KNOXVILLE, Iowa — Race winner David Gravel and third-place finisher Donny Schatz were both feeling confident about Saturday night’s 60th Knoxville Nationals finale after their efforts on Wednesday night at Knoxville Raceway.
“This car is bad. I am ready for Saturday,” Gravel said after exciting his Big Game Motorsports No. 2. “We were really fast man. Can’t say enough about my guys. Cody (Jacobs) is a really good crew chief. That was a fast-paced race. It was just as fast as qualifying it felt like … we got the job done.”
While Gravel won the most recent Knoxville Nationals and Sunday night’s Capitani Classic, Schatz has won the Nationals 10 times, but has struggled at times this season.
Thursday night, Schatz made a late charge around the bottom to finish third and was already looking toward Saturday night as well.
“We have speed. We have to make some changes to win on Saturday,” Schatz said. “We have been coming here a long time and we think know a few things that we need to do. We are in a lot better spot than we have been in the last couple of months. I am looking forward to Saturday night and, hopefully, we can be in a position where we are racing for a win.”
• Veteran Australian sprint car driver Brooke Tatnell flashed some serious speed during BRANDT Qualifying Night for the Knoxville Nationals Wednesday at Knoxville Raceway, but that wasn’t the surprise.
What caught folks at the legendary half-mile oval and across the world by surprise, was that Tatnell’s success came in his first night driving the No. 0 entry fielded by Glenn Styres and Justin Webb.
Tatnell, 49, who held the Knoxville Raceway track record 15 years until Brian Brown broke it earlier this year, turned a best lap of 15.208 seconds, but failed to transfer to the feature from the first heat.
Tatnell, however, finished second in the B main and raced from 22nd to 12th the feature and ranked fifth in points at the end of the night.
• Gio Scelzi struggled through the early portion of the sprint car racing season, but his Iowa-based KCP Racing team has come on strong of late.
Scelzi won last week’s 360 Knoxville Nationals and was the high point earner on Wednesday night, qualifying second and finishing second in the feature.
“I feel like I have been coming here for a long time and it has only been four years,” said the 19-year-old Scelzi. “Nothing has really changed, though, chemistry is building. We rebuilt everything in March and we are finally starting to see the benefits of that.
“I love this race track and my car. This is a huge confidence race track for me. The pace was so fast tonight, you can go wide open on the top. It is a good confidence builder.”
• With Buddy Kofoid sitting out the Nationals to continue to recover from broken bones suffered in a late model crash at Minnesota’s Elko Speedway, Zeb Wise climbed into the CJB Racing No. 5xx and drove the car into the feature on Wednesday night, earning the pole for the 25-lap main event.
“Drove all the way home from Port Royal on Saturday night and on Sunday afternoon I got a call from the CJB guys and they asked me if I wanted to fill in for Buddy and I’m really surprised to be on the pole. Obviously, we are off to a really good start at my first Nationals,” Wise said prior to the feature.
However, Wise stopped on the track with nine laps complete in the feature and failed to finish.
• Multi-car qualifying was used for the first time during the Knoxville Nationals, with two cars on the track at once. The change was made in hopes of speeding up the program.
• Forty-nine cars competed during the opening night of the 60th Knoxville Nationals before an above average crowd for Wednesday night during the Nationals. Tickets for Saturday’s final session were nearly sold out on Wednesday night with fewer than 500 remaining.
• Sheldon Haudenschild qualified 29th in Wednesday’s 49-car field, putting him behind the eight-ball in his effort to make the Nationals A-main on Saturday night. Haudenschild transferred through his heat, started 12th in the feature and finished sixth.
“It was a struggle at the beginning of the night, we weren’t very fast,” Haudenschild said.
He finished the night 13th in points.
• The heat races during the first two nights of the Knoxville Nationals are always some of the most interesting races of the season.
One of the reasons for that is that the top eight qualifiers are inverted for each of the five heat races. For many years, the top 10 qualifiers were inverted for heat races.
With a track that was challenging to pass on, only six of the top 20 qualifiers made the feature through their heat races on Wednesday, putting some heavy hitters into the B main, including fast qualifier Tatnell, Terry McCarl, McKenna Haase, who was seventh fastest during time trials, Danny Dietrich, Tim Shaffer and Logan Schuchart.
Of that group, only Schuchart, who won the B main, Tatnell and Dietrich raced into the feature.
Meanwhile, among the unusual feature qualifiers were Josh Schneiderman, Riley Goodno, Jake Bubak and Clint Garner.
• All Star Circuit of Champions regular Hunter Schuerenberg had engine problems and failed to make a qualifying lap. As a result, the Vermeer No. 55 withdrew from the remainder of the program. Schuerenberg will get another opportunity to make the Nationals main event in Friday’s Hard Knox qualifying program.
• Longtime Australian racing announcer Wade Aunger, who has worked the Nationals for years, was hawking his new line of moonshine, known as Methanol Moonshine.
• The only incident of the night came when Australian Scott Bogucki made an attempt at passing Don Droud Jr. and ended up against the turn-three wall during the B main.