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

What an absolutely incredible week we've just experienced. Tremendous racing night in and night out. An instant classic of a feature with an incredible upset of the best in the world. Also, truly fantastic to see the racing community banding together to honor Bryan Clauson and provide support in many ways to those close to him. What a week of storylines that almost all ended on a positive note.

This is as good as sprint car racing gets to me. Kudos to everyone involved, including but not limited to the drivers, Knoxville staff (Kendra and the Dunkins are as good as it gets), fans, sponsors, Mother Nature (she tried but didn't succeed), push truck drivers, WoO staff, vendors, etc. Just an absolutely awesome week top to bottom.

Absolutely right on all points!!!

Old timers will talk about Bobby Allen's upset or Wolfie's alphabet soup run but it really is hard to beat what we just witnessed. 

Beyond the Main Event - which as an A Feature has to be the best ever - these Nationals had damn near everything. From how Bryan Clauson's memory was honored, to how drivers from young to old raced with few cautions and just two cars ended on their lids with NO INJURIES.  From shows that ran on a nice pace to near-flawless track setup & preparation. Weather was as good as can be expected and on Friday & Saturday was damn near perfect. Seeing guys like Rico Abreu & Kyle Larson return while many seasoned veterans were still enjoying success. 

Then, of course, the main event. Words are hard to come by to describe it beyond the instinctual "wow", "amazing", and "awesome."  The drama of the Johnson-Schatz duel will live in Nationals history. It will be hard to find better if they run another 56 of these things. 

I've been lucky enough to see 20 of these. I'll likely never see an A Feature for the National Championship better than this one ever again. 

Is this heaven?  
No, it's Iowa....Knoxville, Iowa.

That was the best A Main I've ever seen at Knoxville. Track was incredible. Driving was incredible. Just an awesome night. Probably the best tribute to Clauson you could have given what a hard racer he was.

Man, I'm trying to avoid recency bias but I can't help but agree with this. Waiting for some drooler to chime in with "another WoO race won from the front row." I can only hope next year exceeds this year but I don't know if it's possible. 

+1  Absolutely incredible week.

If you could bottle up and sell the collective excitement and happiness in that crowd when Johnson held off Schatz's last charge coming to the checker flag you would be the richest man on Earth. I walked out of the grandstand last night thinking that I just witnessed the greatest race I've ever seen and I thought that on the drive home this morning and I'm still thinking it now. The A-Main was everything that is great about our little sport tucked away in a 50 lap feature on our sport's greatest race track. What an amazing 10 days in Iowa!

Ask Frank

I have witnessed a lot of Nationals in person. This one was a great one for sure. The beauty of the upset and the fact that it was a balls out duel definately makes it worthy of all the accolades. If there is one year that competes with what this year provided it would be the 1988 Nationals in my opinion. The parralells are eerie. In 1988 there were three heavy hitters at the front....Bobby Davis Jr in the Casey Luna Ford, Dave Blaney in the Nott 48 and Steve Kinser in Karl's #11. Davis and Blaney were the race for the most part with Steve running third but keeping both leaders in sight. Davis and Blaney raced hard the entire race  and added to the excitement exchanged the lead a couple times towards the end and each time looked like they'd be gone, only to get reeled back in.  While all of this was going on, Wolfie had come from the B Feature and was making his way through the field just as Kyle Larson was doing this year. With 3 to go, Kinser running third, split two lapped cars coming out of four, went low in to one where Davis and Blaney were battleing it out middle to high and ducked under them....those three came out of two...three abreast. Kinser got away down the back stretch and with two to go went on to the win. Meanwhile, Wolfie finnished his C, B, A run with a 5th place finish......Kyle Larson finished his run....5th. That one and the one we just witnessed are very close to one another in which was the best. This one will get the popular vote because of the timing. Can't say I disagree, either. But there have been many great Nationals that we should not forget.

The entire week starting with the 360Nats were great. I can't praise Kendra and the entire Knoxville team enough for what they accomplish year after year. 

Even down to the smaller things; the tee shirt trailers and vendors layout, kids zone, how the program is ran etc. 

This was probably also one of the best races I've witnessed. The event, the drivers...the timing was perfect. I only wish I could spend more time around the track during the day to go to the various events before the races.

Would of loved to see Larson start further up in the A main, and Brown make the A. 

Does anyone think Schatz was maybe buying his time to get by Jason and waited too long? 

Keep It Real

I am certainly glad this was a 50 lap race! Maybe this will end some hatred or arguements about the format. As for Schatz waiting too long IDK maybe. He could have but it looked to me when like he was pushing it, making a few mistakes and then he got it going again the last lap or two and didnt miss the bottom like he had on other laps previous.

No, I think Schatz was doing his damnedest & Jason blocked him, outdrove him

I think that thought is valid.  He even mentioned that he didn't think Jason could keep that pace up--meaning to me that he was riding behind for a number of laps waiting for him to back up to him.  ???  I got that impression.  And, its weird to say but its almost like you could see the panic on his face in the way he drove all of the sudden with 10 to go.  I got the feeling during the last 25 laps that he was going to save 10% of his car and physical endurance for the final push.  He just isn't used to being passed when he's running at 90%!!!!!

Holy shit though........I can't get the entire race out of my head!!!  Was anyone else out there thinking when the checkered flag flew "Wait a second...did Jason Johnson really just win this thing?"        I'm still in disbelief!!    

:30 ree!  It was an incredible week.  I thought the area outside of the grandstand was the best orgainzed it has ever been.  The racing was good all four nights.  Friday was the best Friday we've had in the 20+ years I've been going.  I didn't think it would be that good, but the split time trials and the competitiveness made it.  I didn't see the ' 88 race, but this years definitely ranks right at the top of all the races I have seen in 60 years of sprint car racing.  The only negative was that I was so busy watching Shatz/Johnson, that I didn't get to see much of the action behind them!

My only disappointment was that all three of the cars that I follow closely had mechanical issues and did not finish where I thought they could have.  Only one made the A, one should have but didn't and the third should have finished at least mid-pack of the B but couldn't finish.

I really liked the pacing of the nights too.  I know they were working hard to beat the weather Thursday, but getting out of the stands by 9:30 was insane!  Not sure what time they finished Wed, and Fri., but I know we were out of the pits by 11 or so both nights.

The 1988 Nationals is on YouTube.....it was a Diamond P Sports production. It's worth the watch.