Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
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1. Donny Schatz (21st) World of Outlaws - North Dakota - Simply amazing. To do what he did in this age and era where the equipment is relatively equal says so much about how good of a driver he is. Not a fan of him, but it's impossible not to respect him. 

2. Brian Brown (2nd) Knoxville Regular - Missouri - Feel bad for the guy, but he just had nothing for Donny. Drove the wheels of the FVP 21 and will win a Nationals eventually. Not in the top 10 in Knoxville points, but I'll consider him a Knoxville boy since he does. 

3. Justin Henderson (4th) Knoxville Regular - South Dakota - Also not in the top 10 in Knoxville points but it's fair enough for them to claim him. Great run for Justin, he's a great driver and an even better person. He knows his way around Knoxville for sure. Was faster than Brown at the end. Also won best appearing car  in a very different but sharp paint scheme. 

4. Paul McMahan (6th) World of Outlaws - Tennessee, California - Great season and it continued. Was really coming late. No surprise here. Chad and Jen Clemons had to be pleased. Their highest finish in the big show. 

5. Chad Kemenah (19th) World of Outlaws - Ohio - One of the lucky drivers to race his way in through the Friday format and he proved that he belonged in the feature passing some amazing cars and drivers. Recovered from a horrible qualifying night that saw him in the C and 71st in points. 

6. Kyle Larson (17th) True Outlaw - California - Another driver from Friday. He won the Friday show easily and backed up last years prelim win. Was very fast at the late of the race. The kid is the real deal. 

7. Joey Saldana (1st) World of Outlaws - Indiana - 0 feature wins on the season so starting on the pole of the biggest race of the season had to be a nice treat. Held on for a while but faded towards the end. A respectable finish and a great weekend. Hope he picks up at the end of the season. 

8. Danny Lasoski (13th) Knoxville Regular - Missouri - Also not a true Knoxville regular, but he's spent enough time there and has ran there often since leaving the Zemco machine. His first A since 2009 and his first 50 lapper. Right around the bottom as expected, was up to 5th at one point and looked poised to keep coming. Solid weekend for the Dude. 

9. Steve Kinser (12th) World of Outlaws - Indiana - Great to see the King back in the A. You just never know when it's going to be the last time. Looked real bad in the prelim A but looked good when it mattered most on Saturday. It was definitely a Steve kind of track. Respectable weekend. 

10. Cap Henry (18th) All Star Circuit of Champions - Ohio - The surprise of the week and also the feel good story of the week. Barely scrapped enough money to even make it Nationals and qualified through the tough Friday format. One of everything for this team with a shoestring budget. Great for Cap. Was the only All-Star to make the feature. His first career A Main start. 

11. Dusty Zomer (23th) Knoxville Regular - South Dakota - The highest finishing true Knoxville regular that runs every week. You can never count Dusty out and he qualified through the tough B main and charged through the feature. Dusty is one of the most underrated drivers in the country.

12. Greg Hodnett (16th) Pennsylvania Posse - Pennsylvania, Tennessee - The highest finishing Posse member. Back in the A for the first time since 2010. Always gets around Knoxville well and this week was no exception. Enjoying a great season back home and the first time the Trone 39 has made the A at Knoxville. 

13. Brad Sweet (5th) True Outlaw - North Carolina, California - Kings Royal winner that had to be dissapointed in his feature run. Didn't look good in the feature but just making this A as a part-time dirt driver is impressive in its own right. Look for a better run next year. 

14. Daryn Pittman (11th) World of Outlaws- Oklahoma - World of Outlaws points leader had contact with Steve Kinser early and brought out the yellow and never looked the same. Daryn has to be dissapointed in this run. 

15. Cody Darrah (10th) World of Outlaws - Pennsylvania - Brought out the yellow early running in the top 10 and couldn't make it back forward. 22nd to 6th and was the show on Thursday in his prelim. Has made the A the last 2 years. 

16. Kerry Madsen (8th) World of Outlaws - Australia - An extremely dissapointing Saturday after looking so good in his prelim. Don't know what went wrong but Kerry can't be pleased. I thought he had an outside chance to win the whole thing and he looked awful from the drop of the green. 

17. Shane Stewart (3rd) True Outlaw - Oklahoma - Usually starts in the back and charges forward but this year it was the opposite. Never looked outstanding in his prelim like he has in years past. Don't know what happened but what a dissapointment. 

18. Roger Crockett (15th) ASCS Northwest - Oregon - Great run for Roger. Only runs a handful of 410 shows and I think just about everyone counted him out when he started on the pole his prelim but he fought hard and battled his way into his first A main at Nationals.

19. Brooke Tatnell (25th) Knoxville Regular - Austrailia - The lucky advancee from the World Challenge. Certainly didn't look out of place in the A but that was a given. Did you like the fact that the World Challenge was worth a spot in the A? Brooke was a DNQ in the Friday A main and would have been in the D main. 

20. Kevin Swindell (9th) True Outlaw - Tennessee - This kid is good. Was up to 4th on Saturday in his 6th sprint car start of the season. He's well on his way to bigger things but there's no doubt the kid can wheel an open wheel car. Had a fuel problem in the feature. His first career A main.

21. Ian Madsen (24th) Knoxville Regular - Austrailia - 2nd in Knoxville points and did it the hard way through the B main. Contact left him without a nose wing for a portion of the first half of the A. Ended up retiring in the second half. 

22. Lynton Jeffrey (22nd) Knoxville Regular - Austrailia - Ended up in a 3 way tie for the 16th and final spot and he was the odd man out. He drove it hard through the B and had it won until Schatz turned it on on the last lap. Good bounce back Nationals for Lynton. Just a good guy. 

23. David Gravel (7th) World of Outlaws - Connecticut - Has open so many eyes this year and opened a couple more this week walking the dog in the prelim on Wednesday. I'm starting to think the sky is the limit with this kid. Retired in the A due to motor issues. 

24. Jac Haudenschild (20th) True Outlaw - Ohio - Great to see the Wild Child back in the A. Has enjoyed a successful season but never completed a full speed lap in the A with what looked like motor issues. Drove it in through the hard Friday format.

25. Stevie Smith (14th) Pennsylvania Posse - Oklahoma, Pennsylvania - Blamed himself and himself only for his mishap on lap 1. Only has 1 feature win this year back home in Posse land and is running about 75% of the shows. It hasn't been the season they've been looking forward since debuting in May but a Nationals A main start helps. Much more scaled back and local schedule than last year in the CJB 19. 

9 World of Outlaws Drivers, 7 Knoxville regulars, 5 True Outlaws, 2 Pennsylvania Posse members, 1 ASCS Driver, 1 All-Star

Biggest Surprise: Cap Henry - No explanation needed. 

Biggest Dissapoinment: Dale Blaney - Just looked average all weekend. Very uncharacteristic of Dale. 

Very nice run down.

Agreed, makes me wonder if they'll scale back to one car or if they replace a driver next year.

Yeah there's no doubt Big Game can't be happy with that Nationals performance. Sammy was 2 lbs short of being at the worst in the B . I had Craig pegged to take one of the spots in the B and I was surprised he had absolutley nothing when the green waved. Craig was a bigger dissapointment than Sammy, IMO. 

I still think Dale had a worse week. Dale was never even relatively fast. He had virtually no problems (although they did switch powerplants) and still ended up in the D. 

Knoxville Regulars recovered Saturday because they didn't look good Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  Had some really bad luck especially Droud, Madsen, Maeschen getting wrecked and even Schneiderman.  Although Lasoski, Brown, and Henderson aren't running for points, when they've been their they've been at the front almost every week.  Amazing thing is 7 regulars even with Maeschen, Heskin, McCarl, Droud and Dobmeier all missing the A.  Other than Brown and maybe Madsen they've been the top locals all year.  Would have to think Lasoski and Henderson will both run Knoxville for points next year.  Brown has really only missed 2 shows with rainouts this year.  Would love to see that points battle along with all of the guys running for points this year and a full year from Tatnell.

I would consider Brad Sweet WoO, not True Outlaw.  Haven't 95% of his races have been with WoO series.  

Also, isn't Haud a full-time All-Star this year?  I thought the 59 was hitting just about all of the All Star races?

59 is running most of the ASCoC shows but isn't a card holding member as far as I know. You have a point with Sweet as well.

As for the Knoxville regulars, they are a talented bunch no doubt. Year in and year out they put at least 5-8 regulars in the big show. They have some great depth and some cars that can win every night like Brown and Lasoski. Glad to see Brownie traveling a little more this year. Hope he makes it our way for the Natty Open like he's scheduled to. The guy is a class act. 

great post good rundown!

Brad Sweet has run 20 of the 54 WoO events this year (37%), I'd say True Outlaw is a pretty fair tag.  

How many races in pa has Stevie smith ran? He must be a true outlaw too?

I'm assuming you're just trying to troll here. But in case your not, how many races has Stevie Smith ran outside of PA? The answer is 0. Knoxville was his first time outside of PA all year. Since coming out in May, he hasn't missed a time trial show at the Grove, has made appearances at a handful of handicap/draw shows as well and ran all of Pennsylvania Speeweek. Not to mention he was born and raised in Central PA. Last year, there was no doubt that Stevie was a true outlaw but this year it's tough to form an argument that Stevie isn't Posse. 

Legit question pal, hard to call tk and sweet who of the races they've ran, 80% have been woo, "true outlaws" and Stevie, who has run about 15 races in pa, a full fledged posse. 

TK and Sweet have ran all over the country. Stevie has ran only in PA. Try and convince those Cali folks that TK and Sweet aren't Cali boys when they haven't run a single non-WoO show in California all season...

Posse fans get the grunt of the hardships when it comes to claiming drivers but I think it's fair to claim Stevie. 

Hard to consider someone who's run only 37% of the WoO races a WoO driver, the sanctioning body certainly doesn't.  He runs more WoO events because that team basically runs for money only, they just happen to pay the most.  Kaeding's a different story, he has run about 80% of the WoO shows, however based on his comments in victory lane, he doesn't seem to think of himself as much of a WoO driver, seems very proud of his true outlaw from CA status, I guess you could argue with him some night?  As for Stevie Smith,   he has entered 20 events this year, 17 of them were in Central PA (85%), 14 of them were at either Lincoln or Williams Grove only (70%), the other 3 occured during Central PA Speedweek.  The 3 outside of central PA were Lernerville (which is still in PA), and Knoxville twice.  If being born in PA, running 85% of your races in PA, and living part time in PA doesn't associate you with Central PA, than nothing short of an apocalyptic event is going to convince you.  Aren't statistics fun...

I've learned that PA fans are very proud of their racing, and CA fans are very proud of their drivers.  I'm not all that proud a guy, so I'm happy that the racing is so good here that people from CA come here to race on a regular basis.  If CA had the best local racing the fans would be talking about Allard, Hirst, Gregg, Abreu, etc on this board,  I rarely hear about them though.  I'm hardly a homer, wore a Jason Meyers shirt last weekend to the Grove, plan on getting a Larson one the next time he's in town.  There are plenty of ignorant Posse fans who will hate WoO drivers no matter how good, fan friendly, or well spoken they are, but the majority of us just really, really enjoy getting to see great drivers.  

Thanks to DirtHawk...... Your original post is a great post.....  If more of the posts on this board were like this I think the board would double of triple is size... 

Speaking of Cali shirts, I picked up the Stephen Allard memorial shirts Jonathan was selling. One of the strongest shirt designs I've ever seen. I'll be sporting it at the Grove this weekend. 

Real Nice Post DH !

Long Live  20 Time  World Of Outlaws Champion Steve 
Kinser #11 

I'm not sure but i thought TK started out the year running some races with K.O.W.

before heading east?