Dobmeier and Higday Storm to Knoxville Wins
Saturday, May 15, 2010
By Bob Wilson
KNOXVILLE, IA (May 15) Mark Dobmeier captured 410 career feature win number six as he guided his Lundstra J&J to a hard fought victory Saturday night. Josh Higday was the class of the field as he easily handled all comers to take his 17th 360 career win here, fourth on the all-time list. Rookie Austin Johnson completed the night with his first-ever win at Knoxville in the 305 class.
For Dobmeier, it was mostly a race filled with Connecticut driver David Gravel, a new comer to this track. Gravel chased Dobmeier at close range for the first half of this 20-lap race, as he led only one lap in battle for the lead with the North Dakota driver. Gravel seemed to take to Knoxville’s big half-mile oval but for some reason at the half-way point he went high in turn four and was not really a factor after that.
As Dobmeier pulled away from the field, Gravel had his hands full with Brian Brown. Brown made his move on lap 13 and took the runner-up spot at that point. Shortly after that Don Droud Jr. also passed Gravel sending him to fourth.
With a track that had become slick, it was only a matter of time before it started taking rubber in the turns. And this track did early on. Surprisingly most drivers did not see it until late in the race when most of them dropped off the high cushion and went to the bottom.
In the mean time, Dobmeier had checked out on the field and roared across the finish line as second place Brown exited turn four. Droud stayed at third and Lynton Jeffrey took fourth. Gravel settled for fifth. Completing the top ten were Josh Schneiderman, Robby Wolfgang, Dusty Zomer, Bronson Maeschen and Bill Rose as rain began falling.
No one, absolutely no one had anything for Higday on this night. The Wares-Harris Maxim cruised to a tremendous lead before all was lost with a red flag situation at the end of nine laps. The battle in the race centered on the cars witch were behind him as Joe Beaver and Jon Agan put on a tremendous show for that runner-up spot. Finally with only a few laps to go Beaver lost a left rear tire and finished 15th at the final tally.
Also in the fray were Randy Martin, Bryan Dobesh and Clint Garner. There was really no way to guess at a finish for each of these cars as they were constantly changing positions. With the Beaver yellow coming at the end of the 13th go around, the cars went into a single file restart and the benefactor of that turned out to be Garner as he picked up several spots in the waning laps.
At the checkers it was Higday, Agan, Garner, Dobesh, and a fast charging Ryan Roberts rounding out the top five. Matt Moro, Johnny Anderson, Dustin Selvage, Martin and Chad Humston completed the top ten finishers.
In the 305 sprints, Matt Stevenson looked to be in the “driver’s seat” as he took the white flag on this 12-lap event. Heading into turn three he dove into mid-track only to have a lap car drift up and strike him. Too much damage put Stephenson to the pits where he finished 10th.
Johnson then inherited the lead and with the race going green-white-checkered, he held that spot to capture the win in this thirteen lap event. Steve Breazeale finished second with no power steering in his mount. Completing the top five were Marty Stevenson, Bob Hildrith and Mitch Alexander, who drove from a sixteenth starting spot.
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