Maeschen wins Capitani Classic

Sunday night at Knoxville Raceway was all about 410 sprint cars for the first annual Capitani Classic. This is a new race added to the schedule this season in honor of long time track race director Ralph Capitani who held that position from 1977-2011 and helped build the world famous facility into what it is today. This is also a final tune-up opportunity for teams before the Knoxville Nationals which begins on Wednesday night. With the Outlaws racing in Missouri the night before and off on Sunday the majority of those teams were on hand and a total of 67 cars competed. Although the competition was tough and stacked, it was local Pleasantville driver Bronson Maeschen taking the $5,000 winner’s check home. Maeschen won his first career feature at Knoxville this year on July 14th, but on this night he was beating some of the best in the business as he led all 25 laps fending off challenges from 2010 Nationals champion Tim Shaffer in lapped traffic.

Brooke Tatnell was the fastest in qualifying and the heat race winners were Josh Schneiderman, Tim Shaffer, Maeschen, Ed Lynch Jr., Shane Stewart, and Donny Schatz. Schatz elected to sit out the feature to save his car for the Nationals later in the week. With six heat races and the top three in each heat qualifying for the A main, the rest of the field was broken in into three B-main’s and those were won by Justin Henderson, Rager Phillips, and Brady Bacon.

After the B-Mains the track was reworked on the bottom and top grooves as the track was starting to become one lane around the bottom with the track abrasive enough to eat up tires and take rubber. It was the right call to make to rework the track, however it was still fast and one lane on the bottom with it being watered and tacky until the closing laps.

This was also a full points event for the Knoxville weekly competitors, and with only five of them qualifying there was a big shake up in the point standings. Davey Heskin has held the point lead almost the entire season, but with Heskin failing to qualify for the A-Main and Terry McCarl finishing 12th on the night the point lead changed hands as McCarl now leads Heskin by eight points.

Capitani Classic results: 1. Bronson Maeschen, 2. Tim Shaffer, 3. Joey Saldana, 4. Cody Darrah, 5. Tim Kaeding, 6. Brad Sweet, 7. Brian Brown, 8. Jason Johnson, 9. Danny Lasoski, 10. Shane Stewart, 11. Daryn Pittman, 12. Terry McCarl, 13. Kyle Larson, 14. Kerry Madsen, 15. Ed Lynch Jr., 16. Tasker Phillips, 17. James McFadden, 18. Rager Phillips, 19. Josh Schneiderman, 20. Brooke Tatnell, 21. Justin Henderson, 22. Wayne Johnson, 23. Brady Bacon, 24. Dale Blaney.