Knoxville Nationals Opener To Logan Schuchart

In a race that was a virtual replay of Sunday night's Capitani Classic, Logan Schuchart started up front with Donny Schatz in the fourth row. Schuchart would build a big lead, only to be chased down by Schatz late with Logan making a late move to preserve the lead and take the win, this time on the opening night of the 61st NOS Energy Drink Knoxville Nationals. While the feature race was familiar, the qualifying night as a whole was something that has not been seen before in the long history of this event as the majority of the drivers that qualified well were unable to transfer out of their heat race where the top eight starters are inverted and must race into the top four.

Barry Johnson photo

First the feature. World of Outlaws regulars Logan Schuchart and James McFadden started the twenty-five lap A-Main from the front row with Schuchart shrugging off a charge from McFadden before racing out to a solid lead. Giovanni Scelzi would soon close in enough on the leader to make it interesting while the real charge was coming from Schatz after starting seventh. Donny would drive past Scelzi with eight laps remaining and a full straightaway behind the leader, but that gap would shrink quickly.

As lap twenty-two went into the books Schatz was within two car-lengths of Schuchart before Logan made the move of the race by executing a big slider on the lapped car of Carson Short in turns one and two. The momentum from the big drive into turn one followed by the kick off the cushion in turn two allowed Schuchart to again drive away from his challenger down the back stretch and Schatz would be unable to make another run before the checkers waved.

David Gravel would drive from eighth to finish third dropping Scelzi to fourth in the final laps while McFadden slipped to fifth. Aaron Reutzel who flirted with the top five early would finish in the sixth position, Justin Peck dropped from fourth to seventh, Knoxville Nationals rookie Cole Macedo had an impressive showing in eighth with another event rookie Corey Day running ninth while Roger Crockett completed the top ten.

Logan Schuchart - Barry Johnson photo

The Rest of the Story......Actually this might be the real story of the night as drivers who qualified well were unable to pass anybody in the heat races. I'm assuming that most of our readers are aware of the qualifying format here at Knoxville, so here is just a quick tutorial. The field of around 100 is split so a driver runs on either Wednesday night or Thursday night to accumulate points. Qualifying, two laps on the clock at the start of the evening, earns as many points (200 with two point increments) as the feature finish while heat races award 100 points with three point increments for each position. The qualifying order is determined by a pill draw as drivers sign in. Heat races have the top eight cars by time inverted with only the top four qualifying for the A-Main. On this night only three of the top twenty in qualifying were able to race their way into the top four during the five heat races, something that I am almost sure that Knoxville's record-keeper Eric Arnold will confirm as being unprecedented. In the post-race Press Conference, the three drivers on the podium all noted how tough it was to come from the fourth row to make it into the top four tonight apparently forgetting that none of them actually started their heat race from the fourth row, but more on that and my proposed solution at the end of this entry.....The top ten in qualifying went out in the following positions in the qualifying order: Parker Price-Miller (10th), Brent Marks (3rd), Justin Sanders (17th), Ian Madsen (6th), Josh Schneiderman (9th), Ayrton Gennetten (24th), Sawyer Phillips (2nd), Sheldon Haudenschild (12th), Shane Golobic (11th) and David Gravel (20th). Meanwhile, drivers who went out 32nd or later included Schatz, Schuchart, Peck, McFadden, Dobmeier, Eliason, Scelzi, Reutzel and more, so can you see why it would have been tough for those top ten drivers to get past some of those names in front of them? Even with this spectacular fan-friendly qualifying system, it is all about the draw that determines the qualifying order and as soon as I saw it posted an hour before hot laps, I knew that we would be in for a night like this.....Starting sixth in his heat race, Schatz would have been relegated to the B-Main if not for a late pass of A.J. Moeller. The regular weekly competitor is known for his speed early in the night and was running second mid-race, but he was running a line that nobody else was in and he was soon ate up by Reutzel, Schuchart and, on the final lap, Schatz......California drivers took three of the four transfer spots in heat two while New Jersey's Kyle Reinhardt joined Corey Day, Colby Copeland and Cole Macedo on their way to the A-Main. Brent Marks went from eighth to fifth, but could not chase down Macedo.....Brandon Wimmer coaxed his badly smoking car to the victory in heat three while. Aussie newcomer to Knoxville Lachlan McHugh drove an aggressive race to take the final transfer ahead of Justin Sanders. Dustin Selvage expressed his opinion of McHugh's first lap slider during a restart....Gio Scelzi challenged Scotty Thiel early in the fourth heat until his engine started sounding rough. Thiel would take the win while Scelzi's crew executed a quick engine change before feature time....Reported contact with David Gravel would flatten the left rear tire on Marcus Dumesney's car on the opening lap of the fifth heat race and that would slide Gravel up to the third row for the restart. So while "officially" he would be the only car to crack the top four tonight from a fourth row starting position, Gravel actually started the ten lap distance from row three in a race won by Mark Dobmeier. Gravel would cross the line in a virtual dead heat with Mike Wagner with the transponder giving Wagner third by 0.013 seconds.......Despite being loaded with drivers who had qualified well, the B-Main was rather uneventful with the top four finishers Price-Miller, Marks, Madsen and Sanders coming from the first two rows.

Parker Price-Miller - Barry Johnson photo

The unusual qualifying night once again has some fans, and I'm sure some drivers trying to make the case for reducing the heat race inverts from eight to six. I disagree with that argument for two reasons. First, as always under this system the cream has risen to the top with your top ten in points from night one looking like this.

Donny Schatz 469

David Gravel 469

Brent Marks 462

Parker Price-Miller 457

Justin Sanders 456

Aaron Reutzel 447

Gio Scelzi 445

Logan Schuchart 444

James McFadden 441

Justin Peck 441

Second, in my opinion the issue is not the invert, it is the importance of the pill draw that needs to be addressed so if you reduce the invert to six you only hurt those drivers who are forced to qualify late in the order even more by not giving them the chance to prove their strength in the heat races and the feature.

Last week during the 360 Nationals I felt that it was more noticeable than ever before that the track "fell off" in speed quickly during qualifying, meaning that if you didn't go out early you had no chance of cracking the top ten. That was repeated here tonight with the 410's, so if there is going to be any kind of a change in the format for the Nationals going forward, this would be my suggestion.

Give the drivers each one lap on the clock in the order of the pill draw and award 100 points to the quick time with increments of one point going down. Then, reverse the order and have them take another lap on the clock with another points award of 100 points on down to even the playing field. You would then line up your five heat races similar to what you do now using the point totals after qualifying with the top eight inverted.

Keeps the racing for the fans while somewhat mitigating the importance of the pill draw in the process.

Something to look for tonight (Thursday) is the pill draw and whether or not several of the pre-race favorites are in the top twenty-five. If they are, my prediction is that only six of the drivers from Wednesday will have enough points to crack the top sixteen that will be locked in for Saturday night's championship race. It is very likely that Logan Schuchart could miss the cut and I can guarantee you that it would be the first time that a qualifying night winner did not lock in for the finale.

Good or bad, it is the true beauty, excitement and intrigue of the Knoxville Nationals!

Jeff's pre-race favorite to win on Saturday night, Donny Schatz - Barry Johnson photo