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8/13/2009 Hawkeye Ovals
Night #1 of 49th Annual Knoxville Nationals
By Eric Arnold
Tim Shaffer took the checkered flag on night number one of the 49th annual Knoxville Nationals at 2:30am. While cars were making their way to staging for hot laps at 7:15pm a brief but hard rain shower brought a four hour rain delay to the start of the evening wit hot laps starting at 11:15pm. With the wet track conditions it made for a very fast but narrow race track. Cody Darrah set quick time in qualifying with a blistering 15.547, just missing the track record of 14.407. Unfortunately Darrah's night came to an end early as in his heat race he made contact with Davey Heskin in turns one and two and found his car slamming into the turn two fence and getting upside-down and ending his night. Contact in the heat races became a common theme with the fast and narrow track forcing drivers to be aggressive to make passes on the starts. In heat two Ed Lynch and Johnny Herrera made contact coming down the front stretch after taking the green flag and getting collected were Cale Conley, the second fastest qualifier. Conley wasn't able to make repairs and was forced to run the C-Main. There was another yellow on the next start. Shane Stewart was able to move from seventh to third on the restart only to run out of fuel with half a lap to go and finish eighth after several caution flag laps for the teams needing to make repairs made for a lengthy race. In the third heat Erin Crocker and Donny Schatz were the next fast qualifiers to fall victim to the tough track conditions outside of the top four transfers and were forced to run the B-Main as well. The fourth heat saw Danny Lasoski do the same with his seventh place finish and Jason Meyers also was relegated to the B-Main with his fifth place finish in the fifth heat.
The B-Main was loaded with Schatz, Lasoski, Stewart, and Meyers. Schatz ran away with the B-Main from the front row as Paul McMahon, Jonathan Allard, and Shane Stewart all advanced to the A-Main. Lasoski and Meyers were done for the night.
The 25 lap A-Main saw Jason Johnson pull out to the lead until lapped traffic played a part in the race allowing Tim Shaffer to pass for the lead on lap 18. On lap 20 there was an incident in front of the leaders and John Lambertz and Greg Hall made contact and stopped on the track, unfortunately third place Craig Dollansky was collected in the incendent. From there it was all Shaffer to the checkers. Sam Hafertepe Jr. looked strong coming from eighth to third. Donny Schatz was impressive coming from 21st up to 7th and is the overall leader in qualifying points Shaffer at 447, McMahon 446, Allard 446, and Stewart at 445.
Wed. A-Main Finish (Started): 1. Tim Shaffer (4), 2. Jason Johnson (1), 3. Sam Hafertepe Jr. (8), 4. Chad Kemenah (9), 5. Lucas Wolfe (3), 6. Danny Smith (2), 7. Donny Schatz (21), 8. Greg Wilson (6), 9. Jack Dover (19), 10. Calvin Landis (11), 11. Skip Jackson (10), 12. Shane Stewart (24), 13. Craig Dollansky (7), 14. Johnny Herrera (5), 15. Jonathan Allard (23), 16. Justin Henderson (13), 17. Brandon Wimmer (16), 18. Daron Clayton (12), 19. Paul McMahan (22), 20. Garry Brazier (15), 21. Matthew Reed (20), 22. Austin McCarl (17), 23. John Lambertz (18), 24. Greg Hall (14).
Eric Arnold
Social Media Manager & Track Historian
Knoxville Raceway
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