For 19 and three-quarters of a lap, it appeared that Missouri’s Brian Brown was going to capture his first career ASCS Knoxville Nationals preliminary feature win.
But, Terry McCarl had other ideas, surging past the race-long leader with Justin Clark’s checkered flag in sight to put the dramatic finishing touches on Friday night’s 19th Annual ASCS Knoxville Nationals 20-lap preliminary feature event.
Instead of Brown completing the wire-to-wire run, it was McCarl pulling into victory lane after snaring his seventh career Lucas Oil Sprint Car Series presented by K&N Filters main event victory, the third of which has come atop the ½-mile Knoxville Raceway clay oval.
While Brown gunned into the lead at the outset and began to check out on the field in the early going, McCarl began working his way forward from the fourth row inside. However, it was the driver that started to McCarl’s outside, Jack Dover, that was the big mover early on.
Dover was fourth behind Brown, Travis Rilat and Gregg Bakker by the time the caution flew after four rounds for a turn one tangle that eliminated Don Young and Ben Gregg, and then up to second behind Brown within three more laps.
Reeling in the leader, the Nebraska charger’s hopes were cut short when he suffered race-ending woes at the midway point.
“Dover had the best car, he was going to be the one to beat no doubt,” McCarl explained. “His dropping out probably helped us to win as much as anything.”
With Dover sideline, McCarl made quick work of Rilat and Bakker to take over second on the restart. However, it was still several laps before McCarl began to erase any of Brown’s advantage, which was still at nine-tenths of a second with just five laps to go.
McCarl adjusted his line though and closed to Brown’s tailtank by the 18th round and then ducked under Brown exiting turn four on the final circuit to snare the win and a front-row starting spot in Saturday night’s $10,000-to-win ASCS Knoxville Nationals main event aboard the Big Game Tree Stands No. 24 entry.
Brown settled for second in the Factory Value Parts No. 21 Maxim, with Rilat settling for the show position in the Shark-powered F&J Construction No. 29 Triple-X.
Sam Hafertepe, Jr., crossed the stripe fourth, with Bakker rounding out the top five. Bronson Maeschen was sixth, with Garry Lee Maier, 14th-starter Tim Crawley, Canadian Lou Kennedy, Jr., and Davey Heskin completing the top ten.
Seventeen-year-old West Virginia shoe Cale Conley bested the 59-car qualifying field by posting a new track record of 15.973 seconds to begin the night.
Zach Chappell, Ryan Roberts, Dusty Zomer, Crawley and Gregg topped heat race action.
After winning the “C” Main, Joe McCarthy flipped on the second lap of the “B” Main after easy turnovers by both Kenny Jacobs and Justin Zimmerman in separate incidents. Conley went on to win the “B” Main.
| 
|