KNOXVILLE, Iowa — Heat races often make the difference in winning and losing the Knoxville Nationals and that theme was certainly in play on Wednesday night at Knoxville Raceway.
With points calculating every time a driver hits the track, transferring from a heat directly to the feature is vitally important. On this night, two of the top eight qualifiers did that and one of them, Donny Schatz, won the feature and was high point man for the night.
While the other six, including fast-qualifier David Gravel and Aaron Reutzel will have a fight on their hands for the remainder of the week.
Schatz qualified 10th, finished second in his heat, won the feature and wound up with 479 points.
But he understands the pressure of transferring into the main event through a heat race during the Knoxville Nationals.
“It’s pretty gut-wrenching,” Schatz said. “The couple of days leading up to Knoxville, I tell people, ‘I’m not mad at you, I just don’t really want to talk to you.’ You think about what you are going to do when you get to the first turn. You have to play all the scenarios through your mind.
“It is all about those heat races. If you don’t get through those heat races, it makes a long week for you.”
Hunter Schuerenberg finished seventh in Kevin Swindell’s No. 39 and ranked second in points at 462, while Kerry Madsen, Gio Scelzi and Corey Day completed the top five in the rundown.
With 500 points the best total possible, Thursday’s drivers have an opportunity to put themselves in prime position for Saturday night.
In addition to Reutzel and Gravel, Brent Marks, Zeb Wise, Parker Price-Miller and Justin Sanders also had difficult points nights.
Wednesday Points
1 15 Donny Schatz 479
2 39 Hunter Schuerenberg 462
3 55 Kerry Madsen 459
4 18 Gio Scelzi 458
5 14 Corey Day 458
6 2KS Chase Randall 449
7 13 Justin Peck 449
8 83 James McFadden 447
9 9 Kasey Kahne 446
10 7TAZ Tasker Phillips 437
11 7W Dustin Selvage 435
12 17 Sheldon Haudenschild 434
13 42 Sye Lynch 434
14 52 Blake Hahn 429
15 4W Jamie Ball 416
16 7TW Brandon Wimmer 415
17 10L Scott Bogucki 414
18 19 Brent Marks 412
19 21H Brady Bacon 408
20 21T Cole Macedo 403
21 2 David Gravel 403
22 1X Jake Bubak 401
23 22 Riley Goodno 399
24 1 Justin Henderson 394
25 39M Justin Sanders 392
26 7S Robbie Price 382
27 83T Tanner Carrick 382
28 26 Zeb Wise 381
29 1M Don Droud Jr. 380
30 27 Carson McCarl 380
31 50YR JJ Hickle 379
32 2K Lynton Jeffrey 377
33 9P Parker Price-Miller 373
34 16 Brooke Tatnell 370
35 49X Tim Shaffer 357
36 24T Christopher Thram 350
37 1C Brenham Crouch 344
38 55T McKenna Haase 340
39 1A Chase Dietz 340
40 8 Aaron Reutzel 333
41 91 Kyle Reinhardt 327
42 95 Matt Covington 315
43 70 Kraig Kinser 315
44 17X Terry McCarl 300
45 24H Kade Higday 294
46 13JT Mark Dobmeier 272
47 44 Chris Martin 270
48 2M Davey Heskin 269
49 2KK Kevin Ingle 267
50 15JR Cole Mincer 255
51 37 Ayden Gatewood 238
52 9H Landon Hansen 235