Austin McCarl Rules Night One At Knoxville

KNOXVILLE, Iowa — Austin McCarl sits atop the 410 standings at Knoxville Raceway, but Thursday night, he won a three-way battle to win on night one of the Xtream Powered by Mediacom Knoxville 360 Nationals Presented by Great Southern Bank.

The win earned the Altoona, Iowa, driver $3,000 and gave him enough points to rank sixth overall on the night in the Country Builders Construction No. 88.

Kyle Larson, who finished second in the feature, was the top point man, followed by Justin Peck, Chris Martin, Justin Sanders and third-place James McFadden).

The other half of the event field will qualify Friday night.

Chase Randall led the 20-lap non-stop main event early, followed by McCarl, McFadden, J.J. Hickle and Peck. Larson entered the top five by lap two, took fourth from Hickle on lap four, and claimed third from McFadden by lap seven.

Randall entered traffic at the halfway mark, as McCarl and Larson drew closer. On lap 14, McCarl slipped by Randall in heavy lapped traffic, with Larson a close third.

Randall worked back by McCarl on the following circuit to retake the lead. On lap 16, surrounded by heavy lapped traffic, both McCarl and Larson moved by Randall into first and second.

With two to go, Randall worked back by Larson for the runner-up spot, but McFadden was charging as well. Coming to the white flag, Larson and McFadden moved by Randall into second and third.

McCarl held them off for his third career 360 win here, ahead of Larson, McFadden, Peck and Randall.

Sam Hafertepe Jr. set quick time over the 42-car field, but ran out of fuel on the white-flag lap, while leading the B main.

“I think I saw Kyle at least two or three times underneath me,” said McCarl. “Traffic got amazing! I had to make the right decisions in traffic there. Things went my way, and didn’t go my way at times. I just had to be smart and kind of really watch ahead. I thought of my Dad (Terry). You’ve got to be good in traffic, especially on a race track like that. I haven’t felt real comfortable tonight, but these guys kept working on it. That was a fun race, a fun non-stop deal.”

Larson was pleased with his effort.

“It was a lot of fun,” said Larson. “I got to third maybe a little bit quicker than I thought I could. I felt like I could bide my time a little bit, and traffic just got busier than I thought. I made some bad decisions and had some holes plug up at the wrong time, but Austin did a great job through traffic. That was a lot of fun with him and Chase and James at the end.

“My car felt really good. I feel like we gained a fair amount of points. Hopefully, we’ll line up well for Saturday.”

“I was just trying to search and find something different,” said McFadden. “It was a really busy race, and the track kind of moved around a lot. I kind of tried to be where everyone else wasn’t and keep the momentum up. It’s a lot different driving a 360. You can bog them down easily. That’s what I was doing at the start of the race. It was a solid night for us. We should be pretty good. My lack of seat time on the half-miles probably hurt me, but all in all it was a good night.”

The finish:

Feature (20 Laps): 1. 88-Austin McCarl (3); 2. 57-Kyle Larson (5); 3. 21T-James McFadden (4); 4. 26-Justin Peck (6); 5. 9R-Chase Randall (1); 6. 63-JJ Hickle (2); 7. 44-Chris Martin (7); 8. 55-Kerry Madsen (12); 9. 87-Justin Sanders (8); 10. 40-Ryan Leavitt (9); 11. 6-Dustin Selvage (13); 12. 2M-Ryan Giles (10); 13. 18T-Tanner Holmes (21); 14. 09-Matt Juhl (15); 15. 35-Skylar Prochaska (19); 16. 99-Tony Rost (11); 17. 13-Daison Pursley (22); 18. 3F-Derek Hagar (16); 19. 95-Matt Covington (20); 20. 24H-Kade Higday (23); 21. 5A-Alex Vande Voort (24); 22. 4W-Jamie Ball (14); 23. 55B-Chase Brown (18); 24. 13M-Brett Moffitt (17).