KNOXVILLE, Iowa — Brian Brown led wire to wire to pick up his 67th career 410 victory at Knoxville Raceway Saturday night.
The Grain Valley, Missouri driver picked up $6,000 for his win aboard the Brian Brown Racing No. 21.
The 25-lap 410 feature saw Brown jump out from his starting spot outside row one, ahead of Austin McCarl, JJ Hickle, Kerry Madsen and Emerson Axsom. Gage Pulkrabek came to a stop on lap three, bringing a caution.
Madsen shot into third when the race went green again before Tasker Phillips got sideways and collected Josh Schneiderman, who tipped over. Both were unhurt.
Brown shot away again, as Austin McCarl developed a right sideboard issue on his top wing. The wing continued to disintegrate as the race wore on. On lap seven, Axsom passed Hickle for the fourth spot. On lap 11, Brown entered traffic.
With six laps to go, Axsom shot through the middle of turns one and two to go from fifth to third. A caution for debris followed as a piece of McCarl’s wing was retrieved. Brown shot away to the dash to the checkers, while McCarl was a sitting duck, getting passed by Axsom, Madsen, Hickle and Scott Bogucki on the restart.
Brown’s win would come ahead of Axsom, Madsen, Hickle and Bogucki.
“You really don’t know how far you are leading,” said Brown of the pace he kept throughout the race. “We’ve struggled a little bit to start the year, and this is a different car after getting crashed last year. We worked on it all night long, and Chad (Morgan) made a great suggestion after the heat race. That just made it considerably better. This is his 50th win (at Knoxville) as well. The car was great. We kind of moved down a little bit off of two at the end. Overall, it was a good night.”
Tasker Phillips won a duel with Clint Garner that saw four lead changes in the non-stop 360 main event.
J Kinder won his 10th career feature in the Pro Sprints, passing last week’s winner Brett Moffitt in the late going.
The finish:
Feature (20 Laps): 1. 21-Brian Brown[2]; 2. 27W-Emerson Axsom[6]; 3. 55-Kerry Madsen[4]; 4. 2M-JJ Hickle[1]; 5. 78-Scott Bogucki[7]; 6. 3P-Sawyer Phillips[10]; 7. 6K-Kaleb Johnson[9]; 8. 27-Carson McCarl[19]; 9. 88-Austin McCarl[3]; 10. 83-Justin Henderson[8]; 11. 45X-Landon Crawley[15]; 12. 44-Chris Martin[5]; 13. 17A-Jack Anderson[17]; 14. 4-Cameron Martin[11]; 15. 31-Kyle Bellm[16]; 16. 8H-Jacob Hughes[13]; 17. 15JR-Cole Mincer[14]; 18. 44X-Scotty Johnson[21]; 19. 121-RJ Johnson[23]; 20. 71-Brandon Worthington[24]; 21. 22-Riley Goodno[12]; 22. 1-Tasker Phillips[20]; 23. 49-Josh Schneiderman[22]; 24. G5-Gage Pulkrabek[18] DNS – 25. 1K-Kelby Watt; 26. 39-Lynton Jeffrey.
