Starks and Brian Brown made up the front row for tonight's twenty-lap main event and despite the star studded field behind them you had to figure that Brown, the 2014 winner of this event, would be the man to beat. It was the young driver from the Pacific northwest, Trey Starks that would lead lap one though before Brown put the slider on him in turns one and two on the second trip around the historic half-mile. With Brown working the bottom, Starks stayed up on the cushion and appeared to have a run on the leader before the caution waved on lap four after a spin by Sawyer Phillips in turn three.
On the restart Starks was able to regain the lead bringing the fifth starting Greg Hodnett with him as Brown was shuffled back to third. Hodnett then applied the pressure and Starks was able to fight off the challenge for two laps before Hodnett motored by on the inside in turn two on lap eight. The caution waved one more time on lap ten when Parker Price-Miller, driving the Townline Variety #67, slowed with mechanical issues and on the restart there was no staying with Hodnett who pulled away over the final ten laps to take the victory.
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| Greg Hodnett (27) takes the lead away from Trey Starks - Barry Johnson photo |
Brown used the mid-race restart to slip past Starks and he would come home second while Starks posted an impressive podium finish in third. Quick qualifier on the night, Clint Garner finished in the fourth position and his point total will put him on the pole for the championship A-Main on Saturday night. The ageless Jeff Swindell had a strong showing in fifth, Dusty Zomer is settling back into the Buffalo Wild Wings car with a sixth place finish, Nate Van Haaften closed out a solid evening in seventh and he will start third in Saturday's finale. Wayne Johnson's eighth place feature finish scored him enough points to start to the outside of Garner in Saturday's main event, while Sam Hafertepe Jr. and Christopher Bell both needed a transfer out of the B-Main to finish ninth and tenth.
Friday Notes......If you are looking for Thursday's story here on the Back Stretch you are not going to find it as I was in Washington DC on business, returning just in time to catch tonight's action......It definitely paid to go out early to qualify tonight as the first three drivers to hit the track qualified fourth (Stu Snyder), third (Christopher Bell) and first (Clint Garner) respectively......The first heat race had an incident at the start when contact broke the front end on Brooke Tatnell's #63. Tatnell had missed the six car invert after qualifying late in the forty-eight car field and his bad luck continued later in the B-Main when the front mounts on his top wing broke causing the wing to flip over backwards while staying attached to the car. This came mid-race after he had advanced several positions after starting in the back......In the second heat race Ryan Giles ran off to a big win while Wayne Johnson had to wonder if Jason Martin had a rear view mirror in his car. Martin literally used the entire track to hold off Johnson for the second spot while Greg Hodnett passed Chad Kemenah with three laps remaining to earn the fourth and final transfer spot, a move that would allow him to later win the night's feature race......Trey Starks also had to make a late move to earn the fourth and final transfer from the third heat, but his came in a different way as Christopher Bell had pulled even with him on the high side exiting turn four coming to the white flag. Starks drove deep into turn one though to slide up in front of the current NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series point leader and when Bell tried to cross him over coming off the bottom of turn two Starks nearly forced Bell into the infield before he backed off entering turn three......In the fourth heat Matt Juhl appeared to have a transfer position locked up before his right front tire blew in turn four coming to the withe flag. That caused him to veer right and into the turn four guardrail bringing out the caution and moving Sawyer Phillips into that fourth spot. Phillips had lined up eighth on the grid, but let's just say that he was three-wide and coming with the third row as the green flag waved to start the heat and just before Juhl's misfortune Phillips had put a slider on McKenna Haase to take fifth.....Chris Martin caught a break in the fifth heat when Dylan Peterson's car went up in smoke late in the race. Not only did it allow Martin to go from fifth to fourth, but as Peterson slowed Joey Saldana who had been challenging Martin for position had to hit the binders to keep from making contact.......The B-Main was a star-studded affair that would only see four drivers move on to the back of tonight's feature and current Lucas Oil ASCS National Series point leader Sam Hafertepe Jr, flexed his muscles coming from the fourth starting spot to take the win......Christopher Bell, driving Tony Stewart's second car for the weekend, finished in second, Terry McCarl was third and following a restart with just four laps to go Chad Kemenah came from ninth to fourth to make the A-Main.......After getting away with it in his heat race, Phillips again edged his way forward before the green flag waved in the feature splitting the middle of the row in front of him Jared Horstman and Scott Bogucki. Lined up right behind Phillips in row eleven, Bell also passed a few cars before the start.......Following Phillips' spin on lap eight he was obviously not happy with Bogucki as Sawyer repeatedly poked him in the rear bumper while Bogucki was likely a bit peeved with Phillips for making his row three-wide at the start. They would go at it again while under the lap ten caution......During the post-race media conference Hodnett noted that a change in schedule for the Dream race out east, plus the fact that he is well out of all points races this year is the reason why they decided to come out a week earlier for the 360 Nationals.....Brian Brown was very complimentary of both Hodnett and Starks noting that Greg, who like Brown is a bit taller than most sprint car drivers, had given Brian his first driver's suit many years ago and then touted Starks as one of the young guns to watch after saying that he got his first chance to get to know him just two nights ago when they were racing each other quite hard out at the Slidewayz Karting Center.......Looking ahead to Saturday night's action Ian Madsen announced on social media tonight that his team had a change of plans as they would now head south to Pevely's I-55 World of Outlaws show since they had "hurt" their 360 engine on Thursday night. Ian is slated to start eighteenth in the A-Main, so that will likely mean that five cars will now transfer out of Saturday's B feature. After being the top point man on Thursday night, Jamie Ball's total of 473 was only good enough for fourth after both nights concluded.
The field is now set for the 27th Annual 360 Knoxville Nationals presented by Great Southern Bank and the 305 Sprints will join the action as well on Saturday night. Hope to see you in Knoxville!
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