Stewart wins Thursday prelim on Friday
Friday, August 12, 2005
Stewart wins Thursday prelim on Friday
By Stacy Ervin
It took an extra day, but Oklahoma's Shane Stewart took home the feature win
on Friday, August 12, at Iowa's Knoxville Raceway. The event was actually the
rain-delayed Thursday night preliminary program at the 45th annual Knoxville
Nationals.
Several waves of rain finally washed out the show in the early morning hours
of Thursday and it was postponed until Friday. That put Friday's show on the
slate for Saturday at noon. Before the rain came on Thursday night, time
trials and four and a half heat races had been completed, however race
officials decided that could not constitute a complete show and opted to start
all over again on Friday night.
When the Thursday race finally got going on Friday night, Stewart chased down
early leader Kerry Madsen to win the 25-lap qualifying night feature. It was
his second win at Knoxville.
When the race started, Knoxville Raceway point leader Madsen, who started
outside the front row, took off with the lead. He held it through a yellow
flag on lap four when Josh Higday stopped in turn two.
On the restart, Stewart and Brooke Tatnell, who started in the second row
together, took off and passed Madsen. Stewart held the lead from there, coming
to lapped traffic on lap eight.
The yellow flag came out again on lap 17 when Jason Johnson slowed with a
blown motor. He had been running ninth at the time.
For the restart, there was one lapped car in between leader Stewart and second-
place Tatnell. Stewart got a good restart and came into lapped traffic again
at lap 22. Despite a brief run by Tatnell on the white-flag lap, Stewart held
on for the win.
Danny Lasoski was third, Billy Alley fourth, Daryn Pittman fifth and Madsen
fell to sixth. Terry McCarl, who narrowly took the final transfer spot from
the B-Main, came all the way from 24th starting spot to finish seventh.
Fortunately for McCarl, the one result that was allowed to stand from Thursday
night was the new track record he set in time trials. He ran a lap of 14.907
and race officials determined that even though the time would be scrubbed for
this Nationals, it was still turned in a competitive situation and should
count as a track record.
With the one-night delay in the show, five cars which competed on Thursday
night did not return for Friday. They were Marty Perovich, Randy Martin, Tony
Bruce Jr., Larry Pinegar and Jerrod Hull, who would have been qualified for
the feature if the previous night had not rained out.
The night started off with bad luck in hot laps for John VanDenBerg, who
flipped hard in turn four. Unfortunately for him, if the show had not been
rained out the previous night, he would have been qualified for the feature
event.
Craig Dollansky set the fastest lap in time trials with a run of 15.782. Heat
races were won by Travis Whitney, Jaymie Moyle, Dean Jacobs, Don Droud Jr. and
Larry Ball Jr.
Sammy Swindell suffered bad luck in his heat race when he spun down the
backstretch and had severe damage on his machine. In another heat race, Brian
Brown had been running strong in a transfer spot and blew a motor before the
end. He could not change the engine in time to make it out for the C-Main.
Brown was scheduled to start on the pole of the C, next to Swindell, who went
on to win that race and transfer to the B-Main along with Scott Neitzel. Joey
Saldana won the B-Main and transferred to the A along with Craig Dollansky,
Jason Solwold and McCarl.
Accompanying the show on this night was the Clean-O World Challenge 20-lap
race for drivers who have met certain qualifications by competing in specific
races. A total of 19 drivers from the United States, Canada, Australia and New
Zealand were involved this year.
The race, which goes off with much fanfare and fireworks, was won for the
second time by Pittman, who claimed $10,000 for the effort.
Brent Antill started outside the front row and led the first five laps of the
event and then sixth-starter Tim Kaeding put a slide job on him in turn four
and grabbed the lead.
The yellow and the red flags came out on the 12th circuit. The yellow came
first and was for Stewart, who had turned toward the inside fence in turn one
after apparently making contact with another car. At the same time, Cody
Geldart brought out a red flag when he flipped in turn four.
On the restart, Kaeding slowed dramatically with what appeared to be a flat
left rear tire and pulled to the pit area. That handed the lead to Pittman,
who started ninth, and he held it through the end, despite a last-ditch effort
by second-place finisher Donny Schatz. The top pair nearly came together in
the final corner of the race when Schatz tried a slide job, but Pittman got to
the line first.
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