Knoxville, IA — Aug. 9, 2005 — By Chris Dolack, World of Outlaws Senior
Writer
There is no bigger event in the world of sprint car racing than the
Knoxville Nationals. It is, as Danny Lasoski points out, the granddaddy
of them all.
Lasoski should know. Among his record 86 victories at historic
Knoxville Raceway, he counts four championships in the Nationals,
including victories in three of the past four years. To sprint car
racers, especially those in the World of Outlaws Sprint Series, the
Knoxville Nationals is the pinnacle event of every season.
The purse is extraordinary. While most events offer the winner anywhere
from $10,000 to $12,000, the Nationals this season will reward the
victor with a check for $140,000 from a purse that exceeds $800,000. It
is a race that can line the pockets of a team that was struggling, but
this race isn’t about the money. Well, not entirely about the money,
anyway.
No, this race is about prestige. It is about saying you’re a Knoxville
Nationals champion in front of a crowd that approaches 30,000 fans a
night. It is about leaving your mark on history.
“It’s a tough race,” said Steve Kinser, who won the first of his
unbelievable 12 Nationals titles in 1980. “It’s tough to get yourself
into position to win a race through all the preliminary nights and
everything else. Everything has to go well the whole week to make
things work on Saturday night. You have to get qualified well, then you
have to transfer through your heat. You can’t make a whole lot of
mistakes or it will take you right out of the race. There are a lot of
ways to lose that race and very few ways to win it.”
For many of the 129 racers pre-registered for the event, just reaching
the A-main Saturday night is an achievement. With qualifying beginning
on Wednesday, nearly every time a car is on the track it’s earning
points toward reaching the ultimate prize. By the time Saturday night
rolls around, only four drivers who haven’t already qualified for the
main event will have a chance to race their way in, and then have to
come from the rear of the field.
“The first thing is to get out and get qualified well to get your
points headed in the right direction,” said Kinser, a winner earlier
this season at Knoxville who leads the Outlaws with 16 A-feature
victories. “Then in the heats it gets so tough. You don’t worry too
much about points, you just worry about getting transferred into the
main and holding your position so you don’t have to come through the B
to get to it. You just hope you don’t blow a motor or fall out of a
race because if you do, starting in the back of a 30-lap race, you’re
not going to have much of a chance.”
Everybody in the pits seems to have a Knoxville story. Drivers like
Iowa native Terry McCarl, a six-time Knoxville Raceway weekly champion
who is currently 10th in the World of Outlaws drivers’ standings, has
been going to the event since he was a kid, sneaking around with his
brother into the various barns on track’s Marion County Fairgrounds
property, watching from the lofts as car owners gathered below.
“The Nationals is about the aura of the place,” said McCarl, who led
the first 15 laps last season. “It’s not necessarily the big money that
is involved. You think about that afterward when you get home and you
look at how much money you made. At the time, there are so many people
there, the feeling in the air. There are 30,000 people there for the
same reason you are. You have a friend everywhere you turn. There’s so
much camaraderie because everybody’s there for sprint car racing. It
doesn’t compare to any other event. Nothing against any other racetrack
in the world, but it’s the whole package. It’s not just the facility,
it’s the event and the people and the amount of money and the prestige
of winning it. I just love the feeling in the air. I like to be at the
Nationals. I like to stay there. I’m still a race fan. It’s the mecca
for sprint car racing.”
Every driver has some memory of the event, whether it was good or bad.
For many, there was no better Knoxville Nationals than in 1990 when
Bobby Allen raced to Victory Lane.
“The first Knoxville Nationals I ever went to, I went to watch and it
was the year Bobby Allen won,” said Paul McMahan, who last year was
having a successful qualifying run when misfortune struck in the form
of a crash that left him with a broken tailbone and crushed right heel.
“You go there and people expect Steve Kinser or Danny Lasoski to win
and to have Scruffy win that night was pretty cool. I remember just
sitting in Turn 4, watching the race. Scruffy didn’t have the cleanest
racecar, he didn’t have the prettiest racecar, but on that night he was
the fastest. It was pretty cool to see a guy like that who had been
going at it for so long and never won that race to finally do it. It
was one of those heartbreaking nights for Mark Kinser because I think
he would have won his first Knoxville Nationals that year, but he had
some problems and Scruffy went on to win. It was pretty cool. Sammy
[Swindell] was second, but it was just neat to see Bobby Allen win.”
Brooke Tatnell, the newest member of the Mean 15 who has been on a tear
since coming over from Australia, also remembers Allen’s victory in
1990, but he remembers it for Swindell finishing second more than
Allen’s win.
“As far as I’m concerned, Sammy is the most complete all around racer
there ever was,” said Tatnell, a two-time A-feature winner this season.
“I mean Steve Kinser is probably the most naturally gifted racecar
driver we’ll ever see in our time. Then you look at Sammy and he’s
naturally gifted, but probably has more race-crafted engineering, I
think sometimes that’s held Sammy back over the years. It’s the
Nationals and here’s Sammy, he’s won but also lost it so many times.
Here’s Bobby Allen, nobody expected him to win and he’s won it. That’s
the cool thing about it. You can be super-fast all year long but it
doesn’t mean anything until you lead the Nationals.”
For Daryn Pittman, watching Steve Kinser get the best of Stevie Smith
after a rain delay taught him early on how difficult an event the
Nationals is to win.
“It was a great race,” said Pittman, who won earlier this year at 81
Speedway in Wichita. “There was a rain delay, it had a red flag and the
rain cleared up and Stevie pretty much had him covered. They had a
really good race the whole time. I think everybody sat there watching,
Stevie was obviously the major underdog and at that time everybody was
hoping somebody would win besides Steve. I think everybody in the world
was there cheering for [Stevie] and hated to see the red flag. I
remember Stevie’s interview afterwards. I’ve always been a big fan of
his ever since then. He was a great loser that day and it was good to
watch and see how he took it, to see how hard Steve had to work to get
by him. That was one I’ll always remember and made it clear how hard it
is to win the Nationals.”
More than anything, though, the Knoxville Nationals is about the
gathering of sprint car fans from across the world to the half-mile
oval a little southeast of Des Moines. The race long ago became an
event, and the event has always been a celebration.
“There are just a lot of people there,” said Donny Schatz, a four-time
A-feature winner this season. “There are a lot of things happening, a
lot of events, a lot of racing. It’s a pretty exciting week for
everybody, but when it’s over I’m glad it’s over and we wait another
year to do it again. It’s a pretty prominent event and we’re excited to
be a part of it. Hopefully we can be competitive at it again.”
They come from across the world with a purpose. The event is sanctioned
by the World of Outlaws, but nearly every sprint car series will be
represented.
“You’re there to win the Knoxville Nationals,” said Jason Meyers, a
four-time winner with the Outlaws who is second in points. “You’re not
there to win a $140,000, you’re there to win the Knoxville Nationals.
The $140,000 is just a bonus. You look at the list of the people who
have won that race and it’s definitely a list you want to be on before
your career is over.”
Tim Shaffer, already a winner during the Month of Money by taking the
checkered flag in the Don Martin Memorial Silver Cup in July at
Lernerville Speedway, has the added pressure of trying to win the
Nationals for his central Iowa-based sponsor, Casey’s General Stores.
“Mainly at Knoxville, you remember the atmosphere,” said Shaffer, a
three-time winner this season. “The whole deal is pretty awesome. All
the people there. The grandstands fill up on both sides of the
straightaways. Anybody who hasn’t been there needs to go. It’s a great
race and you’ll see good racing. You’ll see a bottom line, a top line.
Everybody races extremely hard, not that they don’t any other time, but
you really see it there. There’s racing from the back to the front, it
doesn’t matter.
“You don’t even think about the money, to be honest. It was like
winning the Silver Cup at Lernerville, I don’t think the money issue
was for a few weeks later. It’s just winning those races. To win the
Knoxville Nationals would be an incredible deal for us, with the
Casey’s General Stores being a local car. [Car owner] Lonny [Parsons]
said if we won that, we might not make it to Billings. It’d be a great
deal and we’re going to give it our best. I think we’ve got a chance at
it, I really do.”
A chance is really all these racers ask for. A shot at immortality. An
opportunity to create a memory.
“I think probably one of my bigger memories is the first year we put
our race team together and we won from about the 12th spot,” Kinser
said. “We’ve had a lot of good memories, but probably the things you
remember the most are the worst times you were there. The last one we
won was pretty happy, too. We’ve won a non-wing Nationals and with a
wing. There are just a lot of good memories. I remember going there
before I started racing as a kid with my dad, watching the Knoxville
Nationals. Those are real good memories for me, too. I’ve had a lot of
good times there.”
Brian Paulus will never forget the 2004 race, and the decisions the
team had to make with a dinged racecar.
“On our qualifying night we crashed and bent up the car really bad,”
said Paulus, a two-time A-feature winner this season. “We bent up to
the point that in our eyes and to most people who looked at it thought
it was junk. We bolted it back together just enough to turn a lap in
the B-main to get some points and we actually ran the whole B-main,
qualified and started last in the feature and ran up to 13th with it.
The next day we spent half the day debating on whether we should run a
destroyed a racecar with pieces barely bolted onto it or running a
racecar that was perfectly straight and everything on it was good. It
was a pretty funny memory the next day, trying to figure out which car
to run.
“To go there and race the Nationals, obviously you want to come home
with the $140,000, but that’s just the bonus to it. Like Daytona, to
leave there and say I’m a Knoxville Nationals champion, people will
remember that for years. You can win a championship with the Outlaws or
at a local track and people will remember, but I think the Nationals
will stand out more in people’s minds.”
Shane Stewart won’t soon forget the past two years at Knoxville, where
he finished seventh each time.
“We’ve been really competitive,” said Stewart, whose Rudeen Racing team
is unveiling a new car that highlights sponsor Snap-on Tools. “Looking
back at those two races, if I would have had the right brakes we could
have won the race. It’s just a crazy week. Everybody gets antsy about
it, gets revved up for it. They’ve got their newest and latest car,
they’ve got their best motor in. I try not to look at it like it’s a
different race, but it’s hard not to.
“The money is just a bonus. I’d love to wake up and look at that trophy
sitting in my house or wherever. It’s just an exciting week and it’s
fun to be a part of it. It makes it even more when you know going in
that you have a chance of making the A-main and maybe even a chance at
winning the race. It’s just a special week and I’m proud to be a part
of it and have a good crew and a good car owner behind me.”
Today’s racers often got their first taste of sprint car racing at
Knoxville as kids.
“It’s just a neat atmosphere,” said Craig Dollansky, who has two
A-feature victories this season. “Going there as a kid, I was just in
awe. Going in there and being at the Knoxville Nationals, four days of
racing, all the teams, cars and drivers that were there from
everywhere. It’s just a real neat atmosphere and it still is. It’s
getting bigger and bigger all the time.
“As a kid, I’d go down there with my dad and watch the races, saying,
‘Man, I can’t wait to race here some day.’”
Brandon Wimmer can understand. Wimmer, a Mean 15 racer who graduated
high school in June, won’t soon forget his first trip to the Nationals,
either. It helped solidify in his mind what direction he wanted to take
his life.
“The first year I ever went I was 10 years old,” said Wimmer, a
rookie-of-the-year candidate who has a couple of top-10s this season.
“I got snuck into the pits, and it was one of the coolest things I’ve
ever seen in my life. Just to go down there and see everybody right
there in front of you, see everything they do. That year, there were
about 80 cars each night trying to make that race. It was pretty
unbelievable. It’s unbelievable how many fans show up for that week.
There’s nothing else like it. There’s so much excitement in the air.
You just try to go there and stay calm and act like it’s another race,
but at the same time it’s one of the biggest races of the year and it’s
kind of hard to do that.”
They all try to treat it as if it were just another race, but
considering many teams spend the entire season working toward this one
event, even shelving cars early in the season because they believe they
might run well when the Nationals roll around, Knoxville hardly is just
another event.
“If you start worrying about how big a race it actually is, you’re not
going to do very good,” said Joey Saldana, who broke the Knoxville
single-lap record in April and is trying to join his father, 1970
winner Joe Saldana, as a Nationals champion. “I was lucky enough to
finish third a few years ago and it’s pretty neat to accomplish that.
It makes you want to do better than third. It’s the biggest race we
have and everybody wants to win it. That’s the objective. It would be
pretty neat if I could do it because there aren’t too many fathers and
sons who have done it.”
The event also is unique because the road warrior Outlaws compete in
one place for at least four nights, with many teams arriving early to
get adjusted. Often times the series is in-and-out of a town after only
two or three nights at most.
“The whole atmosphere of the four days being in one place for that
long, just being able to race and watch a couple of nights, too, at the
same time is exciting,” said Jason Sides, a two-time pole-winner this
season who won the Kings Royal in 2004. “When it’s all over, you’ve got
all the pressure off of you for the Nationals. It’s not a whole lot of
pressure, but it’s the biggest race of the year. Once it’s over, it’s
downhill for the rest of the year and you can fun.
“Being in the show is one thing, then being in the top-10 or top-five,
to win it, that’s totally something else.”
A Knoxville Nationals victory is something very few drivers have
experienced. Since Allen’s 1990 victory, only Steve Kinser, Mark
Kinser, Dave Blaney and Danny Lasoski have wound up in the winner’s
circle.
“It’s the greatest speedway in the world, period,” said Lasoski, the
2001 Outlaws champion who drives for Brickyard 400 winner Tony Stewart.
“It’s the only place you can go that has the atmosphere of the Daytona
500 and the Indianapolis 500 built into one. People save their
vacations, work all year long and come stay there for a week. That is
the granddaddy of them all. We have been fortunate enough to win four
of them. Just coming to Knoxville is like going home and we love every
bit of it.
“When you win one for the first time, then you’ll understand. But until
you win one, you can talk about it but I still remember every lap of
the first one we won. There’s nothing greater than the first one, but
that just gives you the desire and the fire to win more and more. We’re
going back to see if we can win five of them.”
Others are still searching for their first Knoxville Nationals victory.
Jac Haudenschild, who has 40 World of Outlaws A-feature wins in his
career, including one Saturday night at Eldora Speedway, has been very
fast since taking over the No. 83 Beef Packers car in July.
“My biggest memory there is the one year we ran for Pennzoil and we won
everything but the Nationals, we ended up running second in the
Nationals,” Haudenschild said. “That was my most memorable year at
Knoxville. We’re hoping to match it again.”
But the past doesn’t matter in this event. Kraig Kinser knows his first
Knoxville victory, coming in June when the second night of a two-night
event was canceled by rain, won’t help him at all once the green flag
drops.
“That four-day show can get kind of grueling,” said Kraig Kinser, a
five-time A-feature winner in 2005. “A lot of people get down to
business when it gets to Knoxville. There are so many big moments in
racing that come from the Knoxville Nationals that it’s hard to pick
one that stands out in your mind. Definitely some people have had some
very good wins and some have had tremendous heartbreak. You need a lot
of luck to get in the show just to have a shot to win the race.
“It’s a whole different ballgame when you get there for the Nationals.
You have to have the best attitude you can. What you did before doesn’t
mean anything when you get to Knoxville. Those guys are going to be
running you hard, they won’t care whether you’ve won a race there or
never been there before. They’ll be just as hard on you. People will be
running for points, some people will be scrounging for every position
they can get because one more position is just that many more points
and gives them that much more boost to get in the show. It’s all out as
hard as you can go for as many spots as you can get.”
Jason Solwold earned enough last season to be named the Knoxville
Nationals Rookie of the Year, an award this time around that will
result in a test session with an Indy Racing League Menards Infiniti
Pro Series team.
“That was my first time at the Knoxville Nationals,” said Solwold, a
Kevin Gobrecht Rookie of the Year Award candidate. “I’ve watched it on
TV, but to go in there and we ran halfway decent, finishing toward the
back of the B-main. I was hoping to make the A-main, which was pretty
far-fetched. Hopefully this year we can get into the show and go from
there. I’m pretty happy with what happened last year. The Knoxville
Nationals rookie-of-the-year deal is a pretty prestigious deal.
“To finish where we did, after I got away and was able to think about
it for a little while, I had to be happy with what we accomplished.”
The event this year kicks off on Wednesday. Here is the schedule
courtesy of Knoxville Raceway:
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY
Hot laps, Qualifications, Last Chance Heats, five Heats, C feature, B
feature, A feature.
Qualifications — 200 points are awarded for quick timer, 198 for second
quick, 196 for third, etc.
• Only the top 50 qualifiers make the heats, the rest are put in the
last chance heats in which the first eight finishers will fill the back
of that night’s C feature (starting in the sixth row).
Last Chance Heats (for drivers out of the top 50 in Qual.) — 50 points
awarded to the winner, 47 for 2nd, etc.
Heats — 100 points are awarded for the heat winner, points go down by
three: 97, 94, 91, 88, etc.
• Heats are totally inverted (10). This sets up the best racing of the
week. Top four finishers go to A, next four to B, last two to C.
C feature — Top two finishers go to back of the B. Third place is worth
96 pts., 2nd is 94, etc.
B feature — The top four finishers transfer to the tail of the A. The B
awards 142 points for fifth, 140 for sixth and so on by twos.
A feature — The A feature points are the same as time trials: 200, 198,
196 etc. This explains how a driver can not make the A, but if he timed
well may have more points than someone who did make the A.
• Ties in points go to the quicker timer.
• A perfect score (quick time, heat win, feature win) is 500.
• The top 50 in points from Wednesday and Thursday are locked in to
Saturday’s program, however there is more racing to do on Friday.
FRIDAY
Hot laps, Five Heats for Non-qualifiers, C feature for NQ, B feature
for NQ, A feature for NQ, C Scramble, B Scramble, A Scramble, Clean-O
World Challenge.
Non-qualifier events — Non-qualifiers are simply positions 61-100 in
points from the qualifying nights and points mean little once the
racing starts. They are lined heads up by points for their heat races
and their features. Friday night’s A feature winner starts Saturday’s C
in 11th position, and the rest fill down through the E according to
their finish on Friday.
Scrambles — The top 10 point-getters for Saturday’s A, B and C run
scrambles. The scrambles are totally inverted. Points accrued from the
scrambles are added to your current point total, and that is how the
lineup is set. First in the scramble awards 20 points, second 18, third
16 and so on. In addition you are awarded 1 point for every car you
pass. So if a driver starts 10th and finishes third in the scramble
he/she adds 23 points to their total (16 for third + 7 for cars
passed).
“Clean-O” World Challenge — This is an international invitational
event.
The lineup is inverted according to points accrued on Wednesday and
Thursday. It has no bearing on Saturday’s lineups.
SATURDAY
E feature, D feature, C feature, B feature, Knoxville Nationals
Championship feature.
• With the exception of the B feature which takes the top four
finishers to the tail of the Knoxville Nationals Championship, all
other features transfer the top two finishers to the tail of the next
event (if there are scratches, there may be more taken for a particular
event).
Writer
There is no bigger event in the world of sprint car racing than the
Knoxville Nationals. It is, as Danny Lasoski points out, the granddaddy
of them all.
Lasoski should know. Among his record 86 victories at historic
Knoxville Raceway, he counts four championships in the Nationals,
including victories in three of the past four years. To sprint car
racers, especially those in the World of Outlaws Sprint Series, the
Knoxville Nationals is the pinnacle event of every season.
The purse is extraordinary. While most events offer the winner anywhere
from $10,000 to $12,000, the Nationals this season will reward the
victor with a check for $140,000 from a purse that exceeds $800,000. It
is a race that can line the pockets of a team that was struggling, but
this race isn’t about the money. Well, not entirely about the money,
anyway.
No, this race is about prestige. It is about saying you’re a Knoxville
Nationals champion in front of a crowd that approaches 30,000 fans a
night. It is about leaving your mark on history.
“It’s a tough race,” said Steve Kinser, who won the first of his
unbelievable 12 Nationals titles in 1980. “It’s tough to get yourself
into position to win a race through all the preliminary nights and
everything else. Everything has to go well the whole week to make
things work on Saturday night. You have to get qualified well, then you
have to transfer through your heat. You can’t make a whole lot of
mistakes or it will take you right out of the race. There are a lot of
ways to lose that race and very few ways to win it.”
For many of the 129 racers pre-registered for the event, just reaching
the A-main Saturday night is an achievement. With qualifying beginning
on Wednesday, nearly every time a car is on the track it’s earning
points toward reaching the ultimate prize. By the time Saturday night
rolls around, only four drivers who haven’t already qualified for the
main event will have a chance to race their way in, and then have to
come from the rear of the field.
“The first thing is to get out and get qualified well to get your
points headed in the right direction,” said Kinser, a winner earlier
this season at Knoxville who leads the Outlaws with 16 A-feature
victories. “Then in the heats it gets so tough. You don’t worry too
much about points, you just worry about getting transferred into the
main and holding your position so you don’t have to come through the B
to get to it. You just hope you don’t blow a motor or fall out of a
race because if you do, starting in the back of a 30-lap race, you’re
not going to have much of a chance.”
Everybody in the pits seems to have a Knoxville story. Drivers like
Iowa native Terry McCarl, a six-time Knoxville Raceway weekly champion
who is currently 10th in the World of Outlaws drivers’ standings, has
been going to the event since he was a kid, sneaking around with his
brother into the various barns on track’s Marion County Fairgrounds
property, watching from the lofts as car owners gathered below.
“The Nationals is about the aura of the place,” said McCarl, who led
the first 15 laps last season. “It’s not necessarily the big money that
is involved. You think about that afterward when you get home and you
look at how much money you made. At the time, there are so many people
there, the feeling in the air. There are 30,000 people there for the
same reason you are. You have a friend everywhere you turn. There’s so
much camaraderie because everybody’s there for sprint car racing. It
doesn’t compare to any other event. Nothing against any other racetrack
in the world, but it’s the whole package. It’s not just the facility,
it’s the event and the people and the amount of money and the prestige
of winning it. I just love the feeling in the air. I like to be at the
Nationals. I like to stay there. I’m still a race fan. It’s the mecca
for sprint car racing.”
Every driver has some memory of the event, whether it was good or bad.
For many, there was no better Knoxville Nationals than in 1990 when
Bobby Allen raced to Victory Lane.
“The first Knoxville Nationals I ever went to, I went to watch and it
was the year Bobby Allen won,” said Paul McMahan, who last year was
having a successful qualifying run when misfortune struck in the form
of a crash that left him with a broken tailbone and crushed right heel.
“You go there and people expect Steve Kinser or Danny Lasoski to win
and to have Scruffy win that night was pretty cool. I remember just
sitting in Turn 4, watching the race. Scruffy didn’t have the cleanest
racecar, he didn’t have the prettiest racecar, but on that night he was
the fastest. It was pretty cool to see a guy like that who had been
going at it for so long and never won that race to finally do it. It
was one of those heartbreaking nights for Mark Kinser because I think
he would have won his first Knoxville Nationals that year, but he had
some problems and Scruffy went on to win. It was pretty cool. Sammy
[Swindell] was second, but it was just neat to see Bobby Allen win.”
Brooke Tatnell, the newest member of the Mean 15 who has been on a tear
since coming over from Australia, also remembers Allen’s victory in
1990, but he remembers it for Swindell finishing second more than
Allen’s win.
“As far as I’m concerned, Sammy is the most complete all around racer
there ever was,” said Tatnell, a two-time A-feature winner this season.
“I mean Steve Kinser is probably the most naturally gifted racecar
driver we’ll ever see in our time. Then you look at Sammy and he’s
naturally gifted, but probably has more race-crafted engineering, I
think sometimes that’s held Sammy back over the years. It’s the
Nationals and here’s Sammy, he’s won but also lost it so many times.
Here’s Bobby Allen, nobody expected him to win and he’s won it. That’s
the cool thing about it. You can be super-fast all year long but it
doesn’t mean anything until you lead the Nationals.”
For Daryn Pittman, watching Steve Kinser get the best of Stevie Smith
after a rain delay taught him early on how difficult an event the
Nationals is to win.
“It was a great race,” said Pittman, who won earlier this year at 81
Speedway in Wichita. “There was a rain delay, it had a red flag and the
rain cleared up and Stevie pretty much had him covered. They had a
really good race the whole time. I think everybody sat there watching,
Stevie was obviously the major underdog and at that time everybody was
hoping somebody would win besides Steve. I think everybody in the world
was there cheering for [Stevie] and hated to see the red flag. I
remember Stevie’s interview afterwards. I’ve always been a big fan of
his ever since then. He was a great loser that day and it was good to
watch and see how he took it, to see how hard Steve had to work to get
by him. That was one I’ll always remember and made it clear how hard it
is to win the Nationals.”
More than anything, though, the Knoxville Nationals is about the
gathering of sprint car fans from across the world to the half-mile
oval a little southeast of Des Moines. The race long ago became an
event, and the event has always been a celebration.
“There are just a lot of people there,” said Donny Schatz, a four-time
A-feature winner this season. “There are a lot of things happening, a
lot of events, a lot of racing. It’s a pretty exciting week for
everybody, but when it’s over I’m glad it’s over and we wait another
year to do it again. It’s a pretty prominent event and we’re excited to
be a part of it. Hopefully we can be competitive at it again.”
They come from across the world with a purpose. The event is sanctioned
by the World of Outlaws, but nearly every sprint car series will be
represented.
“You’re there to win the Knoxville Nationals,” said Jason Meyers, a
four-time winner with the Outlaws who is second in points. “You’re not
there to win a $140,000, you’re there to win the Knoxville Nationals.
The $140,000 is just a bonus. You look at the list of the people who
have won that race and it’s definitely a list you want to be on before
your career is over.”
Tim Shaffer, already a winner during the Month of Money by taking the
checkered flag in the Don Martin Memorial Silver Cup in July at
Lernerville Speedway, has the added pressure of trying to win the
Nationals for his central Iowa-based sponsor, Casey’s General Stores.
“Mainly at Knoxville, you remember the atmosphere,” said Shaffer, a
three-time winner this season. “The whole deal is pretty awesome. All
the people there. The grandstands fill up on both sides of the
straightaways. Anybody who hasn’t been there needs to go. It’s a great
race and you’ll see good racing. You’ll see a bottom line, a top line.
Everybody races extremely hard, not that they don’t any other time, but
you really see it there. There’s racing from the back to the front, it
doesn’t matter.
“You don’t even think about the money, to be honest. It was like
winning the Silver Cup at Lernerville, I don’t think the money issue
was for a few weeks later. It’s just winning those races. To win the
Knoxville Nationals would be an incredible deal for us, with the
Casey’s General Stores being a local car. [Car owner] Lonny [Parsons]
said if we won that, we might not make it to Billings. It’d be a great
deal and we’re going to give it our best. I think we’ve got a chance at
it, I really do.”
A chance is really all these racers ask for. A shot at immortality. An
opportunity to create a memory.
“I think probably one of my bigger memories is the first year we put
our race team together and we won from about the 12th spot,” Kinser
said. “We’ve had a lot of good memories, but probably the things you
remember the most are the worst times you were there. The last one we
won was pretty happy, too. We’ve won a non-wing Nationals and with a
wing. There are just a lot of good memories. I remember going there
before I started racing as a kid with my dad, watching the Knoxville
Nationals. Those are real good memories for me, too. I’ve had a lot of
good times there.”
Brian Paulus will never forget the 2004 race, and the decisions the
team had to make with a dinged racecar.
“On our qualifying night we crashed and bent up the car really bad,”
said Paulus, a two-time A-feature winner this season. “We bent up to
the point that in our eyes and to most people who looked at it thought
it was junk. We bolted it back together just enough to turn a lap in
the B-main to get some points and we actually ran the whole B-main,
qualified and started last in the feature and ran up to 13th with it.
The next day we spent half the day debating on whether we should run a
destroyed a racecar with pieces barely bolted onto it or running a
racecar that was perfectly straight and everything on it was good. It
was a pretty funny memory the next day, trying to figure out which car
to run.
“To go there and race the Nationals, obviously you want to come home
with the $140,000, but that’s just the bonus to it. Like Daytona, to
leave there and say I’m a Knoxville Nationals champion, people will
remember that for years. You can win a championship with the Outlaws or
at a local track and people will remember, but I think the Nationals
will stand out more in people’s minds.”
Shane Stewart won’t soon forget the past two years at Knoxville, where
he finished seventh each time.
“We’ve been really competitive,” said Stewart, whose Rudeen Racing team
is unveiling a new car that highlights sponsor Snap-on Tools. “Looking
back at those two races, if I would have had the right brakes we could
have won the race. It’s just a crazy week. Everybody gets antsy about
it, gets revved up for it. They’ve got their newest and latest car,
they’ve got their best motor in. I try not to look at it like it’s a
different race, but it’s hard not to.
“The money is just a bonus. I’d love to wake up and look at that trophy
sitting in my house or wherever. It’s just an exciting week and it’s
fun to be a part of it. It makes it even more when you know going in
that you have a chance of making the A-main and maybe even a chance at
winning the race. It’s just a special week and I’m proud to be a part
of it and have a good crew and a good car owner behind me.”
Today’s racers often got their first taste of sprint car racing at
Knoxville as kids.
“It’s just a neat atmosphere,” said Craig Dollansky, who has two
A-feature victories this season. “Going there as a kid, I was just in
awe. Going in there and being at the Knoxville Nationals, four days of
racing, all the teams, cars and drivers that were there from
everywhere. It’s just a real neat atmosphere and it still is. It’s
getting bigger and bigger all the time.
“As a kid, I’d go down there with my dad and watch the races, saying,
‘Man, I can’t wait to race here some day.’”
Brandon Wimmer can understand. Wimmer, a Mean 15 racer who graduated
high school in June, won’t soon forget his first trip to the Nationals,
either. It helped solidify in his mind what direction he wanted to take
his life.
“The first year I ever went I was 10 years old,” said Wimmer, a
rookie-of-the-year candidate who has a couple of top-10s this season.
“I got snuck into the pits, and it was one of the coolest things I’ve
ever seen in my life. Just to go down there and see everybody right
there in front of you, see everything they do. That year, there were
about 80 cars each night trying to make that race. It was pretty
unbelievable. It’s unbelievable how many fans show up for that week.
There’s nothing else like it. There’s so much excitement in the air.
You just try to go there and stay calm and act like it’s another race,
but at the same time it’s one of the biggest races of the year and it’s
kind of hard to do that.”
They all try to treat it as if it were just another race, but
considering many teams spend the entire season working toward this one
event, even shelving cars early in the season because they believe they
might run well when the Nationals roll around, Knoxville hardly is just
another event.
“If you start worrying about how big a race it actually is, you’re not
going to do very good,” said Joey Saldana, who broke the Knoxville
single-lap record in April and is trying to join his father, 1970
winner Joe Saldana, as a Nationals champion. “I was lucky enough to
finish third a few years ago and it’s pretty neat to accomplish that.
It makes you want to do better than third. It’s the biggest race we
have and everybody wants to win it. That’s the objective. It would be
pretty neat if I could do it because there aren’t too many fathers and
sons who have done it.”
The event also is unique because the road warrior Outlaws compete in
one place for at least four nights, with many teams arriving early to
get adjusted. Often times the series is in-and-out of a town after only
two or three nights at most.
“The whole atmosphere of the four days being in one place for that
long, just being able to race and watch a couple of nights, too, at the
same time is exciting,” said Jason Sides, a two-time pole-winner this
season who won the Kings Royal in 2004. “When it’s all over, you’ve got
all the pressure off of you for the Nationals. It’s not a whole lot of
pressure, but it’s the biggest race of the year. Once it’s over, it’s
downhill for the rest of the year and you can fun.
“Being in the show is one thing, then being in the top-10 or top-five,
to win it, that’s totally something else.”
A Knoxville Nationals victory is something very few drivers have
experienced. Since Allen’s 1990 victory, only Steve Kinser, Mark
Kinser, Dave Blaney and Danny Lasoski have wound up in the winner’s
circle.
“It’s the greatest speedway in the world, period,” said Lasoski, the
2001 Outlaws champion who drives for Brickyard 400 winner Tony Stewart.
“It’s the only place you can go that has the atmosphere of the Daytona
500 and the Indianapolis 500 built into one. People save their
vacations, work all year long and come stay there for a week. That is
the granddaddy of them all. We have been fortunate enough to win four
of them. Just coming to Knoxville is like going home and we love every
bit of it.
“When you win one for the first time, then you’ll understand. But until
you win one, you can talk about it but I still remember every lap of
the first one we won. There’s nothing greater than the first one, but
that just gives you the desire and the fire to win more and more. We’re
going back to see if we can win five of them.”
Others are still searching for their first Knoxville Nationals victory.
Jac Haudenschild, who has 40 World of Outlaws A-feature wins in his
career, including one Saturday night at Eldora Speedway, has been very
fast since taking over the No. 83 Beef Packers car in July.
“My biggest memory there is the one year we ran for Pennzoil and we won
everything but the Nationals, we ended up running second in the
Nationals,” Haudenschild said. “That was my most memorable year at
Knoxville. We’re hoping to match it again.”
But the past doesn’t matter in this event. Kraig Kinser knows his first
Knoxville victory, coming in June when the second night of a two-night
event was canceled by rain, won’t help him at all once the green flag
drops.
“That four-day show can get kind of grueling,” said Kraig Kinser, a
five-time A-feature winner in 2005. “A lot of people get down to
business when it gets to Knoxville. There are so many big moments in
racing that come from the Knoxville Nationals that it’s hard to pick
one that stands out in your mind. Definitely some people have had some
very good wins and some have had tremendous heartbreak. You need a lot
of luck to get in the show just to have a shot to win the race.
“It’s a whole different ballgame when you get there for the Nationals.
You have to have the best attitude you can. What you did before doesn’t
mean anything when you get to Knoxville. Those guys are going to be
running you hard, they won’t care whether you’ve won a race there or
never been there before. They’ll be just as hard on you. People will be
running for points, some people will be scrounging for every position
they can get because one more position is just that many more points
and gives them that much more boost to get in the show. It’s all out as
hard as you can go for as many spots as you can get.”
Jason Solwold earned enough last season to be named the Knoxville
Nationals Rookie of the Year, an award this time around that will
result in a test session with an Indy Racing League Menards Infiniti
Pro Series team.
“That was my first time at the Knoxville Nationals,” said Solwold, a
Kevin Gobrecht Rookie of the Year Award candidate. “I’ve watched it on
TV, but to go in there and we ran halfway decent, finishing toward the
back of the B-main. I was hoping to make the A-main, which was pretty
far-fetched. Hopefully this year we can get into the show and go from
there. I’m pretty happy with what happened last year. The Knoxville
Nationals rookie-of-the-year deal is a pretty prestigious deal.
“To finish where we did, after I got away and was able to think about
it for a little while, I had to be happy with what we accomplished.”
The event this year kicks off on Wednesday. Here is the schedule
courtesy of Knoxville Raceway:
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY
Hot laps, Qualifications, Last Chance Heats, five Heats, C feature, B
feature, A feature.
Qualifications — 200 points are awarded for quick timer, 198 for second
quick, 196 for third, etc.
• Only the top 50 qualifiers make the heats, the rest are put in the
last chance heats in which the first eight finishers will fill the back
of that night’s C feature (starting in the sixth row).
Last Chance Heats (for drivers out of the top 50 in Qual.) — 50 points
awarded to the winner, 47 for 2nd, etc.
Heats — 100 points are awarded for the heat winner, points go down by
three: 97, 94, 91, 88, etc.
• Heats are totally inverted (10). This sets up the best racing of the
week. Top four finishers go to A, next four to B, last two to C.
C feature — Top two finishers go to back of the B. Third place is worth
96 pts., 2nd is 94, etc.
B feature — The top four finishers transfer to the tail of the A. The B
awards 142 points for fifth, 140 for sixth and so on by twos.
A feature — The A feature points are the same as time trials: 200, 198,
196 etc. This explains how a driver can not make the A, but if he timed
well may have more points than someone who did make the A.
• Ties in points go to the quicker timer.
• A perfect score (quick time, heat win, feature win) is 500.
• The top 50 in points from Wednesday and Thursday are locked in to
Saturday’s program, however there is more racing to do on Friday.
FRIDAY
Hot laps, Five Heats for Non-qualifiers, C feature for NQ, B feature
for NQ, A feature for NQ, C Scramble, B Scramble, A Scramble, Clean-O
World Challenge.
Non-qualifier events — Non-qualifiers are simply positions 61-100 in
points from the qualifying nights and points mean little once the
racing starts. They are lined heads up by points for their heat races
and their features. Friday night’s A feature winner starts Saturday’s C
in 11th position, and the rest fill down through the E according to
their finish on Friday.
Scrambles — The top 10 point-getters for Saturday’s A, B and C run
scrambles. The scrambles are totally inverted. Points accrued from the
scrambles are added to your current point total, and that is how the
lineup is set. First in the scramble awards 20 points, second 18, third
16 and so on. In addition you are awarded 1 point for every car you
pass. So if a driver starts 10th and finishes third in the scramble
he/she adds 23 points to their total (16 for third + 7 for cars
passed).
“Clean-O” World Challenge — This is an international invitational
event.
The lineup is inverted according to points accrued on Wednesday and
Thursday. It has no bearing on Saturday’s lineups.
SATURDAY
E feature, D feature, C feature, B feature, Knoxville Nationals
Championship feature.
• With the exception of the B feature which takes the top four
finishers to the tail of the Knoxville Nationals Championship, all
other features transfer the top two finishers to the tail of the next
event (if there are scratches, there may be more taken for a particular
event).
