In the Groove
Sunday, May 15, 2005
by Stacy Ervin - An overflowing infield, a lightning fast race track and aggressive driving performances all combined to present us with a thrilling evening of racing at the Knoxville Raceway on Saturday, May 14.
Added to the already stellar field of 410 sprinters which tow to Knoxville on a weekly basis were nearly 30 visitors from the Interstate Racing Association, a traveling troupe which runs in the Wisconsin and Northern Illinois area.
And in addition to that, a World of Outlaws rainout in Ohio left just enough time for six-time defending Knoxville Raceway track champion Terry McCarl and fellow WoO star Brooke Tatnell to put the pedal to the metal in their tow rigs and haul into the Sprint Car Capitol of the World. Former WoO regular Danny Wood, who is the new shoe in Court Grandstaff¹s 66 machine, also invaded Iowa for the night.
And in addition to all that, the companion 360 division also featured a few extra visitors due to rainouts in other areas of the country. Most notably, the infield contained female racer Natalie Sather of North Dakota and her legendary crew chief, Kenny Woodruff.
That all meant that those hearty souls who braved the fall-like temperatures and biting wind were in for a wild night of racing. And the drivers complied, sailing around the track in record times and proving that passing really is possible in spite of a narrow groove.
Unfortunately, the quick speeds and a cushion which only developed about halfway up the wide half-mile dirt oval provided ample opportunity for drivers to hurt themselves too. And they complied, beginning the tip-overs and tribulations with hot laps.
Nick Eastin, Michael Jones and Tim St. Arnold were unfortunate victims of hot-lap spills. Eastin and Jones were unable to continue on with the night. St. Arnold, a talented driver with a longtime candidacy for any hard-luck award, was able to compete in his heat and the B-Main, but could not make
the feature.
Track officials scrubbed time trials for the 410 division because of the high number of cars coming to compete, so drivers drew for starting position in the heats. That¹s a regular occurrence for the 360 division. Through 10 heat races, five in the 410s and five in the 360s, clean and green racing
was the order of the night. Track records were broken or nearly broken in many of those heats.
The most impressive of the heat-race runs was turned in by Matt Moro in the 410 division. Having drawn the last spot in a 12-car grid, he flew from the back to win in just eight short laps and accumulated a whopping 10 1/2 passing points in addition to his finish points. Moro has been a man on a mission throughout the young season and has certainly given the familiar Sonner 47 as good a run as it has seen in several years. Unfortunately, a flat tire near the end of the feature kept him from finishing that race.
Moro and the others who were lucky enough to transfer through their heats to the A avoided the two nastiest events of the evening. In the 410 C-Main, as the field came to the green flag, Seth Brahmer¹s mount was bumped by another car and he went flipping wildly toward turn one. The melee also caused Jesse Giannetto, Mike Stefka, Jerry Richert Jr. and Lynton Jeffrey to crash hard.
Flagmen Doug and Justin Clark still had that incident, which threw debris especially close to their perch, fresh in their minds when the 410 B-Main saw Ian Madsen, brother of popular Aussie Kerry and the new shoe in the F5 seat vacated by Larry Neighbors, crashed. Ian Madsen, whose previous racing
experience came at Parramatta, the Australian equivalent of Knoxville, also took that violent end-over-end ride down the fronstretch and into turn one. Unfortunately, his first competitive visit to Knoxville left him too acquainted with the Knoxville Area Community Hospital staff.
Both feature events for the night warmed the frigid crowd with exciting battles. Larry Ball Jr. has now won half of the features held in the 360 division so far this year. He picked up his second win of the year with a heady move on polesitter and leader Eric Mason in lapped traffic. With
traffic as a factor and Ball letting Mason know he was coming, Mason made a slight bobble and Ball capitalized when he had the chance. Ball, himself, made a bobble earlier in the race when he jumped the cushion and nearly crashed.
Ironically, this win for Ball came on Maytag Night. In his victory lane interview, Ball noted that the Newton-based company, which had been a longtime sponsor, could not continue its commitment to him this year because of "bigger" issues within the company. Ball is racing now with virtually no
sponsorship help, just a few product deals and other minor help. An auction and dance benefit in March at the race track saw the racing community come together to help Ball¹s efforts to race this season. And it¹s certainly paying off now.
The 410 feature was just as exciting, with a handful of drivers battling it out for the lead throughout the opening laps. Ricky Logan kept the lead for most of the race until a yellow flag on the last lap was displayed for a Chad Meyer spin. With a green, white, checkered setup, Kerry Madsen, who had
beaten Logan to the stripe the week before, put a textbook slingshot move on Logan to get the win for the second week in a row.
Logan could not quite make it two weeks in a row in second, allowing Tatnell to get by at the last lap. Still, it was a good run for Logan and a bit of redemption for Tatnell, who ran over a lapped car two weeks earlier while leading the World of Outlaws preliminary feature on the white-flag lap.
Though McCarl¹s favored line around the famous white fence was not worked in, he still managed to pass a majority of the feature field, coming from the 23rd starting spot to get sixth. Justin Henderson, who also came from the B-Main and the back of the A starting grid, finished an impressive
ninth. In the 360 division, defending track champion Jake Peters also charged hard, coming from 18th starting spot to finish fifth.
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