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Oil Leak Wipes Away Top Five Charge
One
of the toughest formats in all of racing got underway for Craig
Dollansky and the Big Game Treestands #7 team on Thursday as they took
to the historic Knoxville Raceway for their qualifying night of the 51st
Annual Goodyear Knoxville Nationals.
With
54 cars signed into the pit area, Dollansky drew a late qualifying
number but turned a strong qualifying lap muscling the Aggressive
Hydraulics Maxim to 6th fastest at 15.452 seconds. The Karavan Trailers
backed sprinter started seventh in the first heat as the large
qualifying inversion makes for some of the best racing of the weekend
for the fans with the quick qualifiers starting at the back and trying
to race their way forward.
With
only the top four in each heat transferring directly into the Thursday
night feature, Dollansky worked the highside of the narrow racing
surface and ran sixth until a red flag with two laps to go. On the
restart 'The Crowd Pleaser' raced past Danny Lasoski for fifth and came
after Mark Dobmeier for the transfer position. Dollansky would race
side-by-side with Dobmeier but the bottom of the track just wasn't good
enough in the ten lap race to steal the transfer position. In the
B-Main the Elk River, Minnesota native would start fourth and charge up
to 2nd to transfer into the main event.
Ready
to make a charge through the A-Main the Big Game Treestands #7 started
in row eleven of the 25-lap feature. When the green flag waved
Dollansky raced past Paul McMahan for thirteenth on lap 3 but a caution
would move him back to fourteenth for the restart. The driver of the
Eaton's Aeroquip Performance Products #7 continued his charge and
cracked the top ten by just lap 6 and had ninth before a caution on lap
7. With 13 laps to go the oil line that controls the power steering and
top wing started to leak but Dollansky still worked his way up to
seventh when a caution came with 11 to go. On the restart he charged
past two cars on the bottom side to take fifth by the exit of turn two
and then rocket around the highside of turns 3 & 4 one lap later to
take fourth from Dale Blaney by the narrowest of margins. Just when it
looked like 'The Crowd Pleaser' was going to record a strong finish
charging from the back of the pack the oil leak started to amplify and
spray oil all over the cockpit. With the power steering gone and
visibility nearly non-existent due to no more tear offs, Dollansky had
his hands full trying to grip the oil drenched steering wheel and wipe
his visor with his gloves as he slipped through the field in the
remaining eight laps all the way back to 17th.
With
the qualifying night in the books and points accumulated, Dollansky is
still locked into the $150,000-to-win 50-lap feature on Saturday night
as he sits 18th overall. The Big Game Treestands #7 team will return to
action tonight for the Premier Chevy Dealers World Challenge, an event
Dollansky raced to victory last year.
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