I opted not to go to this afternoons show, not sure I could sit through two big races today. This afternoon they are running Friday nights show which was bumped due to rain on Wed. Joe went and said the racing was excellent.
I on the other hand stayed in the park and got things ready for an early departure Sunday morning. We have about 450 miles to drive to Branson MO. I was also in need of some more sleep, last night was a late night again.
We leave for Saturday nights show about 6 pm in hope of getting something good to eat. All week I have been watching people eating great looking food. But tonight I am unable to find any of it that looked appealing. Settled for sweet corn on a stick and a bratwurst, very small not what I expected but I was hungry. The corn was really good.
The stands are packed on the front straight and on the back stretch.
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| This it turn 4 on the front stretch Still some seat available but by the C main not many left! |
5 cars will move up from the C main. C main were Dale Blaney #14K, Greg Wilson #W20, Danny Lasoski #33, Bud Kaeding # 0 and Cole Wood #17W. Again fast racing with a really bad crash in turn one on lap 1. It involved about 7 cars so took out several rivers. One being my pick of Rico Abreu, his car flew so high in the air and then came back down. He luckily didn't roll but landed very hard. Everyone was holding their breaths until he climbed out OK. All involved in this crash were OK, thank the lord. After that the race went pretty quickly and was over before you knew it. Now on to the B main. 4 cars from this main will round out the A main with 25 cars. Winners of the B main were, Brooke Tatnell #55, Clint Garner #40, Brad Sweet #49 and Lee Jacobs #81x.
After these were over they did the drawing for tonights 50/50, the winner to take home $23,987, as usual we were not even close.
The A main, which is the race for the championship, is 50 laps. With so many cars wanting to win it could be a long race. Donny Schatz, my pick, is looking for his 8th Sprint car Championship here. Joe is hoping for Brian Brown to win. The crowd wants anyone but Donny Schatz to win.
They are taking their parade lap at 4 a breast. Also added to this lap were all the push trucks that do an amazing job of keeping the track packed and getting the sprints started. They all have to be pushed started.
The race is on with just one restart because the flagman didn't like the way they started. Donny is so fast it doesn't take him long to have a 3/4 of a lap lead on the field. Brian is trying very hard to catch him. At lap 25 the whole field comes in for tires an fuel and to make adjustments to the cars. I have never seen this done before for Sprint cars. Once back to racing Brian almost catches Donny but not quite until about 6 laps from the end he manages to pass him. The fans go crazy. But he can't hold him off and Donny gets his 8 th win. It is now almost 1am and we are tired but pumped up at the same time. It took a while to fall a sleep. I woke up at 3:30, partying still going on around us. I don't know how they do it, I guess age is everything because they are all 40 or younger.
Up at 6:30 an on the road by 8:30. It was tricky to pull our unit out of our spot and not hit the truck in front of us or the trailer beside us. We finally had to wake up the owner of the truck and get him to move it. We had someone else helping guide us out, me on one side an him on the other. We breathed a sigh of relieve once we out of the park and on our way. Eight plus hours later we are in Branson MO.
We stopped for lunch at a Flying J truck stop with a Denny's. While we were waiting for our food we heard the new report on the fatal accident that Tony Stewart was involved in. At first we thought it was Tony that was killed, but it was Kevin Ward Jr. What an unbelievable tragedy for all those involved. Tony had just been at Knoxville along with Jeff Gordon and Kyle Larson a few days ago signing autographs. It was one of Tony's cars that Donny Schatz was driving in the Knoxville Championships.
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