Knoxvlle Nationals 101

The Knoxville Nationals qualifying scoring system is something I get questions about frequently.  The Knoxville Nationals Point System was created by promoter Ray Grimes and his wife Naomi.

A perfect score is 500 points. 200 for time trials, 100 for a heat race win, and 200 for a feature win.

Time Trials: 1st 200 points, 2nd 198, 3rd 196, and drops 2 points per position.

Heat Races: 1st 100, 2nd 97, 3rd 94, and drops 3 points per position.

A-Main: (same as time trials) 24th place = 154 points.

Quick time in time trials earns the same amount of points as winning the A-Main (200).

B-Main: 5th place 142, 6th 140, dropping 2 points per position.

The qualifying night heat races are the best races of the whole week. They are lined up by time trials with 8 cars inverted. (360 Nationals 6 cars are inverted.) Normal race formats at Knoxville the cars are inverted by 6, and WoO events the invert is 4. So heat races are intense and pressure packed, because you must finish in the top four to advance to the A-Main.

Quick time in time trials falls into heat 1 in the 8th position, 2nd quick is in heat 2 in the 8th position, etc. Heat race finishing positions 1-4 transfer to the A-main, positions 5-8 go to the B main, 9-10 to the C main.

The C and B mains are lined up by time trials with no invert, so the fastest car in the B main starts on the pole (inside row 1).

The A main also has an invert of 8. So the fastest car transferring from the heat races will start 8th, second quickest in 7th…. 8th fastest of the cars transferring from the heats is on the pole. 9th fastest starts 9th, 10th fastest starts 10th, etc.

Invert of 8 cars example.

Row 1: 8-7               Row 6: 11-12

Row 2: 6-5               Row 7: 13-14

Row 3: 4-3               Row 8: 15-16

Row 4: 2-1               Row 9: 17-18

Row 5: 9-10             Row 10: 19-20

All heats and main's are lined up according to your qualifying time. The B-Main transfer cars start on the tail of the A-Main in positions 21-24 in the order they finished, they DO NOT earn their time slot back.

There are no extra passing points.

At then end of the night the points are added up. You can see them live as the night goes on the Knoxville Raceway Mobile App if you click on "More" and scroll down to "Nationals Points" in the app.

This system has been used since 1977, and it works. Every position matters in every event. No settling for a transfer spot in the heat race, you have to keep racing to earn more points. Qualifying is a huge part of the format as it is just as important as the feature, and determines the lineup of everything.

After both qualifying nights, the points are combined. The top 16 over all from Wednesday and Thursday points are locked in for Saturday’s A-Main. Position 17-26 in points have the option to start up front in the Saturday B-Main, or hit the reset button and race Friday night in the "Hard Knox" program.

Positions 17-20 of the Saturday A-Main are up for grabs on "Hard Knox" Friday night. The top four finishers from Friday night’s A-Main will fill those sports. Friday night finishers 5-14 will make up the last five rows of the B-Main Saturday, and as they finish on Friday from there in the B and C main is where you start in the C, D, and E on Saturday night.

There is one wild card in that the winner of the World Challenge on Friday can earn a 25th starting position in the Knoxville Nationals Championship A-Main on Saturday.  If the winner is not already locked in, they will take the 25th spot rather than trying to work their way in from the B or C Main.  Only the winner is eligible for that golden ticket.

KNOXVILLE NATIONALS POINTS SYSTEM

A-Main and Time Trials: 1-200, 2-198, 3-196, 4-194, 5-192, 6-190, 7-188, 8-186, 9-184, 10-182, 11-180, 12-178, 13-176, 14-174, 15-172, 16-170, 17-168, 18-166, 19-164, 20-162…

Heats: 1-100, 2-97, 3-94, 4-91, 5-88, 6-85, 7-82, 8-79, 9-76, 10-73

Any further questions, feel free to tweet me @_EricArnold or contact me by e-mail at arniebhg@yahoo.com.