harli White of Lindsay, Oklahoma, made her first-ever appearance at the Knoxville Raceway in the 360 division and if you are not familiar with her story, or if you just want to hear it again, check out this ESPN feature. Harli timed in 25th out of 34 cars and then failed to transfer from her heat race. In the B-Main though she started fifth, moved to fourth and then held on to the checkers to earn the final transfer to the main event where she then got several laps of experience finishing 21st. I wouldn't be surprised to see her back in two weeks for the Arnold Motor Supply Knoxville 360 Nationals.....California driver Chase Johnson was impressive in his first Knoxville appearance finishing twelfth in the 360 main event......Odessa, Texas, driver Josh Baughman won the third 360 heat in fine fashion and then ran 20th in the feature......305 fast qualifier Matthew Stelzer had motor issues in his heat race that then scratched him for the rest of the night.....Nobody was more frustrated than infield announcer extraordinaire Mike Roberts when the PA system went down just before Devin Kline pulled into victory lane. It would have been great to hear Kline's immediate reaction to scoring his first win so early in his rookie season, but his joy could still be heard twenty minutes later when Roberts interviewed him while Dusty Zomer scrambled to strap into his 410 car after celebrating his win in the 360 division.....I was dumbfounded when just as the 410 feature field entered turn three looking for the green, one of the new Knoxville announcers encouraged the fans to get up onto their feet for the start of the main event. I hope that it was just because they had missed the parade lap while completing the feature lineup, but if not somebody needs to let them in on a tradition at the Knoxville Raceway that goes back to at least as far as legendary announcer Jack Miller. Miller could generate excitement from the crowd better than anyone else, but he always took a moment just before the feature would start to remind everybody that "when everybody sits, everybody sees" and when I first heard those words at age thirteen I really appreciated it because I was well short of the six foot three inches that I finally grew to. All of the announcers who have followed him, Tim Trier, Jack Herwehe, myself, Tony Bokhoven, Justin Zoch, Blake Anderson and others, have kept that tradition alive here because it is absolutely true. When everybody sits, everybody sees, including the kids who are so vital to the future of this sport. This is not NASCAR, this is Knoxville, where you do not have to create the illusion of excitement by having the fans stand up. The excitement starts with the drop of Doug Clark's green flag and everybody should have the opportunity to be able to see it!
Get out to the track of your choice soon and we will see you on the Back Stretch.
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