Reutzel had a put a full straightaway on the field by the time that Hafertepe, who had started seventh, slipped past pole-sitter Lynton Jeffrey with fourteen laps remaining. Now running second, Sam would slowly cut into the lead until a big run off of turn two while Reutzel was negotiating traffic would get the crowd's attention with just five laps remaining. You could see several fans, at least in my section, trying to coax Hafertepe closer and closer as the final laps wound down and after taking the white flag he would charge deep into turn one nearly pulling even with Reutzel, but when his challenger drifted off the bottom Aaron would drive away down the back stretch and through the final two turns to take the victory.
In addition to the winner's purse of $15,000, Reutzel will collect another fifteen grand in lap money making it a $30,000 night, one of the richest events that you will find in 360 c.i Sprint Car racing. Hafertepe would take the runner-up honors while the race for third was the one to watch as Jeffrey and Clint Garner would go wheel-to-wheel for several laps. At the checkers it would be Garner taking the position ahead of Jeffrey while Terry McCarl passed Brian Brown in the closing laps to finish fifth.
Cory Eliason started twelfth and finished seventh, Ayrton Gennetten took eighth with the Rookie of the Nationals, seventeen-year-old Chase Randall coming from eighteenth to ninth. The defending 360 Nationals champion Gio Scelzi completed the top ten while the defending 410 Knoxville Nationals Champion Kyle Larson finished eleventh after starting from the outside of the eighth row.
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| The 2022 360 Knoxville Nationals Champion is Aaron Reutzel - Barry Johnson photo |
The Rest of the Story.....With a temperature nearing one hundred degrees, the schedule for the evening was pushed back an hour and racing would start as the sun was setting. The eight lap E-Main was a single file affair on a green race track with Texan Jett Carney taking the win......My friend, photographer and Positively Racing colleague Barry Johnson had the perfect description for the D-Main saying "the 'D' is for destruction" as a couple of grinding crashes would happen before a lap could be scored. The first one would see the seventh starting Seth Brahmer get sideways on the front stretch sending the rest of the field scrambling, but coming from the twelfth row Ryan Bowers could not see him in time and drilled Brahmer at full throttle. Thankfully the momentum of the spin had lifted the front end of Brahmer's car just before impact, but that would send Seth upside down into the catch fence just before the flagstand. There was a sigh of relief when both drivers climbed out of their mangled rides uninjured......After ten minutes of fence repair the second try at a start would see the third starting Rusty Hickman jerk the car sideways to keep from hitting Collin Moyle going into turn one and the result was a six car pileup that included Hickman, Sam Henderson, Tony Rost, Clayton Christensen, Ben Brown and Kelly Miller. Again it was great to see all drivers emerge the junk pile unscathed.....Once the race was able to get past the first turn, it would stay green for ten laps with Californian Colby Copeland winning from the pole position. Nine cars would make the transfer to the C-Main with Luke Verardi holding off Ryan Timms at the checkers to take that last qualifying position in an event that took forty-three minutes to complete.....Four cars would make the move from the C to the B and the top four, Kaleb Johnson, Cam Martin, McKenna Hasse and Kyle Reinhardt would quickly separate themselves from the rest of the field. With no cautions to slow the field, the leaders would get into traffic during the closing laps and that would allow Brooke Tatnell to close quickly on Hasse who was now on the bubble. As the white flag waved it looked like Tatnell was going to have a run on McKenna, but when Jake Bubak surprised him with a big slider in turns one and two, the crossover would take away Tatnell's momentum allowing McKenna to ease to that final transfer spot.......The B-Main would also go non-stop with eighteen laps to determine the final four starters in the Championship race. Pole-sitter Tyler Courtney would take the win with Parker Price-Miller making the big move from eighth to finish second. Young Brady Forbrook had an impressive weekend as he took the third spot and fourth went to Indiana's Cole Thomas. I was following the progress of Anthony Macri who found some speed mid-race and then quickly came from thirteenth up to sixth. "The Concrete Kid" would run out of laps in this one, but keep your eye on him next week during the 410 Nationals.
The chance of rain has been greatly reduced for Sunday in Knoxville so look for a big field of 410's for the 11th Annual Capitani Classic. The Pro Sprint division is also on the schedule with hot laps to get underway somewhere in the vicinity of 7 p.m. Then on Monday night the action moves over to the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa for the 27th Annual Sage Fruit Front Row Challenge.
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