It could be a long winter for fans of sprint car racing
To most people Labor Day weekend means the end of summer. The last big summer bash. Monday morning we’ll likely retire the flip flops, shorts and Ray-Ban’s to the closet and break out the sweatshirts and football jerseys.
To a sprint car fan and especially the drivers, it means the checkered flag waves on another racing season at Knoxville.
I’m sure many of you remember your first broken heart. That beautiful teenage girl walked up to you after prom and said those horrible words sending you down a road of sorrow and heartache.
Monday Sept. 7 doctors all over the Midwest will run out of Prozac and liquor stores will run out of whiskey when sprint car fans try to beat the depression and drown their sorrow. Some fans will travel to Missouri or Oklahoma just to catch one more race but most will start marking days off their calendars counting down the days to next April.
Dang. It’s a long, cold winter.
To the drivers this means one last time to beat Knoxville. Notice I said Knoxville, not Brian Brown or Johnny Herrera. Drivers that win don’t really consider it beating other drivers, that’s just what the fans see. Drivers beat the track. That mean, heartless man eater.
The Marion County Fairgrounds has made more than 20 brides widows and broken countless hearts. Only a select few can say they’ve mastered her.
Kenny Weld, Steve Kinser, Wolfgang and Lasoski can say it. Schatz is stompin’ the competition trying and McCarl is still givin’ it his all.
Most will try until they run out of standing eight counts and leave beaten and broken. Some have tried and never come back. Jimmy Evans tried to beat her and she threw him right over the turn three wall nearly bouncing him off the scoreboard. He ran for home and hasn’t been heard from since.
That last race though weighs heavy on sprint car racing’s bravest because memories of that last race will haunt them all winter long.
Last weekend you could feel the tension everywhere. The points race this year has been close for the first through 10th positions causing drivers to be stressed more than the mile long bridge was in 1993. Everyone is scraping for any tire with tread still on it or wings that aren’t bent and prayin’ that their motor will last one more night.
Their ladies are tense too. Billy Alley’s wife looking ultra stressed was pacing the campgrounds.
“I can’t wait for this year to end. It’s been one thing after another,” she said. “Bad luck would be better than the luck we’ve had. I just want to go home and forget it.”
The feature races kicked off with the 305 sprints. Twenty-one cars started the A-main with Matt Stephenson taking the final checkered for this class.
A scary moment happened right after the race when a car pulled into the wrong pit stall and the driver was found unconscious. He was pulled from the car and CPR was initiated. Knoxville tried to claim another hearty soul.
This was Wayne Redmond, though, an old school driver from the 1980s who tore layers of mud off that mean, old witch beating her 11 times.
He beat her again driving 10 laps while having a heart attack. Track safety crews rushed him to the hospital and Wayne’s big ol’ heart started beating again. He was all smiles when this author talked with him in Iowa Methodist’s CCU. Knoxville’s safety crew is the best, they gotta be.
The 360 feature saw Jon Agan take off with a commanding lead in which he held through eight laps and one yellow flag. A restart on lap nine allowed Dustin Selvage to get by Agan.
Agan tried to dive back under Selvage without success. Selvage stretched his lead and while taking the white flag his right side wing panel tore off hitting flagman Justin Clark knocking him down.
Lucky for him his dad Doug kept him on the flagstand. That track was gonna get someone tonight. Justin was fine and finished flagging the race. In Victory Lane Justin told Selvage he was taking that side panel home with him.
The 410 A-main was setting up to be a classic battle as all the fast guys were spread throughout the field. The green flag waved and Rager Phillips took off like a shot with Tony Bruce Jr. in tow.
Terry McCarl was up to third by lap five and put his right rear on the cushion, which was about five feet from the wall, and set his sights on the leaders. Meanwhile Brian Brown was making a charge from 13th.
Brian’s girlfriend Heather, wishes he would qualify better. She can’t take too many more of Brian’s charges to the front from the cellar.
He was slicing through traffic like a Chinese chef at House of Hunan. Herrera, not to be outdone, had moved to fourth from sixth. TMAC took the lead after a lap 10 yellow and never looked back. Herrera moved to second following McCarl’s low line through three and four and riding the cushion in one and two.
The final yellow on lap 17 was caused by Austin McCarl. His sprinter could take no more. Terry took the checkers with Herrera, Phillips, Lynton Jeffery behind and Brown, running out of laps finished fifth.
Herrera goes into that final night with a 101-point advantage. Brown could win if Herrera trailer’s it after hot laps but don’t count on that happening. The most points Brian can earn is 135.
The rest of the top 10 is up for grabs.
Only one can win and the rest will head south to finish out the season. One more race, one more time to get your sprint car racin’ fix.
My last trip to Knoxville was last Saturday. I woke up Sunday empty and depressed.
Every time I turned on the radio this week that darn Alan Jackson was singing;
“Tennessee, you don’t make the whiskey
California, you don’t make the wine
Mexico, you don’t make the tequila strong enough to get her off my mind.”
It’s gonna be a long winter.
