Brown and Higday are Knoxville Champs; Landis and Selvage win Features
Sunday, September 2, 2007
by Bob Wilson - Calvin Landis and Dustin Selvage won Season Championship features at Knoxville Raceway Saturday night. Brian Brown and Josh Higday were crowned track champions at the 54th annual track championships at this central Iowa race facility.
Landis, who started on the pole of the 25-lap feature event for 410 sprinters, led the distance and was never seriously challenged. After taking the lead when exiting turn two on the initial lap, Landis put his mount on the cushion and slowly pulled away from his nearest rival Travis Cram. Behind him little was changing as most drivers rode the cushion on a very fast track.
On lap 13, just as Landis had marched into lap traffic, the red was thrown for Clint Garner who had struck the turn two fence. He was uninjured. The restart saw Landis again take control as he was followed by Cram, Skip Jackson, Billy Alley and Randy Anderson. At this juncture Landis did not easily pull away from Cram as both cars cruised the cushion on the big half mile. Further back, Brian Brown and Dion Hindi slowly picked off the competition to move forward.
In the end, it was Landis marching through lap traffic in his self-owned car with three laps to go to claim his fourth career victory at this historic fairgrounds track. It paid the Arizona native $4,000 for his efforts. Cram claimed second and $3,000 while Jackson came across the stripe in a close third and pocketed $2,000. Fourth went to 2006 track champion Alley and Anderson was fifth. Completing the top ten finishers was Brown, Hindi, Bronson Maeschen, Kaley Gharst (from 17th) and Dusty Zomer.
Brian Brown became the 54th track champion as he claimed the season points title over Zomer. The title was a sweet finish to the season for Brown and the Doogs Racing team as they fell short in 2006 by a mere five points.
The 360 sprint feature saw a first time winner in driver Dustin Selvage. Selvage is the grandson of former Knoxville Raceway track promoter Ray Grimes. The win was worth $1,500 to the youngster.
Selvage trailed early race leader Jarod Smith in the early going. Most of the top cars found the bottom of the track to their liking in the early going. By lap four Smith’s mount began smoking, giving the impression that trouble was ahead. Four laps later just as he took lap eight his engine let go and Selvage inherited the top spot.
From that point on in this 20-lap season finale Selvage would never be headed as he built a comfortable lead over second running Gregg Bakker. Baker was never able to mount any kind of threat until the very end of the race when he would take second while finishing right on Selvage’s tail in lap traffic. Third went to a steady run by Matt Moro while the same could be said for the fourth place finisher Joe Beaver. Nate Mosher had a career finish at fifth. Completing the top ten were Russ Hall, Pete Crall, Brett Mather, Johnny Anderson and Bryan Dobish.
If Dobish had finished eighth he would have captured the 360 track title. As it was, that honor went to Josh Higday who had to sit out the event on the sidelines having blown an engine in hot laps. Though driving as a substitute driver for another team, Higday was unable to qualify for the A main.
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