Henderson Wins Two, Knoxville & Jackson Notes

Knoxville Raceway Season Championship night always sneaks up on us too fast at the end of the season doesn't it?  I’m still catching up on racing stuff post-Nationals so I apologize for the lateness of my blog here. I haven't been able to come up with my Nationals story yet. The next few weeks we still have some sprint car racing happening in the Midwest with WoO, ASCS, NSL, Sprint Invaders, so get out there and catch them while you can. The 410 and 360 championships were locked up coming into the night, but the 305 was still up for grabs.

410 Report
26 cars enterted. Top 10 Qualifying:  Justin Henderson set quick time for the fourth time this season with a lap of 14.922. He also set quick time four times in 2014. The rest of the top ten were Dusty Zomer, Brian Brown, Bronson Maeschen, Ian Madsen, Bryan Clauson, Mark Dobmeier, Austin McCarl, Danny Lasoski, and AJ Moeller.


Heat winners were Ryan Bunton (front row), Lynton Jeffrey (row two), and Danny Lasoski (row two). Madsen and Clauson both finished seventh in their respective heat races and missed the transfer to the A-Main, moving Lasoski and Moeller into the top eight redraw. Madsen would win the B-Main and Clauson would finish second and the drivers would earn the ninth and tenth starting spots in the A Main.

The A-Main was all Henderson starting from the pole and he would lead all 25 laps on his way to his fourth 410 feature win of the season at Knoxville, first career NSL feature event win, and the win paid $5,000. Brian Brown looked great in this race starting sixth and was closing on Henderson at the end on his way to a runner-up finish.

410 A-Main Finish (started): 1. Justin Henderson (1); 2. Brian Brown (6); 3. Mark Dobmeier (2); 4. Danny Lasoski (3); 5. Dusty Zomer (7); 6. Ian Madsen (9); 7. Bryan Clauson (10); 8. Austin McCarl (4); 9. Lynton Jeffrey (8); 10. Bronson Maeschen (5); 11. Terry McCarl (19); 12. Davey Heskin (13); 13. Tim Kaeding (20); 14. Craig Dollansky (18); 15. Dustin Selvage (17); 16. Bill Balog (14); 17. Brooke Tatnell (22); 18. Ryan Bunton (12); 19. Josh Schneiderman (11); 20. Dakota Hendrickson (16); 21. AJ Moeller (23); 22. Tasker Phillips (21); 23. RJ Johnson (15) DNS – Matt Juhl. Lap Leader: Henderson 1-25. Hard-charger: T. McCarl.

360 Report
23 cars enteted. Justin Henderson set quick time for the eighth time this season with a lap of 15.805. Henderson set quick time seven times last season. The top ten was Ryan Giles, Jamie Ball, Matt Moro, Keoni Texeira, Sawyer Phillips, Clint Garner, Dusty Zomer, Tony Shilling, and Jon Agan. Heat winners were Jon Agan (row two), Dusty Zomer (row two), and Joe Beaver (row two).

The A-Main saw Justin Henderson lead the entire distance, his own challenge came early from Dusty Zomer but Henderson was able to pull away. Ball was up to third and looking good but on lap 17 both Zomer ball dropped out of the race, perhaps out of fuel after several cautions. Giles passed Garner with a few laps remaining to get on the podium.  

360 A Main Finish (started): 1. Justin Henderson (1); 2. Matt Moro (5); 3. Ryan Giles (7); 4. Clint Garner (4); 5. Sawyer Phillips (2); 6. Nate Van Haaften (13); 7. Jon Agan (9); 8. Tony Shilling (8); 9. Randy Martin (14); 10. Bill Balog (12); 11. Joe Beaver (11); 12. Ricky Montgomery (18); 13. Alan Zoutte (15); 14. Tyler Brooks (20); 15. Dusty Zomer (3); 16. Jamie Ball (6); 17. Taylor Forbes (17); 18. J Kinder (10); 19. Keoni Texeira (21); 20. Tom Lenz (16); 21. Jamie Zaputil (19); 22. John Anderson (22) DNS – Calvin Landis. Lap Leader: Henderson 1-20. Hard-charger: Van Haaften.

305 Report
30 cars entered (tied record). Chris Walraven set quick time for the second time this season with a lap of 17.026. The rest of the top five was Devin Kline, Matthew Stelzer, Trevor Smith, and Mike Mayberry. Heat winners were Chase Wanner, Brad Comegys, and Joe Simbro, all three from the front row. In the A-Main is was a 53 minute endurance test from push off to the finish. McKenna Haase was leading but Kline was able to catch her late in traffic. Racing for the lead Haase went high in turn three to pass the lapped car of Ambers and made contact sending McKenna end over end four times in a scary crash. She was OK. From there Kline went on to win for the fifth time this season. Stacey Alexander started eleventh on this night and finished fourth to clinch the 305 championship.


305 A Main Finish (started): 1. Devin Kline (1); 2. Trevor Smith (6); 3. Christian Bowman (2); 4. Stacey Alexander (11); 5. Chris Walraven (9); 6. Jeff Wilke (8); 7. Matthew Stelzer (7); 8. Brad Comegys (14); 9. Mitchell Alexander (19); 10. Chase Wanner (16); 11. Billy Bell (24); 12. Kade Higday (10); 13. Corey Kautz (17); 14. Nick Tucker (3); 15. Kevin Hiemstra (13); 16. Cody Ambers (18); 17. Lee Patterson (23); 18. McKenna Haase (4); 19. Mike Mayberry (5); 20. Josh Jones (12); 21. Mike Johnston (20); 22. Shawn Deman (21); 23. Joe Simbro (15); 24. Don Dawson III (22). Lap Leaders: Haase 1-12, Kline 13-15. Hard-charger: Bell.

History and Notes
After seeing three new track champions a year ago, this year we have Lasoski winning this tenth, Garner wins his sixth, and Alexander his first.

Danny Lasoski dominated the 410 class this season, winning by 374 points over second place Henderson. This was also the tenth championship for crew chief Guy Forbrook and the seventh championship for these two guys together. Congrats to both of them. Their season stats; 13 top five finishes in 14 features. Their only night out of the top five was a 13th place finish during the fog shortened World of Outlaws feature. Their time trial average was 2.8, including three quick times. They won four heat races which is second most of anyone this season. Led 65 feature laps in seven features. I think the only car that passed him all season was Shane Stewart at the Capitani Classic. Lasoski made the top eight redraw ten times, the most of anyone. What a great season and clearly the best team.

Instead of an invert of eight being used every night in each class this season, we had a redraw of the fastest eight cars that advanced through their heat races. This seemed more fair for everyone, especially with the draw being determined by a different class each night. Here are some stats of how many times drivers were in the top eight redraw, their draws, and their average.

Top eight redraw stats this season. 
Lasoski, 10 draws: 6, 8, 3, 1, 1, 3, 2, 3, 5, and 3 for an average of 3.5.
Henderson, 8 draws: 4, 1, 4, 1, 5, 2, 2, and 1 for an average of 2.5
McCarl, 5 draws: 3, 5, 3 5, 1, average of 3.4.
Madsen, 6 draws: 2, 8, 3, 1, 2, 4, average of 3.3.
Brown, 8 draws: 3, 4, 7, 5, 8, 4, 6, 6, average of 5.4.
Tatnell, 5 draws: 6, 7, 4, 7, 4, average of 5.6
Zomer, 4 draws: 7, 7, 4, 7, average of 6.3.
Heskin, 3 draws: 7, 3, 8, average of 6.0.

Last year’s champ Ian Madsen finished fourth in points this year. No wins, six top fives, ten top tens, one quick time, time trial average of 6.9 and average feature finish of 8.6. A solid season, but not as good as they were wanting I think. The competition is so tough and they have nothing to hand their heads about.

Who was the Most Improved 410 driver? That is a tough one. Looking at 2014 points finishes Josh Schneiderman improved from 15th to 11th. Dakota Hendrickson 17th to 13th. Tasker Phillips 18th to 14th. Schneiderman and Hendrickson both had one top ten, while Phillips had two top ten finishes. Based on that you have to give the nod to Tasker in my opinion, but all three drivers showed improvement from last year.  

In (14) 410 A-Main’s this year, six were won from the front row, five from row two, two from row three, and Zomer won from tenth in the second feature on twin feature night.

Clock Management: 
I did a time study again this year for all the weekly shows and here are some interesting stats. I also have the 2014 stats here as well.

Average first push off for hot laps. 6:50pm (6:52 in 2014).
Average time for last checkered flag. 11:07pm (10:55 in 2014).

Average 305 A-Main length from push off to checkered flag:
29 minutes, average of 3.6 cautions/reds. (17 and 2.2).Yikes... 17 to 29 minutes in average time.

Average 360 A-Main length from push off to checkered flag:
17 minutes, average of 2.1 cautions/reds. (17 and 1.7).

Average 410 A-Main length from push off to checkered flag:
22 minutes, average of 1.8 cautions/reds. (25 and 2.1).

Car Count Averages: This year (last year)
410: 32.5 (33.4)
360: 27.9 (26.6)
305: 25.9 (23.7)
Total: 85.4 (84.7)
Car count was up overall, except down 1 car in the 410 class.

Jackson Nationals

I attended Saturday night of the Jackson Nationals this past weekend. I hadn’t been up there since 1990. My first trip was in 1984 to see Bobby Davis Jr. win the event after a good race with Brad Doty. Back then they had a covered wooden grandstand and it seemed like a big event. Then it just disappeared from the 410 sprint car radar until this year with Tod Quiring buying the track and putting up $25,000 to the winner as part of the new NSL.

I liked the format with the Nationals style points system being used both nights cumulatively. The race was one lane around the top and Sammy led the whole distance. Dollansky was able to sneak by Lasoski on a restart for second. The bottom groove wasn’t there and passing was difficult, but somehow Heskin was able to find something down low and made his way to sixth after starting 18th. McCarl made it from ninth to fifth.

There was a good crowd in attendance, maybe 4,500 which was almost full capacity there, but it was a long night. The event was managed terribly as far as time. In fact Doug Clark had to wave his flag to get the attention of the pit steward to get cars pushed off on more than one occasion. Hot Laps didn’t start until almost 7:30 and two sessions of 360 hot laps were needed as the track was wet. With only two classes of cars, not high car counts in either class, not enough push trucks, and no reworking the track or weather delays, somehow the checkers flew at 11:51pm. There was about a 20 minute intermission with fireworks that was cool. If this were a Knoxville show, I would have seen a flood of tweets coming in about moving the show along. I’m sure they will learn.