Kyle Larson went flag-to-flag to win Wednesday night's opener of the 57th Annual 5-Hour Energy Knoxville Nationals and as he was celebrating in victory lane the burning question was whether or not the NASCAR Cup Championship contender would be able to return to compete in Saturday night's headliner.
Larson started Paul Silva's #57 from the pole for the 25-lap main event, but it was the driver to his right Austin McCarl who got the jump on the start and led the field into turn one. Larson powered by McCarl on the inside of turn four though to officially lead lap one as the opening night crowd kept an eye on Donny Schatz who quickly moved from eighth to fifth. The only caution of the race came on lap three when Parker Price-Miller slowed on the back stretch so that he could get to the work area and allow his Townline Variety crew to replace a broken front wing.
On the restart Schatz continued his march to the front driving past Greg Hodnett and then McCarl to then set his sights on the leader. With Larson working down low, Schatz tried the cushion and he was almost to within striking distance before lapped traffic came into play. Larson worked it like a pro though and Schatz could never get close enough to make a bid for the lead as Larson scored his third career victory here at the Knoxville Raceway. Schatz would earn the most points on the night with his second place finish, Greg Hodnett continued his strong trip to Iowa with a third place run, Brad Sweet tallied the second most points on the night after finishing fourth while Austin McCarl may well have locked himself into Saturday's finale by finishing fifth.
Kerry Madsen made a run at Schatz for third early on, but the night's fastest qualifier faded back to sixth at the checkers which was still good enough to rank him third in qualifying points for the evening. Shane Stewart was seventh and Paul McMahan posted a strong showing in eighth and that could put him in the top sixteen that will lock themselves into the Championship race after Thursday's qualifying. Another budding NASCAR star Christopher Bell finished ninth and Bill Balog came from the 18th starting spot to complete the top ten.
Wednesday Notes......Qualifying early was a definite advantage as Madsen was the first car on the clock, the second car out Lucas Wolfe was third quick and the third driver on the track A.J. Moeller was fifth......Moeller, the young driver from Rockwell City, Iowa, started eighth and finished eighth in his heat race, but when he is out front he is a rocket and he appeared to have a win in the B-Main within his grasp until something broke on the car sending him over the cushion and into the turn four guardrail with just four laps remaining......My pick for the Rookie of the Nationals, Spencer Bayston posted what was the second best lap at the time when he went out sixth, but he was then light at the scales dropping him all the way to the bottom of the list. The team, owned by Kevin Swindell, must have then decided to save their equipment for Friday night where a top four finish in the feature still locks you into Saturday night's finale (Thursday afternoon update: The Knoxville Raceway posted on its Facebook page today that the two drivers who were disqualified at the scales during qualifying, Bayston and Chase Wanner, have been offered the opportunity to qualify again tonight due to a diagnostic issue with the scales) .....Aaron Reutzel finished fourth in the first heat race, but was then disqualified for losing a muffler during the race. He too then packed it up for the night with Friday's new format allowing for a second chance.....Scott Bogucki was running a strong second in the third heat race before his engine let go allowing Paul McMahan to then fight off Lucas Wolfe for that fourth and final transfer spot.....The final transfer position from the B-Main came down to the final lap as Tim Shaffer raced around the outside of Sheldon Haudenschild to make the main event. Sheldon appeared to be in a position to slide up the track and shut the door on Shaffer in turns one and two, but instead held his line through the middle......Larson's full-time job has him racing at Michigan this weekend, a track that he runs very well at so it will be interesting to see if car owner Chip Ganassi will allow his Championship contender to fly back to Iowa to start mid-pack (Larson is fifth in points after night one) in a Sprint Car race that doesn't carry the meaning to him as much as it does to Kyle and all of us. The correct business decision would be to say "no", but we will see what happens......Meanwhile, barring dominating performances from two drivers on Thursday night, Donny Schatz will start from the front row of the Championship race and given his performance tonight I would say that he is ready to return to victory lane.
Thursday night's action gets underway with hot laps at 7:15 and if you have not experienced a Friday night at the Nationals under the new format, well then you are just missing out on some of the best racing you will see anywhere. Come join us at Knoxville!
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