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.
