New Blog Direction

I have been thinking about the direction of this Hawkeye Ovals blog for a while.  I haven’t had much to say as far as racing content the past couple of years, as you can tell.  I’m so immersed in the social media aspect today with racing and the lengthy blog doesn’t seem like the place for a weekly or monthly blog for me, especially when I can share thoughts immediately via Twitter.  The other thing is that time hasn’t been on my side with a baby and two jobs.  I also have to save some things for my bi-monthly column in FlatOut Magazine.  So I am headed into a new direction to keep this blog relevant.

For some reason I feel inspired to write about my own life right now.  For one thing, I find writing therapeutic. My English teachers in school of all levels would fall over in shock knowing this today. I hated school from second grade until my last year or so of college. But I’m ready to tell some life stories and I am hoping that I can help some people along the way.

Here’s the short bio of me. 

I was born in Albia, Iowa on February 13, 1974 to Stephen and Carol Arnold. We lived in Lovilia, Iowa which is about 20 minutes south of Knoxville on highway 5.  That is where my parents grew up. We moved to Newton in 1976 since my Dad was working at Maytag in the factory. From there we stayed in Newton for a long time, my sister Stephanie came along in 1977. I graduated from Newton in 1992 and went to community college.  My parents decided to move to Knoxville in 1994 and so I followed them there with me still being in college. In 1996 I ended up working at PPI in Pella and still do. I got married the first time in 2002 and moved back to Newton. My Dad died in May of 2010 and then I got divorced at the end of 2010. That led me to move back to Knoxville with my Mom to help her with things after Dad died, and it was good to be around her at that low point in my life. I remarried in 2013 and moved to Oskaloosa where I am today. 

I grew up loving sprint car racing and bowling. Those were the two things I really cared about in life until I had children.  I retired from bowling in 2013, and then became more involved in racing by first volunteering to work at Knoxville Raceway and now it’s a lot of responsibility on my shoulders, and I love it.

There is a lot of other stuff that’s happened to me that connects all of those dots. We will explore more of that later.

I have struggled with depression since I was 7 years-old after a tragic car wreck that killed my Grandma, two of my cousins, and nearly took my sister.  That was a major turning point in my life, but it took me several counseling sessions to learn that.  I have made one suicide attempt which thankfully did not end my life.  I have never spoken publically about it.  I feel like now is a good time to start talking about it though.  Yes it is embarrassing, but suicide is a big deal and I don't think we are doing enough about it in this world.  I've lost friends in recent years to suicide and I would like to start helping people if I can somehow.  We all have bad days.  Life can suck and seem pointless at times.  But trust me when I say that there is always some light down that dark road that is so hard to see. So I hope to help people who struggle with depression and anxiety like I do.  I’m no doctor, but I am an advocate of seeking professional counseling. I have been in and out of counseling for years and it’s been a huge help for me. If there is one thing I want for people to get out of this in the end, it is to not be ashamed of seeking help and counseling.

More to come in the future.  I need a new name for this blog. Any suggestions?

My personal email is ericarnold21374@yahoo.com if anyone feels like contacting me.

Splitting the Field

There is always a reaction after we announce the field split for the 360 or 410 Nationals.  Some good, some bad, some drivers and owners upset, but I promise there is a lot of time and thought that goes into the process of splitting the field and balancing things the best we can.  I've been splitting up the fields the past few years now with John McCoy's supervision. 

When teams send in their entry form they have a blank to fill our their preferred night to qualify, but that doesn't mean anyone is guaranteed that night.  Most teams realize that the show has to be split evenly.  And typically 70-75% of the entries pick the first night, usually the reason being that they want an extra day to make repairs if something happens.  But 90% of the teams have the same argument with not enough spare parts and such. 

The Promoter of the event has to do it's job to put on a good show for the fans and try to keep the competition levels somewhat even for each night.  But we still try to give as many teams as possible their preferred night to be good hosts if possible. 

Basic Guideline we have. 

1. Prior Nationals A Main Qualifiers.  We try to get as close to 12 and 12 each night, with an extra emphasis on the top 10 cars being split 5 and 5.

2. Split Series' Equally.  We look at points after the Kings Royal weekend from all series and try to split the World of Outlaws teams, Top 10 Knoxville teams, All-Star teams, PA teams, California Teams, Top 10 ASCS teams, etc. equally. It is in everyone's best interest to split all these cars equally.  This hopefully gives fans the same amount of cars to follow each night from each series, it helps represent each series well, and gives everyone the best chance to qualify well and not beat each other up all on one night.  We wouldn't put the top 7 or 8 Outlaw point teams on one night in the 410 Nationals because we would have fans and teams upset about the balance there for sure. 

3. Split teammates.  You will notice that the KKR 9 and 49, Shark Racing 1a and 1s, Big Game Sponsored teams, etc. will be split to different nights. The car owner gets a break for entering two cars, and it lets each team help each other on their separate nights.

4. We do tend to give former event champions their preferred night. We don't play favorites, not even with our weekly competitors.  But former champions have earned that luxury. Former champions are also guaranteed to get their car number without adding an "X" to it for example. Donny Schatz has picked Wednesday Night for a LONG time and he will always get it.  But we are also mindful that not all former champions end up on the same night.  This usually is never an issue, but for years and years Cappy wanted to make sure Steve and Sammy were on separate nights and that was obviously a good idea.

5. We have looked at power rankings and using those as well, but that is hard to back up with data because power rankings are opinions.  We like to use numbers that data can support and we can defend our reasoning better for splitting. 

When deciding who has to move from one night to the next is the agonizing part, because you know you can't make everyone happy.  But someone has to move.  Each year we get 10-12 teams call and complain, give us reasons why, and its usually the same excuses with not wanting to race back to back nights.  However you do get some teams at the last minute that need to switch to the second night because of travel issues, engine is still in the shop, etc.  And some teams prefer the  second night because they can use one less day of vacation or have an extra day to get here.

There is no perfect system, but I believe what we use is as fair as we can get. And I'll defend the system we have.  We try to be flexible to peoples needs, but at times you have to hold your ground.  I've had a lot of people ask how we do this, and I thought I might as well be transparent and explain it.  But if you are one of the complainers about it not being even, I have a crap load of data to back up what we do, and I probably spend WAY more time on this than they did. So criticism doesn't bother me. 

Have a happy and safe Nationals!

2017 Knoxville Nationals Power Rankings

Sorry I have not posted anything for a while.  Life is busy.

The Knoxville Nationals is upon us in a matter of a couple of weeks now, and the 360 Nationals are only a week away.  This summer has flown by.

My power rankings for this year are as follows.

1 Schatz
2 Gravel
3 Sweet
4 Brown
5 I.Madsen
6 Stewart
7 K.Madsen
8 J.Johnson
9 Pittman
10 Hodnett

I caught some flack on Twitter about having Kerry too low and Hodnett too high.

Kerry Madsen has been fast this year, but he hasn't shown it at Knoxville for some reason. I think it's a matter of time before that clicks and this is the right time to do it. It's too good of a car, driver, crew chief to not be good at Nationals. But I don't know who I put him in front of on my list at this point.

Greg Hodnett finished inside the top last year. He has been solid this year out in PA, but not dominating like the past few years. He has entered the 360 Nationals and I assume he will be here for the Capitani Classic and FRC as well. He will have plenty of track time in Iowa and I like his chances to get into the top ten again this year.

Drivers just missing my top ten are Rico and Tim Shaffer.  I think drivers to look out for are Logan Schuchart, Joey Saldana, Jamie Veal, Lucas Wolfe, and Dusty Zomer.

My favorite is actually David Gravel. I don't want to pick him #1 because it's hard to pick anyone ahead of Donny at this point, but I have this feeling it might be Gravel's moment.

Brian Brown was impressive this past weekend at Knoxville (July 22).  I don't know if he is back to being the 2012-2014 Brian Brown for sure, but it sure looked like it this week. My opinion, it is good for Brownie to travel more. I hear some drivers and crew chiefs say that drivers can get in bad habits running the same tracks all of the time. Seeing more tracks with tougher competition can make you sharper, you don't over think things at your "home tracks" and it's a different pace racing with the Outlaws. I love being able to watch Brown every week, but I think the more their team can travel with the WoO, the more his team will benefit from it.

Here some cool stats for the Knoxville Nationals I have run across lately.

No one has had a perfect score of 500 on their qualifying night since 1992. It was done nine times from 1979-1992, four times by Steve Kinser.

The oldest winner is Steve Kinser in 2002 at age 48.
Donny Schatz turns 40 on August 10 this year.

In the 2016 A Main we saw the most lead changes in a 50 lap race with 6. The record was 5 in 2011. The 30 lap record is 4 in 1993 when Stevie Smith nearly pulled off the upset.

The longest consecutive A Main starting streak is 34 by Steve Kinser.  Lasoski has the second longest streak of 20.  The longest active streaks are Donny Schatz with 19 and Shane Stewart at 16.

Steve Kinser has led the most A Main laps with 301, but Schatz is sitting at 292 and could break that record. Sure the past 6 races have been 50 laps instead of 30, but it's still impressive. I mean, Schatz has 15 top five finishes and the King has the most at 17.

The closest finish is known for 1974 before the days of technology where Dick Gaines past Jan Opperman in a drag race to the finish line and winning by half a car length. 2012 is the closest on record with a time at 0.117 seconds while 2016 was the next closest finish 0.168 seconds.

There is some buzz about Kyle Larson racing the 410 Nationals.  It is sounding like he will enter on Wednesday and then if he can get locked into a top 16 spot hope to convince Ganassi to let him race on Saturday. With NASCAR being in Michigan and about a 2 hour plane ride away, it's feasible.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

The Knoxville Raceway Mobile App 3.0 update is out. Download it on your phone and tablets and let us know how you like it with a review in your app store.  Thanks to the team at Host Iowa for all they do for the track. I'm looking forward to the advancements coming a year from now that are in the works. Fans won't be disappointed.

Great Loss and Great Opportunity

It's been a tough winter.  It's been a tough year or so honestly.  A couple of weeks ago we lost Ralph Capitani, the most beloved person associated with Knoxville Raceway. He was our leader for so long and there aren't enough words to describe how grateful we should all be that he chose to take that leadership role in 1978. He not only helped Knoxville, but other dirt tracks and racing organizations benefited indirectly in my opinion.

In the past year we have lost Cappy, former promoter Ray Grimes and his wife Naomi, car owner and mechanic Gil Sonner, car owner and chassis builder Bob Troslte, jack of all trades mechanic Lenard McCarl, announcer Tim Trier, long-time official Dave Beede, driver Bryan Clauson, and winner of the inaugural Knoxville Nationals Roy Robbins.

Southern Iowa Speedway 2016 Recap & Stats

At the conclusion of the race season I always like to go back and look at stats from my still somewhat new hometown track of the Southern Iowa Speedway.  I know most of you might read this column for sprint car news but I have become a fan of our local IMCA dirt track racing as well over the past 8-10 years. I do not typically write much about Osky because #1 I don’t have the time with my real job and part-time job at Knoxville Raceway, #2 we typically have two or three other reporters at Osky for Positively Racing there so one more guy like me is a bit overkill. #3 with my kids in baseball and softball I miss a handful of nights at the track.  That is why I contribute at Osky with a twitter account for them and post results there as I get them or when I am there I am quicker.

The 2016 season at Osky can be summed up with a few names. Cayden Carter, Curtis VanDerWal, Dustin Griffiths, and Mother Nature.  These three drivers dominated this season at the historic half-mile. Ma Nature stuck it to us with no events run during the month of July and washing out the Fair week racing.

The Race Against the Clock

As one of Knoxville Raceway’s Track Historians and keeper of records, one of the most important statistics we keep track of is the clock on race nights. Time management has been something Knoxville Raceway has strived to improve, so that events are completed at a decent time. Race Director, John McCoy, continuously reviews the track’s performance and how we can ensure that fans of all ages have an enjoyable experience at Knoxville. 

In 2015 our average time of the final checkered flag for weekly events was 11:07 p.m. Our goal in 2016 was to improve that number to 10:30 p.m. 

We made a huge stride in 2016 with the average finish of our weekly events being 10:16 p.m -- an improvement of 51 minutes this season for the final checkered flag. 

Brian Brown Wins!

We are through four weeks of racing so far this season at Knoxville Raceway. Only one rain out at this point which is great. We had a nice crowd this past Saturday despite the cool temperatures. Thank You to all of you who came out! The forecast so far for this coming Saturday looks much better.

This was the last weekly show of the season before we go to National Sprint League events for the next three weeks before the Outlaws come to town.

410 Report
25 cars signed in. Time Trials top eight was Bronson Maeschen 14.885, Brian Brown, Ian Madsen, Austin McCarl, Scott Bogucki, Danny Lasoski, Matt Juhl, and Brooke Tatnell. Good to see Bronson go out 21st in the order and lay down a good time. In hot laps Brian Brown had a lap of 14.507, exactly 0.100 off the ten year old track record of 14.407. With the weather conditions it made for some fast time in hot laps, but the track fell off in time trials a bit and the track widened out. Heat Race winners were; Mark Dobmeier, Brian Brown, and AJ Moeller.