KNOXVILLE, Iowa — Heat races often make the difference in winning and losing the Knoxville Nationals and that theme was certainly in play on Wednesday night at Knoxville Raceway.
With points calculating every time a driver hits the track, transferring from a heat directly to the feature is vitally important. On this night, two of the top eight qualifiers did that and one of them, Donny Schatz, won the feature and was high point man for the night.
While the other six, including fast-qualifier David Gravel and Aaron Reutzel will have a fight on their hands for the remainder of the week.
Schatz qualified 10th, finished second in his heat, won the feature and wound up with 479 points.
But he understands the pressure of transferring into the main event through a heat race during the Knoxville Nationals.
“It’s pretty gut-wrenching,” Schatz said. “The couple of days leading up to Knoxville, I tell people, ‘I’m not mad at you, I just don’t really want to talk to you.’ You think about what you are going to do when you get to the first turn. You have to play all the scenarios through your mind.
“It is all about those heat races. If you don’t get through those heat races, it makes a long week for you.”
Hunter Schuerenberg finished seventh in Kevin Swindell’s No. 39 and ranked second in points at 462, while Kerry Madsen, Gio Scelzi and Corey Day completed the top five in the rundown.
With 500 points the best total possible, Thursday’s drivers have an opportunity to put themselves in prime position for Saturday night.
In addition to Reutzel and Gravel, Brent Marks, Zeb Wise, Parker Price-Miller and Justin Sanders also had difficult points nights.
Wednesday Points
1 15 Donny Schatz 4792 39 Hunter Schuerenberg 4623 55 Kerry Madsen 4594 18 Gio Scelzi 4585 14 Corey Day 4586 2KS Chase Randall 4497 13 Justin Peck 4498 83 James McFadden 4479 9 Kasey Kahne 44610 7TAZ Tasker Phillips 43711 7W Dustin Selvage 43512 17 Sheldon Haudenschild 43413 42 Sye Lynch 43414 52 Blake Hahn 42915 4W Jamie Ball 41616 7TW Brandon Wimmer 41517 10L Scott Bogucki 41418 19 Brent Marks 41219 21H Brady Bacon 40820 21T Cole Macedo 40321 2 David Gravel 40322 1X Jake Bubak 40123 22 Riley Goodno 39924 1 Justin Henderson 39425 39M Justin Sanders 39226 7S Robbie Price 38227 83T Tanner Carrick 38228 26 Zeb Wise 38129 1M Don Droud Jr. 38030 27 Carson McCarl 38031 50YR JJ Hickle 37932 2K Lynton Jeffrey 37733 9P Parker Price-Miller 37334 16 Brooke Tatnell 37035 49X Tim Shaffer 35736 24T Christopher Thram 35037 1C Brenham Crouch 34438 55T McKenna Haase 34039 1A Chase Dietz 34040 8 Aaron Reutzel 33341 91 Kyle Reinhardt 32742 95 Matt Covington 31543 70 Kraig Kinser 31544 17X Terry McCarl 30045 24H Kade Higday 29446 13JT Mark Dobmeier 27247 44 Chris Martin 27048 2M Davey Heskin 26949 2KK Kevin Ingle 26750 15JR Cole Mincer 25551 37 Ayden Gatewood 238
52 9H Landon Hansen 235
Keyword: Difficult Points Night For Many Nationals Contenders