61ST KNOXVILLE NATIONALS

HE’S BACK! SCHATZ SHINES FOR 11TH TITLE

Still mourning the loss of his father and mentor Danny Schatz, North Dakota’s Donny Schatz came to Knoxville determined to get back to the form that found him win 10 previous titles and he delivered on his promises throughout the week with a late race pass of David Gravel. Between the return of Schatzville, Shark Racing sweeping the preliminaries and Austin McCarl taking the pole, there was much to love about the 61st edition of the Knoxville Nationals, which once again took the green to a sold out grandstand.

By Larry Weeks

IF YOU WERE LOOKING for surprises and feel-good stories, they were all over the 61st Knoxville Nationals. The biggest had to be Austin McCarl coming out of the two qualifying nights with the pole for Saturday. His father, Terry, did it in 2004 and the last Knoxville regular to accomplish the feat was Brian Brown in 2010. Austin is an excellent weekly racer, always in contention and running at the front but you wouldn’t think of him as bettering the Outlaws.

Austin drew an early number for qualifying and made the most of it, pushing the 88 to 5th quick for the night. He followed that up with a terrific drive in his heat, charging from 8th to 4th and earning his way directly into the Thursday night A. The only other Thursday top-ten qualifier to advance to the A from his heat was Tyler Courtney. McCarl backed up his heat race performance by racing confidently with Outlaw drivers Jacob Allen, Brad Sweet, and Carson Macedo in the A. On Saturday night our man led the first lap and was racing hard with the top four until he suffered a flat tire, finishing the night in 16th spot.

Brandon Ikenberry has been wrenching and crew-chiefing sprint cars for years. When he wanted to get off the road and promote his steeringgear and rearend repair business, he naturally figured that a race team would help do that. Being a Midwestern kind of guy, he knew the best weekly sprint car racing in the area was at Knoxville so brought his Deuce 5 team there.

J.J. Hickle knew his ride in