KNOXVILLE, Iowa — Nothing was going to stop David Gravel on Friday night.
A poor draw in the Toyota Dash can signal the end of a driver’s chances at winning with how competitive sprint car racing has become. The difficulty grows even more at a track like Knoxville Raceway that attracts some of the strongest fields the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series sees all year.
That was exactly the case on Friday as 64 cars piled in the Knoxville pits for the Premier Chevy Dealers Clash, and a bad dash draw was in store for Gravel as he pulled the seven. The Toyota Dash didn’t go much better as the Big Game Motorsports No. 2 slipped to eighth.
That lined him up outside row four with seven of the best ahead. The Watertown, Conn., native engineered a masterful drive to the front and sealed the deal with a Lap 20 pass of Kerry Madsen for the top spot. The “Madman” tried to fight back but had no answer. Gravel drove away to his ninth checkered flag of the season.
“I felt really good,” Gravel said. “From Lap 5 to Lap 20 I felt awesome. In the beginning I was alright, and at the end I was feeling a little weird, but we were the best car there for 15 or 20 laps by far. We could move around, charge the corner hard on the bottom and carry speed. I’ve got to thank Cody (Jacobs), Zach (Patterson), and Pete (Stephens) and Scott (Vogelsong) this week for helping us out. Tod’s (Quiring) here. He’s been wanting to win races, so here’s a win for you, Tod.”
That win for Quiring once again tied his Big Game Motorsports team with Roth Motorsports at 118 for the fifth most victories as an organization in Series history. Gravel upped his personal total to 112 and pulled within 10 of equaling Danny Lasoski for sixth most all-time. His 13th overall Feature win at Knoxville tied him with Justin Henderson for 28th all-time at the historic half-mile.
Madsen continued his recent hot streak with a second-place finish aboard the Vermeer-Madsen Racing No. 55V. The Sydney, NSW, Australia native has eight top fives in his last nine sprint car starts. It was his second runner-up in 10 days with The Greatest Show on Dirt. Madsen thought a single slip up in traffic may have cost him his first World of Outlaws triumph in four years.
“I think I screwed up,” Madsen admitted. “I thought I had a run in lapped traffic, and when I peeled off to make the move, I didn’t have the run I thought I did and that’s how David got me. But watching him after he got us, he was probably a little bit better than us anyway. Obviously, if you’re in front, that’s all that counts but gave up the spot, and he kind of pulled away from us. Still a great run for us.”
Rico Abreu continued his recent hot streak by rounding out the Knoxville podium. .
“I was just trying to keep up with pace and work on my footwork,” Abreu explained. “The race slowed down, and we caught traffic. Lapped traffic was moving around. Kerry was getting through it pretty good. I just felt like I was getting number and number as the pace slowed down. Then I couldn’t get off (Turn) 2, and then I started searching and got in a little trouble. It’s like my normal aggressiveness to run the bottom just wasn’t there. I was just a little impatient to wait down there when guys were kind of blasting across it. I just felt like I slowed down enough to let the 2 catch me, and that changed the whole pace of the race there.”
Carson Macedo and Corey Day completed the top five.
Tyler Courtney claimed Simpson Quick Time honors in Honest Abe Roofing Qualifying.
Kinder won the Pro Sprint feature.
The finish:
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 2-David Gravel[8]; 2. 55V-Kerry Madsen[2]; 3. 24A-Rico Abreu[4]; 4. 41-Carson Macedo[6]; 5. 14BC-Corey Day[10]; 6. 18-Giovanni Scelzi[1]; 7. 39M-Anthony Macri[12]; 8. 88-Austin McCarl[3]; 9. 7BC-Tyler Courtney[5]; 10. 49-Brad Sweet[13]; 11. 83-Michael Kofoid[15]; 12. 1S-Logan Schuchart[11]; 13. 23-Garet Williamson[9]; 14. 10-Ryan Timms[7]; 15. 15-Donny Schatz[25]; 16. 27M-Carson McCarl[14]; 17. 2C-Cole Macedo[27]; 18. 2M-JJ Hickle[17]; 19. 14-Spencer Bayston[23]; 20. 17-Sheldon Haudenschild[21]; 21. 27-Emerson Axsom[16]; 22. 5-Brenham Crouch[19]; 23. 17B-Bill Balog[22]; 24. 25-Jy Corbet[18]; 25. 7S-Chris Windom[26]; 26. 6-Zach Hampton[28]; 27. 13-Daison Pursley[20]; 28. 28M-Conner Morrell[29]; 29. 4W-Jamie Ball[24]
