It was Saturday August 5, 2023 and the night was loaded for dirt racing fans across the United States. I don’t care if you are a sprint car fan, a late model fan, a midget fan or a modified fan, there was great racing going on that everyone could appreciate. We had the 360 Nationals finale at Knoxville, the Ironman 55 for the World of Outlaw Sprint Cars and the USA Nationals for the World of Outlaws Late Models. The timing of each was nearly perfect, as any fan at home could catch all three feature events without missing much action.
Brian Brown won the Knoxville 360 Nationals with an epic last lap move that saw him cross the line just .02 seconds ahead of Aaron Reutzel. A finish so good that you could hear the crowd over the roar of the engines as the feature ended. Brown, a Knoxville regular and fan favorite, captured $20,000 and his second career 360 Nationals victory. Reutzel would fall just short of winning the event for the second time in a row, but leading the first 30 laps earned him $25,000.
While we were catching our breath from that finish, the Iron Man 55 and the World of Outlaw Sprint Cars were getting ready to go green for their 55 lap feature event. Logan Schuchart had a fast car and led the race early while Brad Sweet, David Gravel, Carson Macedo and Kyle Larson duked it out behind him. James McFadden’s night ended early after he made contact with the wall trying to form a run on Schuchart for the lead. Cautions allowed Larson to pick cars off one by one until he was up to second. That’s when the real fun started, as Larson and Schuchart would begin an epic battle for the lead that included slide job after slide job after slide job. When the white flag flew, Schuchart had the lead and Larson had a slight bobble between turns one and two. I personally thought that it was over and that there was no way Larson was going to have a path around Schuchart in the final turns but sure enough, Larson ducked under Schuchart and they both shot up the track for one final drag race to the line. Larson would come out on top.
One thing that stood out to me was how excited and happy BOTH drivers were after the race. Schuchart, who has finished second to Larson after epic battles in the past, was all smiles during the post race interview. Larson called it one of the most exciting sprint car races he’s ever been apart of. It’s so cool when we get to see clean battles like that where both drivers show respect for each other during and after the race.
Once post race interviews were over, there was one thing left to do. It was time to switch over to the World of Outlaws Late Models at Cedar Lake for the finale of the USA Nationals. The 100 lap event had already started but there was still plenty of action to see. Bobby Pierce got to the lead early and was maintaining a good pace over Hudson O’Neal. Pierce got through lapped traffic pretty well but so did O’Neal. It was just enough for O’Neal to mount one last charge in the final turn to try and steal the victory away from Pierce. O’Neal executed a near perfect slide job and Pierce was able to cross back over and win the drag race to the line. It was a perfect way to cap off the exciting night of dirt racing.
And to think…this is just the beginning, as an epic week at Knoxville awaits us.
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