BHG 360 Power Rankings

Each year the BHG assembles their power rankings and below is the cumulative rankings of the members scores.  We're not always right, but damn close.  If you're looking to handicap your Nationals Fantasy league, this is a good place to start.  Good luck to all of the competitors this week and check back here next week for the 410 Nationals BHG Power Rankings!

2014 Bus House Gang 360 Knoxville Nationals Power Rankings1. Kevin Swindell, 2. Brian Brown, 3. Justin Henderson, 4. Terry McCarl,

5. Danny Lasoski, 6. Sammy Swindell, 7. Clint Garner, 8. Randy Hannagan,

9. Tim Shaffer, 10. Davey Heskin, 11. Ian Madsen, 12. Jack Dover,

13. Joe Beaver, 14. Jason Johnson, 15. Jeff Swindell, 16. Billy Alley,

17. Wayne Johnson, 18. Brady Bacon, 19. Dusty Zomer, 20. Brooke Tatnell,

21. Jon Agan, 22. Sam Hafertepe Jr., 23. Jonathan Cornell, 24. Johnny Herrera.

Just missed the cut:
Brad Loyet, Jac Haudenschild, Mark Dobmeier, Russ Hall,
Bill Balog, Sheldon Haudenschild, Jamie Ball.

Madsen and Henderson win!

Saturday night 77 sprint cars in the pits. The weather was a nice 80 degrees and it was HUMID on this night, the highest all season at 74% and the dew point was 73 degrees. Vapor trails were seen on the wings which is always cool.

As we gear up for the Nationals, Outsiders testing in the 410 class were Sammy Swindell, Rico Abreu, Austen Wheatley, Jac Haudenschild, Brady Bacon, Bryan Clauson, and Jon Agan was racing in a 410 for the first time this season.

410 Report
Top 10 Qualifying:  Brian Brown was quick time followed by McCarl, Jeffrey, Swindell, Lasoski, Agan, Wood, Dollansky, Dobmeier, Maeschen.

Heat winners were Brown (started 6th), Clint Garner (2nd), Sam Hafertepe Jr. (1st) and Davey Heskin (3rd). Brian Brown won his heat race from the third row for the second week in a row. He has the heat race setup figured out.

Henderson, Zomer, and Kline win on 3M Night!

After 3 straight weeks of rain out’s we were able to race this Saturday night. We haven’t had 3 consecutive weeks washed out since 1993, and it happened twice that year, one of those was a 5 week stretch in there.  1993 was a bad year.

97 sprint cars filled the pit area to near maximum capacity. The record for a weekly show car count on my records is 98 cars on 7/28/2012, so just missed that. But I have only been keeping track for six years of that number. By comparison though we had 148 cars for the Harris Clash on Thursday night this week. Cars were parked in the cold pit area, the push off lanes, where the push trucks stage normally, it was quite a sight.

Now that we are getting close to Nationals that means several teams were here to test and tune. In the 410 class we had Sammy Swindell, Rico Abreu, Jason Johnson, and Joey Moughan. On the 360 class; Jeff Swindell, Jason Johnson, Wayne Johnson, Dusty Zomer, Bronson Maeschen, Chase Johnson of California, and Josh Baughman of Texas. Josh Riggins and Alan Zoutte also made their first appearances of the season at Knoxville.

54th FVP Knoxville Nationals Preview

Knoxville Nationals Preview - by Eric Arnold

The Knoxville Nationals is almost here and with a lot of rain outs here I've been able to gather up my annual preview blog early this year. I study a lot of stats, data, prior year finishes, and try to account how their current season is progressing to come up with my power rankings and predictions.  As I look into my crystal ball, this is what I how break down the field (as of today).

The Favorite:
1) Donny Schatz is a seven time champion, has won the last three Nationals, and seven of the last eight. His past ten Nationals, his average finish is 2.3.  For more than a decade he has dominated this race and although he struggled to an 11th place finish at the World of Outlaws show at Knoxville this year, it’s hard to bet against him winning another Nationals title.  If anyone other than Schatz wins, it will be considered an upset. 

Contenders:

2) Kerry Madsen is a real contender this year. The 2005 Knoxville Raceway Track Champion is having his best season ever on the Outlaws tour, winning six features, including the $50,000 to win Kings Royal. He is fifth in WoO points. His Nationals resume doesn’t stand out with making the Championship A-Main only four times in the past ten years, with an average ten year finish of 23.8.  But Madsen finished fifth in 2010, the best finish of any Australian at the Nationals. Last year he timed twelfth and finished second in his preliminary feature to start eighth on Saturday and fell to 16th. I look for the Mad Man to be better this year, and having ace Tyler Swank spinning the wrenches, a local guy who knows Knoxville very well helps his chances even more.