Austin McCarl Prevails At Knoxville 360 Nationals Opener

Lapped traffic and a wide race track produced a thrilling final eight laps of Thursday's twenty-lap qualifying feature at the Knoxville 360 Nationals with Austin McCarl leading the final four laps to score the victory. 

Austin McCarl - Barry Johnson photo

Pole-sitter Chase Randall set a quick early pace with McCarl in hot pursuit, but most eyes were on the #57 of Kyle Larson who had started fifth and was making his way up to third at the mid-race mark. As it so often does, lapped traffic brought the lead trio together with Larson even dropping McCarl to third briefly. Austin would battle back to take second and as Randall had to pause for a lapper in his line, McCarl would drive around him to take the point on lap seventeen.

Barry Johnson photo

James McFadden and Justin Peck were now in the hunt as well and after Larson disposed of Randall for second he found himself too far back to mount a challenge on the leader as he would finish second to McCarl. McFadden and Peck would also find their way past Randall who slipped to fifth at the checkers. All of the top five started from the first three rows. 

J.J. Hickle who started from the outside of the front row finished in the sixth spot, Chris Martin finished where he had started in seventh while Kerry Madsen came from twelfth to eighth. Justin Sanders, subbing for Aaron Reutzel in the Ridge and Sons Racing #87 finished ninth and Ryan Leavitt completed the top ten.

Coming in with a four race win streak on the ASCS National Tour, Sam Hafertepe Jr. would set the quick time as the first car out for qualifying, but could not transfer out of the first heat race finishing one spot out in fifth in the six car invert. That would land the Texan on the pole of the B-Main that suffered through several cautions and one red flag and as Hafertepe was coming through turns three and four to pick up the checkers his car ran out of fuel and he coasted across the line in seventh ending his evening in a disappointing manner. That would open the door for young Alex VandeVoort who had started from eleventh to snag the fourth and final transfer position behind Tanner Holmes, Daison Pursley and Kade Higday with young Jack Anderson coming up just one spot shy of moving on.

Kyle Larson - Barry Johnson photo

During the post-race press conference McCarl said that he would be pushing the race committee this winter to increase the laps of the weekly races to twenty-five in the 410's and twenty for the 360's because so much seems to change with just a couple of more laps added, especially when the race goes green to checkers like this one. 

When Kyle Larson was asked why he had chosen to run the 360 Nationals rather than the Ironman 55 in Missouri where he has had past success, he noted that with NASCAR in Newton for the weekend it just made more sense logistically to be here. And while he did say that they were still considering going to Pevely on Saturday, since he comes out of tonight as the high point man you can bet that Paul Silva's #57 will be sticking around for Saturday's finale.

Larson's point total of 478 does not guarantee him a front row spot on Saturday by any means, Justin Peck is in second with 477, Chris Martin third with 476, Justin Sanders is fourth with 473 and James McFadden is fifth with 472. Despite the victory, McCarl comes in at sixth with with 471 followed by Chase Randall, J.J. Hickle, Ryan Leavitt and Tanner Holmes.

The other half of the field will be in action Friday night here, all looking to score points to land them in Saturday night's Championship event.

James McFadden - Barry Johnson photo