Swindell Drives It Like He Stole It at Friday Main at 49th Annual Knoxville Nationals
Friday, August 14, 2009
By Stacy Ervin
The 1983 Knoxville Nationals champion proved he can still drive it like he stole it and that’s what Sammy Swindell’s wife, Amy, reportedly told him in victory lane. And a few seconds later, he promised the crowd he would “run the hell out of it” on Saturday’s finale.
The Tennessee driver won the Friday qualifying feature at the 49th Annual Super Clean Knoxville Nationals presented by Lucas Oil on Friday, August 14. The win was worth $5,000. It was his 42nd win at the track.
Swindell made an amazing run in the 20-lap feature, starting ninth and chasing down the early leaders even after a puff of smoke showed off his car in one of the opening laps.
There was a red flag on the first start when seventh starter Erin Crocker got sideways in turn one. Travis Rilat made contact and the two flipped. Austin McCarl backed into the melee. He was the only one of the three able to restart.
When the race went green again, polesitter Daryn Pittman grabbed the lead. The yellow flag came out on lap two when Matthew Reed’s car went up in smoke.
From there, the race stayed green for the distance, with Pittman leading the first 11 laps. Having entered lapped traffic on that lap, Brad Sweet closed fast on Pittman. Sweet took the lead down the backstretch coming to lap 12. But a circuit and a half later, Swindell had stormed to second.
Coming to lap 15, Swindell put a similar move on Sweet down the backstretch and took the lead. Sweet stayed close for a while, but the extreme high groove was the fast way around and he could not get the lead back.
Instead of heat races this year, the night started off with three B-Mains. They were won by Daryn Pittman, Tony Bruce Jr. and Brad Sweet.
The night also featured Scrambles for the top 10 drivers qualified for Saturday’s A, B and C mains. Ryan Anderson won the C Scramble. Skip Jackson won the B Scramble. Donny Schatz won the A Scramble.
The racing ended with the 20-car, 20-lap Digital Delivery Networks Knoxville World Challenge invitational. The $10,000 to win race featured drivers who qualified in various selected events in the United States, Canada and Australia. This was the 16th annual event and featured the largest field ever.
Lynton Jeffrey, originally from Australia but living in Iowa for some time, started third and led the distance, leaving a ton of great racing action in his dust. American Shane Stewart started 13th, made a tremendous run and stole second in the last corner over Australian Kerry Madsen and American Terry McCarl.
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