RTJ's Last Lap Pass Tops Off An Amazing Night At Knoxville

From start to the amazing finish, Thursday night's opener of the 19th Lucas Oil Knoxville Late Model Nationals presented by Your Life Iowa was one of the most entertaining nights that this writer has spent at a race track in some time. Not only was it a prestigious event featuring most of the best Late Model drivers in the country, each qualifying event had an interesting storyline and the final fifteen laps of the main event was filled with action for the win. Plus, the whole show was presented in a quick and professional manner with the final checkered flag waving at 9:15 p.m.!

Forty cars signed in and while this is one of the lowest car counts in the history of this event, I will let others have that discussion as on this night, that didn't matter. In Knoxville "Nationals" qualifying night fashion, drivers would earn points in qualifying, the heat races and the features and with the Late Models it is the driver's best score in the two qualifying nights that determines their starting position for Saturday night's finale. Also different than the Sprint Car Nationals, the Late Models were split into two groups for qualifying with quick time in each group earning the top prize of 200 points. Perhaps this is something that the Sprint Cars should consider as the luck of the draw for qualifying order plays a big role since the track generally slows down as more laps are run on it.

The third car to take the green, Mike Marlar would set quick time in Group A with a lap of 17.109 while in Group B Ricky Thornton Jr. was a quarter of a second faster than everybody else with a time of 17.396. That would have placed him sixth overall despite the fact that he was the 26th car out to time.

Four heat races would be run with the top six inverted by qualifying times and the top five advancing to the A-Main, and there would be two B-Mains with top two from each filling out the twenty-four car starting field for tonight twenty-five laps main event. As Ed Reichert and other regular readers of the Back Stretch know, I usually despise the use of two B-Mains when there are twenty or fewer cars still looking to get qualified, but when using the Group A/Group B method I will give this one a pass. After all, if the car count was, for example 28, they would not have split into two groups and then there would have just been one B-Main.

But I digress....

Marlar would slip to eighth exiting turn two on the opening lap of the first heat race and he would only make up one position before slowing on the back stretch on lap four. After the caution waved, Marlar drove around to the front stretch and briefly stopped at the exit of the staging area before rejoining the field at the back for the restart. Not sure what that was all about, but he regained his speed and passed both Luke Merfeld and Chris Simpson for the fifth position on lap seven and Marlar then dropped Tyler Erb to fifth on the final lap in a race won by first time Knoxville participant Max Blair.

A torrid battle for second between hard chargers Kyle Bronson and Brandon Overton would spice up the first half of the second heat and when the quick qualifier of this pack of ten, Chris Ferguson joined them it made for quite a show. Once Ferguson was able to clear those two, his sights were set on leader Chase Junghans who proved to be no match for Fergy as the North Carolina star also won a heat race in his debut here at Knoxville.

With names like Sheppard, Pearson, Davenport, Thornton and McCreadie in the lineup, the third heat was stacked and once out front it looked like Brandon Sheppard was well in control. I spent most of the twelve laps watching Tim McCreadie languish in the ninth position trying to get around Tim Lance, with both of these drivers improving a position when pole-sitter Ricky Weiss dropped out of the race. The top two, Sheppard and defending Knoxville Late Model Nationals champion Jonathan Davenport were both running the bottom and it looked like that would be how they would finish.

Until the white flag waved.

Davenport broke ranks and went to the cushion in turns one and two getting a big run down the back stretch and he would sail past Sheppard in the final turns showing that "Superman" was in the house and was ready to defend his title. Oh yes, and McCreadie would finally pass Lance on the final lap for seventh.

Hudson O'Neal was the quickest qualifier in the fourth and final heat race and when he got sideways at the top of turn one on the opening lap he dropped all the way to ninth. The rush was now on to recover with the middle of the field racing in tight formation and when O'Neal tried to get past Todd Cooney exiting turn four mid-race, the two made contact send the front end of O'Neal's Rocket high into the air. Somehow both drivers would recover and the race would stay green and now up front we had a thrilling four car tussle for the lead with Iowans Tyler Bruening, Chad Simpson and Ryan Gustin slugging it out along with Mississippi's Spencer Hughes. Simpson would prevail for the victory while O'Neal would be a straightaway back in fifth at the checkers.

With just two cars advancing from each of the B-Mains, both had entertaining races for the transfer. Three cars would race it out for those two positions in the first one with Chris Simpson and Billy Moyer leading the way with just a few laps remaining. Garrett Alberson would find some extra speed on the cushion and would go from third to first by inches at the stripe with just two laps remaining, but then that top line went away for him as both Simpson and Moyer would drop Alberson back to third at the checkers.

McCreadie returned to form in the second B-Main winning by half a lap while several drivers were in contention at one time or another for the final starting spot in the A-Main. Tennessee's Cory Hedgecock looked good early in Jason Rauen's #98, but when smoke started to show in the closing laps he would fade back to seventh. Todd Cooney and Justin Zeitner were looking good until Tim Lance made his way up from fifth to snare the final transfer.

The stage was now set for the twenty-five lap main event and while it would have been usual to take a twenty or thirty minute break with this one division show, the cars were in staging in fifteen minutes and we were ready roll. Definitely one of the benefits of having a race live streamed as you don't want to lose that viewing crowd to channel surfing.

Daulton Wilson had looked fast all night and from the drop of the green he would drive away from the field after starting from the pole position. Fourth starting Jonathan Davenport would make his way to second on lap three only to find Wilson a full straightaway in front of him and he would not have much success in cutting into that gap until the leader closed in on traffic at lap ten.

Wilson would get sideways exiting turn four and not only would he lose ground on the back of the field, he would have Davenport quickly closing in on him to make it a race for the lead. Once again finding his low line momentum, Wilson would start to lap cars while also holding Davenport at bay until lap sixteen when he came upon a three-wide race for position involving Blair, Bronson and McCreadie.

Daulton would slip off the bottom exiting turn two and that would allow Davenport to go flying by him entering turn three. However, when Jonathan came out of turn four he himself drifted too wide and slapped the outside guardrail. Davenport would be scored the leader under the flagstand, but his damaged car would not turn as he entered turn one and when he smacked the guardrail his car came to an abrupt stop with now heavy damage. Thankfully Superman climbed out of the car uninjured, but there will be a lot of work ahead for his crew in order to make a run at defending his title here at Knoxville.

Wilson would regain the lead for the restart only to have Brandon Overton take it away from him with just four laps remaining, and then one lap later the caution would wave when Hudson O'Neal spun out of a three way battle in turn one. This would now set us up for a thrilling three lap sprint to the checkers! 

Brandon Overton (4) tracks down leader Daulton Wilson - Barry Johnson photo

This would be a single file restart with Overton out front, Ricky Thornton Jr. now in second and Wilson lined up in third, plus you had Mike Marlar and Devin Moran ready to join the fray if given the opportunity. When Overton drifted up the track exiting turn two it would kill the momentum that Thornton had off the top and that would allow Wilson to get back to second with just two laps remaining. Wilson was rolling on the inside and he would close quickly on Overton going down the back stretch and as they entered turn three Overton did not get to the cushion right away and Wilson missed the bottom. Thornton would take full advantage nailing the low line in three and four to get back around Wilson and, with his momentum down the front stretch he would then execute a move that we are so used to seeing the Sprint Car stars make here at the legendary Knoxville Raceway.

RTJ would drive in low and then slide up in front of Overton in turn two and when Brandon tried to do the crossover down the back stretch Ricky came down the track and closed the door entering turn three. Sliding back to the cushion exiting turn four Ricky Thornton Jr. would lead the one lap that counts to take the $7,000 victory and, with Overton's momentum briefly interrupted, Wilson was able to nip him at the line by inches in a thrilling finish. Devin Moran would chase them in for fourth, Mike Marlar finished fifth, sixth went to Chris Ferguson and Tyler Erb came from seventeenth to finish seventh. Ryan Gustin also advanced ten spots to finish eighth, Brandon Sheppard was ninth and Earl Pearson Jr. rounded out the top ten. 

The start of the winning move, Ricky Thornton Jr. drives under Brandon Overton entering turn one on the final lap - Barry Johnson photo

What a race!

What a night!

Barry Johnson photo

I loved the fact that the regular Knoxville Raceway announcing team of Tony Bokhoven, Chris Krug and Wade Aunger called the action for the benefit of the crowd on hand and they did a spectacular job of entertaining and informing throughout the night. I am sure that James Essex, Dustin Jarrett and Ben Shelton were magnificent as always with their announcing for the MavTV on Flo live stream, but as I have noted in the past each requires its own style of announcing. This is how it should be done to satisfy both audiences. 

With other commitments on Friday and Saturday this would be the only night that I could attend for the weekend so I want you to go and take my place for some more exciting Late Model racing at the Knoxville Raceway!

Next up for me will be a doubleheader weekend to close out the 2023 schedule for the Sprint Invaders. On Friday night, September 22nd, we will be at the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson, then on Saturday the 23rd a champion will be decided with the annual Fall Haul at 34 Raceway west of Burlington. Hope to see you there!