Danny Lasoski was having a season to forget so far on the
2005 World of Outlaws trail. “The Dude” had not yet won on domestic soil with
his only victory coming in January during the sprint series journey “down
under” at Parramatta City Raceway. So it was no wonder that he was excited to
see the Knoxville Raceway on the schedule during the final weekend of April,
providing Lasoski an opportunity to break the drought on a track where nobody
has won more features than he. But if not for a mistake by a native Australian
on Friday night, Lasoski would have remained winless for 2005 in the U. S. of
A.
Brooke Tatnell was strong all night long in the Outlaws’
preliminary night at the Knoxville Raceway as the 2005 Australian Sprint Car
champion ran a solid second to Wayne Johnson in the heat race and then won the
second Stacker 2 Dash to earn the outside front row starting spot for the
twenty-lap main event. With sprint car legends Jac Haudenschild, Danny Lasoski
and Steve Kinser nestled around him in the first four grid positions, nobody
expected Tatnell to take off and leave them in his wake, but that is exactly
what he did at the drop of the green flag. A caution on lap nine wiped out a
four second advantage over the second-place car of Lasoski, but on the restart
Tatnell was gone once again.
As the laps wound down five of the oversized
twenty-eight-car field loomed ahead as potential lapped traffic for the leader
allowing Lasoski to narrow the advantage. As Tatnell took the white flag he was
faced with the decision of what line to take through turns one and two to
maintain his momentum, and his lead, over a fast approaching Lasoski. Working
the apex of the corner in the middle groove, Tatnell did not give himself enough
room and ran his left front tire over the right rear of Jesse Hockett’s #9. The
contact turned Tatnell’s car hard right and his was fortunate to keep it off of
the wall and on all fours, but the damage had been done as the caution waved.
The Aussie would be sent to the rear and Danny Lasoski would assume the lead
for the green-white-checker restart.
Steve Kinser would try to mount a charge over the final two
laps, but he had to deal with his young son Kraig nipping on his back bumper so
the top three remained the same over the final two laps with Lasoski notching
his first victory in three months and adding to his all-time win total, now at
eighty-five, at the Sprint Car Capital of the World. Terry McCarl passed two
cars on the final restart to finish fourth while Haudenschild took home a solid
fifth-place showing. Tim Kaeding was the Hard Charger on the night racing from
twentieth up to sixth in the Beef Packers #83.
Knoxville Notes…..Sixteen-year-old Kevin Swindell made his
Knoxville debut starting on the pole of the second heat and holding on for the
fifth and final transfer position. He was credited with 24th in the
feature…..A sixty-car field swelled the pits and forced the running of a D-Main
that included the likes of Randy Hannagan and Peter Murphy…..There just wasn’t
enough provisionals to go around for the Outlaw drivers tonight as the
Knoxville regulars defended their turf nicely. Jason Sides, Brandon Wimmer and
Donny Schatz failed to get further than the C-Main. Shane Stewart was the final
transfer out of the “C” and put on a great charge in the B-Main passing Daryn
Pittman for the fourth and final transfer, but Pittman charged back and slipped
past Stewart again with two laps remaining. Shane joined fellow Outlaw regulars
Joey Saldana and Tim Shaffer as non-qualifiers from the “B”, although Schatz
and Saldana ended up starting the A-Main as provisionals. Skip Jackson and Chad
Meyer were added as track provisionals making for a twenty-eight car
lineup…..Saldana had a much better night on Saturday establishing a new track
record at 14.908 seconds during qualifying. While the feat made my prediction
from last week’s Back Stretch a good one, it also broke one of my ties
to my year of announcing at the Knoxville Raceway. It was my honor to call Don
Droud Jr.’s first-ever fourteen second bracket lap in 1998…..Once again the
Knoxville Raceway staff excelled presenting a very efficient program that
concluded before 10:30 p.m. on another chilly April evening.
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| Corey Dripps from his Pro Stock days |
My trip south was cancelled on Wednesday and I proved once
again, for the third time, that all I have to do is mention that I’m heading
for the Memphis Motorsports Park and it will rain. With the change of plans I
headed back to Oskaloosa for their second weekly show of the young season. The
Modified car count bumped up to sixteen with the debut of Osky regulars Ron
VerBeek and Brad Stephens plus an appearance by Corey Dripps. Dripps always ran
well when the NKF Tour stopped at Osky and he has continued that success on his
semi-regular visits such as Wednesday night. Dean Mahlstedt chased him
throughout, but could never pull even as Dripps walked off with a flag-to-flag
victory after snaring the lead on lap one from the second row.
Zach VanderBeek came from thirteenth to take the lead from
T.J. Criss on lap seven of the Stock Car feature only to have Criss hang tough
and return the favor three laps from the finish for a popular victory. The Osky
crowd seems to always have a “villain” identified in the Stock Car class. It
used to be Bobby Greiner, more recently it was Brad Pinkerton and now it
appears that VanderBeek is hearing the boos that come with success, at least
from a certain segment of the crowd. The Hobby Stocks put on another
entertaining non-stop fifteen-lap feature race with Jason McDaniel passing
Randy Veldhuizen for the victory.
It sure is a pleasure to watch these drivers in the
third-tier division at Oskaloosa race hard and clean for fifteen laps without
spinning out, but it also makes me wonder what must be done at some of the
other tracks that I have been to recently where the Modifieds and Street Stocks
couldn’t even run an eight lap heat race without multiple cautions. Does this
make a difference to the casual fan in whether or not they are enjoying their
evening at the track? Does that “visitor” get as frustrated as I do when a good
race is constantly being interrupted by cautions for drivers who cannot keep
their cars headed in the right direction? When a race is under caution there is
a break in the action and it is my opinion that every break in the action draws
away from the enjoyment of the fans. Anybody reading this newspaper is likely a
loyal enough fan to keep going back, but when you give the casual fan a chopped
up race program, they are much less likely to return. And, let’s face it. If we
don’t keep a regular flow of the “casual fans” coming to the racetrack, this
sport is going to be in trouble.
The weather of these past two weekends brings to mind a
perfect example. Years ago I would have gone anywhere to any track that was
racing, even if the wind was blowing hard and the temperature was in the
thirties. But now, I can honestly say that there are some tracks that I would
have absolutely stayed away from knowing how they “allow” cautions to multiply
and how they generally run their program. Yes, you may argue that it is the
drivers who cause the cautions, but it is how the track rules handle habitual
spinners that “allows” it to continue. Promoters, slip into the stands some
night and see what your fans are seeing, hear what they are hearing, and then
ask yourself, “if I were here for the first time tonight, would I want to come
back?” Thankfully the majority of tracks out there are ones that I still will
go to on a cold and windy night because I know that they will present an
efficient and well-run program. I visited two of them this past week in Osky
and Knoxville and I know that there were others out there (locally Donnellson,
Memphis and Burlington) who started on time, skipped the intermission and
finished at an earlier than normal time.
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