The No. 57 did it again.
For his fourth straight Knoxville start and his third straight attempt on the World of Outlaws tour, Kyle Larson found victory lane.
“I was nervous early,” Larson said in victory lane. “I didn’t get a good start. My car was laid left, and I couldn’t get grip.”
Larson started the race from 10th and even went back a spot or two before moving forward.
He sat in 11th when Terry McCarl brought out the first caution of the race as his car put out a plethora of smoke. Evidently, McCarl’s car put an amount of oil on the track as well.
During the next two restarts, cautions came out for cars spinning effecting some big names in the A-Main field.
The first took Daryn Pittman in the No. 83 and the second is the reason that there is a new points leader atop the World of Outlaws standings.
. @dirtvision REPLAY: @Cory_Eliason goes around and collects defending champion @BradSweet49, @DonnySchatz and @JamesMcFadden25 in an incident that will have big points standings implications early in tonight's event. #TheOneAndOnly #LiveNOS pic.twitter.com/XyeCy7cz4G
— World of Outlaws (@WorldofOutlaws) August 14, 2020
His team attempted to fix the damage, but ultimately ran out of time resulting in a DNF for Brad Sweet.
While Sweet and Donny Schatz were in the work area, Logan Schuchart was in the driver’s seat, leading the field around the track.
“I was good in the beginning, but as the race went on I got a little tight,” Schuchart said. “I would have liked to run some laps a little differently if I had them back. I don’t feel like we’re far off. We’re close.”
Larson restarted in seventh on the run, with 21 laps remaining, after the four-car contingent of contenders in front of him was eliminated.
It allowed him to get a great launch on the start and pass Aaron Reutzel for third with 19 to go.
“I think as the fuel burned off, I got really good,” Larson said. “I got the top going on the restart, and everybody was worked the middle and the bottom. I was able to get the runs I needed and pass them at the right time.”
Larson worked up to Schuchart and passed the 1S with a slide job coming to the start/finish line with seven laps to go.
In the process, Larson’s right rear tire clipped the front wing of Schuchart.
“We kept getting tighter, especially when Larson slid in there and knocked the front wing off it,” Schuchart said. “The last however many laps after that I was just having trouble steering the car. We were still good. We were able to salvage a second place finish.”
Regardless, the podium finish results in Schuchart taking back the World of Outlaws points lead from Sweet.
He’s now 24 ticks in front of the No. 49 and looks to add to it throughout the rest of the weekend.
“There’s 70 good cars here,” Schuchart said. “We knew it was either gonna hurt (us) or help (us). Brad and Donny are both right there and they had a bit of a misfortune there in the middle of the race to crash out, but that’s part of the game.”
While the big guns made all the headlines, Carson Macedo was weaving through the waves quietly.
Macedo took his Kyle Larson Racing No. 2 car from 24th to 4th in the main event, earning the KSE Hard Charger award and salvaging a seventh spot in the event standings.
A little bit further back was Tyler Courtney – the defending USAC Midget champion – who has looked to improve his winged program at Knoxville this season.
Depending on how he looks at it, his 13th-place result was a success with the field surrounding him.
“We should have ran, realistically, 10th there,” Courtney said. “I just made some mistakes at the end of the race and a couple of guys got by us. Getting another 25 laps at this place was pretty key. Hopefully tomorrow, we’ll start off qualifying a little bit better and get as many points as we can to put ourselves in a good spot Saturday.”
The standings through the first two nights of the weekend help determine the starting lineups for the four qualifying races that will set the field for Saturday night.
This will let four drivers go straight to the DirtVision FastPass Dash on Saturday and not have to worry about racing in through a qualifier.
On the other side of things, it puts Parker Price-Miller in an unfavorable spot.
The No. 14 Dietz Motorsports crew had to put a new engine in Price-Miller’s car, which they changed following his heat race. It put the team in the C-Main and set them back in the event standings.
“It ruins your night, honestly,” Price-Miller said. “We went from having a chance to be in the re-draw – all we had to do was finish top three in the heat race – to having that taken away from us. It just put us behind the eight ball all weekend now.”
That’s just the nature of multiple day events, especially one with the uniqueness of The One and Only.
It all continues on Friday night at Knoxville, where the drivers will go at it again and try to earn points through qualifying, heat races, and the feature. Hot laps kick off at 7:00 p.m. on DirtVision.
The One and Only Night 1 Feature Results
1. Kyle Larson
2. Logan Schuchart
3. Aaron Reutzel
4. Carson Macedo
5. David Gravel
6. Brian Brown
7. Spencer Bayston
8. Gio Scelzi
9. Joey Saldana
10. Ian Madsen
11. Austin McCarl
12. Jacob Allen
13. Tyler Courtney
14. Jason Sides
15. Rico Abreu
16. Terry McCarl
17. Brooke Tatnell
18. Matt Juhl
19. Sheldon Haudenschild
20. Daryn Pittman
21. Kraig Kinser
22. Donny Schatz
23. Cory Eliason
24. Brad Sweet
25. James McFadden
The One and Only Points
Following Night 1
1. Aaron Reutzel 430
2. Logan Schuchart 421
3. Kyle Larson 421
4. Brian Brown 417
5. Spencer Bayston 415
6. David Gravel 411
7. Carson Macedo 401
8. Joey Saldana 398
9. Gio Scelzi 395
10. Jacob Allen 387
11. Austin McCarl 383
12. Ian Madsen 377
13. Terry McCarl 373
14. Tyler Courtney 372
15. Daryn Pittman 367
16. Rico Abreu 367
17. Donny Schatz 364
18. Jason Sides 364
19. Cory Eliason 363
20. Matt Juhl 361
21. Brooke Tatnell 357
22. Brad Sweet 353
23. Kraig Kinser 350
24. James McFadden 348
25. Danny Dietrich 332
26. Paul McMahan 328
27. Brock Zearfoss 322
28. Tim Kaeding 319
29. Shane Stewart 315
30. Sheldon Haudenschild 312
31. Josh Baughman 308
32. Sam Hafertepe Jr. 306
33. Sammy Swindell 306
34. Josh Schneiderman 298
35. Sawyer Phillips 286
36. Mason Daniel 284
37. Kerry Madsen 283
38. Ayrton Gennetten 281
39. Parker Price-Miller 279
40. Hunter Schuerenberg 277
41. Shane Golobic 250
42. Colby Copeland 250
43. AJ Moeller 235
44. Tim Shaffer 228
45. Tucker Klaasmeyer 225
46. Anthony Macri 221
47. Wayne Johnson 220
48. Skylar Gee 217
49. Tasker Phillips 213
50. Davey Heskin 196
51. Trey Starks 195
52. Lynton Jeffrey 195
53. Jeff Swindell 191
54. Ryan Giles 191
55. Chris Martin 167
56. Zach Hampton 166
57. Kyle Offill 162
58. Kevin Ingle 150
59. Bill Rose 144
60. Tori Knutson 143
61. Joe Simbro 134
62. Scott Bogucki 120
63. Dominic Scelzi 114
64. Cale Thomas 99
65. Sye Lynch 89
66. Justin Henderson 72
67. Scotty Thiel 34
| World of Outlaws Sprint Cars Standings | ||||
| Position | Driver | Points | Behind | |
| 1 | Logan Schuchart | 3996 | -0 | |
| 2 | Brad Sweet | 3972 | -24 | |
| 3 | Donny Schatz | 3956 | -40 | |
| 4 | Carson Macedo | 3936 | -60 | |
| 5 | Sheldon Haudenschild | 3902 | -94 | |
| 6 | Daryn Pittman | 3788 | -208 | |
| 7 | David Gravel | 3718 | -278 | |
| 8 | Parker Price-Miller | 3558 | -438 | |
| 9 | Jacob Allen | 3558 | -438 | |
| 10 | Kraig Kinser | 3378 | -618 | |
