Gharst wins Knoxville Brodix Tournament of Champions
Sunday, August 5, 2007
by Bob Wilson - Kaley Gharst is on a roll here at Knoxville Raceway. He has captured three feature events in four days. The latest win was the 9th annual 360 Brodix Tournament of Champions at Knoxville Raceway Sunday night. His other wins were the 360 Knoxville Nationals opener on (Aug. 2) and the 410 weekly sprint feature (Aug 4) on Saturday.
The feature event of the Brodix Tournament saw second row starter Gary Wright take command from the outset of the 30-lap feature event. Wright circled the bottom of the Knoxville half-mile oval on each and every lap while his nearest competitors took to the high cushion. With Knoxville's bottom being a true half mile and the fences holding down the 5/8ths distance, Wright began to pull away in this early sprint portion. He was trailed by Joe Beaver, Chuck Swenson and Gharst.
Lap six saw a yellow for Josh Higday who had stopped against the fence in turn four. He did not return to competition.
On the restart, Swenson was able to shoot low out of turn two and take the lead away from Wright as they shot down the backstretch. Just as Swenson crossed the start-finish line, the yellow again came out for Rager Phillips who had stopped high in turn four. Just as quickly the red flag came out as Toby Chapman struck the fence at turns 3 & 4 right at the scoreboard and began flipping. Neither of those cars returned to the track. Also of note, leader Wright had come into the pit area with a flat right-rear tire. He chose to go to his pit stall rather than change it and start at the rear of the 30-car field.
The single file restart showed Swenson take the point with a great surge much to the dismay of second running Gharst. Swenson was content to circle the track on the high cushion and by lap ten he had a 10 car-length advantage over Gharst. By lap twelve the leaders began to enter lap traffic. The top five at this point were Swenson, Gharst, Garry Lee Maier, Jeff Mitrisin and Randy Martin.
At the half-way point Swenson could claim a 20 car-length lead over Gharst, but just a quickly that great margin began to melt as Swenson entered into heavy lap traffic. Lap 17 saw Gharst grab the top spot as he roared out of turn two while Swenson struggled behind some of the backmarkers. Once in front Gharst was able to thread through traffic at will in his Williams-owned machine and pull away from those in hot pursuit.
As the laps began to wind down, the best race for the watching was the struggle for the runner-up spot between Swenson, Mitrisin and Maier. In the end, Mitrisin would get by Swenson for second and Wayne Johnson (from 15th) would do likewise to Maier for fourth.
At the end of thirty laps, Gharst could claim a full chute advantage in his win on this night. The Brodix title paid the Illinois driver $5,000 for the win. Rounding out the top ten were Martin, Joe Beaver, Travis Rilat (from 19th) and Bryan Dobish (from 20th). The ninth annual affair saw a total of fifteen 360 sanctioning bodies represented by their drivers in the championship race.
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