Despite being a seven-time track champion in the 360 division at the Knoxville Raceway Clint Garner still considers himself to be an underdog when it comes to the annual 360 Nationals presented by Great Southern Bank and rightfully so. The Sioux Falls based driver races once a week here from April through August and in this race he lines up with drivers who do this for a living, some racing year round if a trip to Australia is in the mix, so when Garner points out that he can count on one hand how many times he has passed Wayne Johnson in his career, or how many times he has passed Danny Lasoski, or Sammy Swindell or Brian Brown you can understand why, in this event, he truly is an underdog. And as the large crowd in attendance showed both in the pre-race introductions, as well as the post-race celebration, everybody loves an underdog!
Garner earned the pole position for the 25-lap championship feature starting alongside two-time 360 Nationals champion Wayne Johnson and when the green flag waved Johnson would pinch Garner down to the berm exiting turn two to take the lead. As this happened though, Friday night's winner Greg Hodnett spun in turn two to wipe out that start and the field was reset with Hodnett dropping from the inside of row four to the back.
On this start Garner would beat Johnson to turn one to take the lead while the driver to watch in the opening laps was Brian Brown. Starting on the outside of row six Brown had an amazing start driving around the two rows in front of him before even reaching the flag stand and his charge to the front would continue blowing past Tim Shaffer for fifth entering turn three on lap five. When Brown jumped the cushion though in turn four that allowed Shaffer to drive back under him and the two would then battle for the position over the next six laps before Brown could get back around Shaffer for fifth.
Meanwhile the top four of Garner, Johnson, Jamie Ball and Aaron Reutzel were getting away with Garner looking solid until the mid-race point when Calvin Landis slowed and pulled to the infield at the exit of turn four. Apparently without brakes Landis then coasted through the work area and back out onto the front straight before coming to a stop on the track to cause a most unusual caution and, as it would turn out, the only caution of the race.
Johnson had a run on the restart, but when Garner went to the bottom to block Johnson had to back off allowing Ball to move to second on the cushion in turns one and two. Johnson would battle back though as both he and Brown dropped Ball back to fourth and the lead that Garner had quickly built up started to fade away. As Johnson looked for a faster line to make his final bid for the lead he would jump the cushion in turn one allowing Brown to get a run on him and take second away with four laps to go. That exchange allowed Garner to get away once again and while Brown was able to close the gap a bit over the final laps there would be no catching Clint Garner on this night as he captured his first 360 Knoxville Nationals crown.
Brown noted afterward that it just would not have been right for a driver like Garner, who has been so dominant here over the years, to go without a 360 Nationals championship, so while he was pleased with his run from twelfth to second he was also happy for the man who had beat him tonight. Johnson had to settle for the third spot, Aaron Reutzel finished fourth while Jamie Ball had a nice run in fifth. Christopher Bell drove his Tony Stewart Racing entry to a sixth place finish ahead of Sam Hafertepe Jr. who had lined up thirteenth for the restart. Jeff Swindell came from fourteenth to eighth, Tim Shaffer was ninth and Greg Hodnett battled back to tenth leaving us all to wonder what might have been if not for the opening lap spin.
In preliminary action Lee Grosz went the distance to win the D-Main while the C-Main was absolutely stacked with talent both young and old, male and female. Joey Saldana driving the Indy Race Parts car #71 would take the win ahead of Sammy Swindell who was amazingly back in action after his grinding crash on Thursday night. Tyler Groenendyk finished third, Chad Kemenah was fourth with Jordyn Brazier fifth. McKenna Haase thrilled the crowd on a mid-race restart driving past several drivers including Kemenah and Tony Stewart as the young lady locked in a transfer to the B in sixth. And, due to the fact that Ryan Roberts, had scratched from the B-Main after taking hot laps, the seventh-place finisher in the C-Main would also transfer and it would be Stewart taking the position with a final lap pass of Jared Horstman.
When infield announcer Mike Roberts then made his way over to Stewart's pits to get his thoughts, "Smoke" said, "I just need to get some laps around here, everything that I did in the C was wrong so we are going to try something new. If you've never seen a monkey screwing a football, watch me in this B-Main."
Classic!
Five cars would come out of the B-Main to go to the Championship and had there been a yellow in this 15-lapper things could have been very interesting as both Saldana and Swindell made big moves early only to find themselves just too far behind with too few laps to get to the front. Dusty Zomer is getting settled back into the Buffalo Wild Wings ride and he would win the B going away. Jason Martin would take second away from Matt Moro in the closing laps while Terry McCarl would then nip Moro at the line for third. Taylor Malsam would secure the fifth and final transfer after passing Rager Phillips mid-race. Davey Heskin would come up one spot short in sixth as Saldana came from seventeenth to seventh.
The 305 Sprint Cars ran a full show in support tonight and while the car count was light at fourteen, most were capable of taking the win so the racing was solid. Eric Bridger set quick time and landed on the pole position for the 15-lap main event, a race that he would lead easily until lap eight when Joe Simbro looped his car in turn four. On the restart Matthew Stelzer found the high line to his liking as he was able to keep pace with Bridger and with just two laps remaining Stelzer would drive around the leader on the outside. Giving up the line that got him to the front Stelzer then went low to block and when he slipped off the bottom in turn three Bridger stormed right back to the front to be the first to see the white flag. Going back to the top side Stelzer made one last run, but he could not complete the pass before Bridger reached the checkers for his second win during this, his rookie campaign. Stelzer would take second as Kade Higday made a big run following the restart to go from seventh to third. Tyler Glass finished fourth and Ryan Leavitt was fifth.
With a threat of rain in the area track officials started the show a bit earlier than usual and then kept things humming along all night with the final checkers waving at 9:28 p.m. Action continues tonight, Sunday, as the 410's take over with the annual Capitani Classic, perhaps the best value in Motorsports when you consider the large car count, the talent level and the price of admission. Hope to see you there!
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