Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

    Am I the first one to start one of these threads this year?

     You read it here first.

Not sure this is much of a leap. He's tier 1B this year. I'd put him as one of the top 5 coming in.Without looking further into it, I'm thinking it'd look something like 49, 15, 57, 41, 1s. The 21, 83, and maybe 5 are all in that area too. Hell, Gio looked great Saturday too and could put together a magical week. 

Everyone needs to avoid bad luck at the Nationals, but Logan needs it more in the sense of stuff that other teams seem to control and that his team has gotten much better at controlling. Stuff like part failures, etc. that have bitten them before. 

It was very eye opening to watch him qualify the field by damn near two tenths on the Friday night of the Outlaw weekend there, and then follow it up with a runner-up finish Saturday, showing incredible speed at times.

The great thing about Knoxville is that you have to be fast every time you touch the track, and the 49 and 15 have shown they know how to do that. The others have yet to do so.

Kid shows lots of potential lately but don't think he's Knoxville Champion yet..He will do well but its going to be hard to beat Schatz,Sweet and Gravel..He could be a top 5 easily but will need some breaks to make it there..Hope he does well though..I wear his shirt proudly while watching Dirt Vision..

Think you can put Sweet, Schatz, Gravel, Schuchart, and Larson (if running the whole Nationals) in the same grouping. Any one of those guys I feel can win this year & it will just come down to circumstances. Would like to see someone like Brian Brown get the win since he has been close a few times but they haven't seemed to have the same magic as he did about 5 years ago. Hopefully it returns.

To win the Nationals you have to be good from start to finish and sometimes luck of the draw can also be the difference.Logan has a shot as do several others but I still remember Schatz coming from deep.The money would mean a lot to many of the non Nascar funded teams but Sweet and Schatz versus the field would be a even bet.I would love to see an underdog win much like Bobby Allen did so many years ago or a young gun like Gio as the crowd would go wild.

Stupid things still happen to that team too often. They had the fastest car by a bunch at the Royal and the car doesn’t take off on the restart (which happened the night before too). When they are fast, they are the fastest car by a mile, but i don’t think they are in my top 4 favorites, which like most people are Sweet, Schatz, Gravel and Larson. 

Jason gave us all hope that even some smaller teams can win. The top guys to beat will be BS and DS, but I still believe Gravel, Shane Stewart, Brown, Kerry and Ian can get it done. 

Given last week's showing, add Gio and Kyle Larson to that list as well. 

Keep It Real

I would really like to see one of the Madsen brothers win it, or Schuhart or gravel. But i totally agree with everyone here that it will probably be Sweet, Schatz, Larson , or Gravel.

Shouldnt James McFadden be in the conversation?

Even though I may not know you, I 
care what most of you think!

I find it crazy that Brian Brown is not in the "top tier". How many has he won at Knoxville this year? Plus a win (ass kicking) and a 7th vs the Outlaws in June ..... I'd say that is good enough to put him in the top tier. If not, I don't know what more he has to do.

Aslong as you put Byron Reed in the mix with him in the E-main then yes

He hasn’t been that fast since that June win. I agree with ford, he’s tier 2. The top group of Outlaw teams have separated themselves the last month or so. They dominated Jackson, dominated Eldora and dominated the Posse at the Grove which rarely happens. 

What Brown needs to do is get out of his own head and podium again before he gets top tier footing.

He's shown he's had the speed to win the race, but not being able to convert on one of his back-to-back-to-back chances to win in 2012, 2013 and 2014 seemed to break him for the Nationals.

He's always ran well during the year but has since struggled to be a real threat in August - sixth in 2015, 18th in the C in 2016, sixth in 2017, and 25th in 2018.

I think Brown's deal is purely a fluke mental thing based solely around Nationals and if he's able to get past it, he is absolutely a top tier threat to win, but he needs to be trending better for me to lump him in with the 15, 49 and 57. 

FORD97 - Good list.

SprintFan16 - Exactly right.  Brownie has become a head case in the big races.  He can run 46 great laps but makes a mistake on 1 or 2 that cost him at the wrong time.  He can get away with that on the weekly shows but not during the Month of Money.  He gets over that and he moves to Tier 1 at Knoxville.

Larson - he isn't a head case but he drives the car so hard, he makes a few mistakes and he can't always recover from them.  Not sure he can be as good as he needs to for 50 laps.  The crowd would go nuts if he won.  I would drink a beer in his honor!

Schatz, Sweet and often times Gravel have that knack to drive it hard, right on the edge but still under control.

Schuchart - would love to see him win!

Shaffer - awesome if he could win another.  That car is pretty strong and he can still get it done.

Then you could argue Gravel shouldn't be in tier 1 since he has had speed but not able to convert. The fact that Brown had chances to win in those years says he has the ability to run right with the best, add the fact that he has a bunch more confidence at that place this year and that's deadly. Brownie's track record (pun intended) is way better than Gravels when it comes to Nationals. Now I will say Gravel being with a crew chief/car that has won the race is a big plus but I wouldn't put the 41 in front of the 21. Just my opinion.

Best chance- 15, 49, 21. Good chance- 1s, 57, 39(if bell), 41,5. Decent chance- 83, 2m, 49shaffer, 7s( tk), 87, 71.

No ones mentioned Reutzal yet but I’d put him in that tier 2 category, finished 4th last year. As long as they don’t have the mechanical issues they fought at the Royal

Id put Brown tier 2 as well.  He will be fast, like always, but step on it sometime during the main(jump the cushion..needs to get out of his head as was said earlier.)

Logan will have a good shot, if he remembers to hit the scales.

Tier 1 schatz sweet logan

Tier 2 brown gravel larson

Tier 3 everyone else

I know brown struggles in big races but he is fast at Knoxville and sooner or later he is going to put a good race together that's why I have him in my top three to win.

I think logically your argument is sound, but I still don't know if I can agree. Gravel is the only 500-point guy in the past 25 years, and he had the car to beat that year until hurting the motor. One could easily argue that was a mental mistake, plus there's the question of if that car would have been able to hold up the whole race given that tempo if the motor hadn't gotten hurt. 

I just feel like Brown's deal hurts him a lot more because it's kind of a cascading effect in that the more years he struggles, the more I think it will resonate. 

There's probably not much of a reason to consider the two much different, but if I had to bet on one, I'd take Gravel this year.