Five more drivers locked themselves in to the 50-lap Nationals Championship main event lineup with their performances in Friday's action at the 58th Annual 5 Hour Energy Knoxville Nationals presented by Casey's General Stores.
The top four finishers in tonight's A-Main will start seventeenth through twentieth on Saturday and two drivers who essentially took themselves out of contention on their qualifying night would do battle for the win. Logan Schuchart was Wednesday's quick qualifier, missed the transfer from his heat race and then outran Donny Schatz to win the B-Main. However, instead of going straight to the scales he went to his pit disqualifying him from the race and taking him out of what likely would have been a point total high enough to start him near the front of the championship event. Brian Brown on the other hand battled a vibration during his qualifying effort on Thursday night and when he wound up 38th in the rundown he decided to call it a night to try to identify the issue and come back stronger on Friday.
As the top qualifier in each group Schuchart and Brown would start the twenty-five lap main event from the front row and then race nearly side-by-side through the first several laps. Running the low line Schuchart would reach the scoring loop first the first four times around the fast half-mile before Brown used the cushion to ease ahead on lap five. The lead would change again on lap ten when Brown was held up by the lapped car of Spencer Bayston who was slowing with a right front tire going down and the caution would wave as Bayston slowed to a stop in turn two.
Schuchart would bring the field back to green and it looked like a repeat of the first five laps of the race with Brown taking the lead on the high side with eleven laps to go. Logan would fight back though to take the lead on lap sixteen and he would pull away from there to take the win. There would be no doubt that this time he would find the scales first before making the right hand turn into victory lane. Brown would be a happy runner-up on this night with Paul McMahon and weekly competitor Matt Juhl also celebrating in victory lane. Sheldon Haudenschild would come up one spot short in fifth and he will now start from the inside of row six in Saturday's B-Main. Jamie Veal made a big run up to sixth after starting eighteenth.
The Speed Sport World Challenge would close out the night with the winner having the opportunity to start Saturday's finale from 25th if the driver was not already qualified. Brooke Tatnell would open up a big lead early, but when the caution waved for a slowing Tom Harris on lap eight the field was brought back to him for the restart. Dominic Scelzi would seize the opportunity and throw a slider on Tatnell in turns three and four to take the lead and a lap later the night got even worse for Tatnell as he spun off the cushion in turn two forcing several drivers to take evasive action.
On the restart James McFadden made a run at Scelzi, but the young Californian was able to ward it off and he would then pull away to the win that will allow him to join his younger brother Gio in Saturday's headliner. Tim Kaeding slipped by Austin McCarl late for second, Kerry Madsen was fourth and McFadden filled out the top five.
The lineups are now set for the E, D, C and B mains with drivers trying to advance from each and the final four starters will come from that B-Main for Saturday's main event. With his two performances this week Brad Sweet looks the strongest, but he will have to beat ten time champion Donny Schatz and the remaining twenty-three drivers in what should be a wide open race. The weather looks perfect and tickets remain for Saturday's show. Hope to see you there!
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