Remembering Brett Golik

This column originally appeared in the Newton Daily News after the death of Brett Golik. Today marks the five year anniversary of his death and looking back, Brett is still missed and I thought this serves as a good reminder of what to be thankful for today.
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The community of Newton and the Knoxville Raceway sprint car family lost a courageous competitor this past week with the passing of 40 year old Brett Golik. Brett battled brain cancer for two and half years and in that time frame, Brett made an effort to try to right the wrongs in his life. He became an inspiration trying to make people aware of supporting cancer research and his faith.
I didn’t know Brett personally, but as an avid race fan I followed Brett’s career at Knoxville. I respected Brett for chasing his dream. He worked at Maytag in the factory for ten years and found a way to put a yellow numbered 5G sprint car on the famed half mile oval for 18 seasons. It took Brett a few years to become competitive but he was able to pick up three wins in the 360 division. One of those wins was a classic battle with Knoxville legend David Hesmer from Marshalltown who is a four time track champion and is the all time wins leader in the 360 class. Hesmer remembered the night Golik had the better car and beat him to the finish line.

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.

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).

McCarl Wins 4th 360 Nationals

Studio 92 Photo

Terry McCarl won his fourth career 360 Nationals Saturday night at the Knoxville Raceway. The Saturday A-Main T-Mac drove away and the longer the race went the better his car seemed to be compared to his competition. He pulled away and was out to a four second lead in traffic, which is encouraging for Terry going into next week. Congrats to his team. I know those guys work hard. I’m really happy for crew chief Doug Rankin who has so much passion for the sport, Austin and Carson pitch in as well, a Jayme Moyle engine under the hood, it was a good combination. They had everything go their way with drawing number one in the qualifying order and made it through their heat race. Hopefully next week goes as well for them.

Big thanks to Arnold Motor Supply and Great Southern Bank for their help in putting this show on this year! 

Henderson & Landis Win!

Calvin Landis (Studio 92 Photo)

Candi’s Flowers Night this past Saturday saw one of the best races I’ve ever seen in the 360 class. I applaud the drivers for putting on a good show and for making all 18 laps without a caution. The weather on this night warm and humid with the dew point above 70 once again making for an excellent racing surface.

Visitors on this night were numerous, especially in the 360 class with the ASCS teams racing the two previous nights at I-80 in Nebraska and an off night on Saturday. Jeff Swindell, Aaron Reutzel, Scottie McDonald, Matt Covington, Tony Bruce Jr., Josh Baughman, Johnny Herrera, Wayne Johnson, Bill Balg, Justyn Cox, Jordan Weaver, Lee Grosz, Blake Hahn, and Kris Miller.

Lasoski Wins #106, Zomer Blazin' Hot

Saturday wasn’t a full moon but a lot of crazy things happened on this night. The track received 1.5” of rain around 7:00am and there was a power outage around town, including for two hours at the track. The track crews did their part to get the track and pit area ready and kudos to them. We had several crashes, some of them lengthy delays in clean up, and another power outage that took out several light poles during the 360 heat races. Some weird wild stuff I tell ya.

Drivers going double duty on this night in the 410 and 360 class were Justin Henderson, Terry McCarl, Dusty Zomer, Logan Forler, Danny Lasoski, and Jamie Ball entered in both the 360 and 305 class.

Brown & Zomer Win on Twin Features Night!

Twin Features night is always a pivotal night in the points for the Knoxville Raceway track championship. This year Danny Lasoski is looking for his tenth championship and had a 249 point lead before the night started. A good night for the Dude and his tenth championship is nearly assured with only four weekly nights left on the schedule after this week. With Twin Feature night scheduled on the same weekend as the Kings Royal in Ohio the car count was lower than in some recent weeks, or years past when teams liked to show up for the extra laps in preparation for the Nationals in August. This is good news for the Knoxville Regulars in that there were fewer cars enabling them to have the opportunity to get more points on a night where points mean more than ever. Brad Loyet was the only “visitor” on this night in the 410 class and Billy Alley made his second Knoxville appearance of the season in the 360 class.