KNOXVILLE, Iowa —Ryan Timms grabbed the early lead from Kelby Watt and went on to the win the Leighton State Bank 410 feature event on Lakeside Casino & Resort Night at the Knoxville Raceway Saturday.
The Oklahoma City, Oklahoma native has been on an unbeatable roll lately at Knoxville, but the action behind him was nothing short of stellar as Brian Brown and JJ Hickle made their own charges from row five and six at different times in some great racing action made possible by a perfectly manicured surface.
Kelby Watt led lap one of the 25-lap Leighton State Bank 410 feature ahead of Ryan Timms, Justin Henderson, Carson McCarl, Austin McCarl and Brian Brown, up from row five. Timms shot by Watt to lead lap two. Watt would slow to a stop while running in second on lap five.
Timms pulled away on the restart, ahead of Henderson, Austin McCarl, Carson Mcarl and Brown. Brown made a stellar move to shoot from fifth to third on the restart. On lap seven, JJ Hickle, who had started in row six, was already breaking into the top five. He passed Austin McCarl for fourth on lap 12.
On lap 13, Brown’s great run continued, as he was able to edge Henderson for the second spot, as Timms was by himself entering lapped traffic. At that point, Brown, Henderson, Hickle and Austin McCarl were in the thick of it, all within six car lengths of each other in an epic multi-lap battle.
With 10 laps to go, it was Henderson who found the low groove to move back into second. Hickle followed him into third with eight to go and then passed Henderson for second with six to go.
By then, Timms was gone, and his ninth 410 win here came 9.5 seconds in front of the hard-charger Hickle. Henderson was third, ahead of Austin McCarl and Brown.
“I definitely got lucky with the invert,” said Timms. “We’ve been heat racing good every night, and I just wasn’t very good in the heat race. We looked at it to see what we need to work on, or what I needed to work on. We got better, and lucky with that invert. But this thing was just so fast. We (he and Kelby) got a really good start at the beginning of that race, and he did exactly what he should have done, which was blocking my line…which I wasn’t expecting him to do. I moved up to the top and he opened up the bottom for me, and I figured I’d try it. Sure enough, that was the preferred line. I got through lapped traffic pretty good. My hat’s off to these guys.”
Clint Garner used a restart with five laps to go to gain his 49th career win in the Randall Roofing 360 class on a night the track was celebrating legends Randy Smith, Jack Herwehe and appropriately, the all-time 360 feature winner, David Hesmer. J Kinder came on late in the going to pass 16-year-old Clayton Vanderploeg to win his 16th Pro Sprints feature, tying him for second on the all-time list with Devin Kline.
The finish:
Feature (25 laps): 1. 10-Ryan Timms (2); 2. 2M-JJ Hickle (12); 3. 11-Justin Henderson (3); 4. 88-Austin McCarl (5); 5. 21-Brian Brown (9); 6. 27-Carson McCarl (4); 7. 24-Terry McCarl (11); 8. 44-Chris Martin (10); 9. 19-Kaleb Johnson (7); 10. 1TAZ-Tasker Phillips (17); 11. 28-Jace Park (15); 12. 2K-Lynton Jeffrey (6); 13. 25-Jy Corbet (13); 14. 4W-Jamie Ball (8); 15. 49-Josh Schneiderman (22); 16. 45X-Rees Moran (19); 17. 9JR-Derek Hagar (18); 18. 12X-Landon Crawley (14); 19. 74-Xavier Doney (21); 20. 3P-Sawyer Phillips (16); 21. 21D-Kyle Bellm (20); 22. 1K-Kelby Watt (1); 23. 3L-Dayne Kingshott (23); DNS – 24. 40-Clint Garner.
