Donny Schatz pocketed $7,500 for winning Saturday afternoon’s revised Hard Knox program — officially dubbed the FVP Preliminary Event — though the victory left the 11-time Knoxville Nationals champion with a much different path to Saturday night’s finale than originally anticipated.
Instead of earning one of the final four spots in Saturday night’s 50-lap, $200,000-to-win main event, Schatz will start 11th in the C-main under the Nationals’ weather-altered, streamlined format. That puts his remarkable streak of 27 consecutive Nationals A-main appearances in serious jeopardy.
Friday’s scheduled Hard Knox program was washed out, and when Saturday’s rescheduled event was delayed another two hours, officials revised the format again. Drivers ranked 17th through 20th in preliminary points were promoted directly into the A-main, positions 21-40 were placed in the B-main and 41-50 in the C-main. Everyone else competed Saturday afternoon for starting spots 11th and deeper in the C-main — Schatz included being 58th in prelim points.
So while Schatz won the afternoon feature, the victory merely earned him the 11th starting spot in the C-main — leaving him with plenty of work ahead to preserve one of the Nationals’ longest-running streaks. Steve Kinser's 34 consecutive Nationals A-main starts from 1978-2011 stands as the longest.
“Yeah, it’s awesome. When you can’t get in on your qualifying night, guess you have to use Hard Knox to get in the A, right?” Schatz said flatly, his sarcasm unmistakable, after winning the make-up Hard Knox feature by 2.2 seconds from the seventh-starting spot over Steven Snyder Jr.
Facing heavy rainstorms that saturated the grounds from Friday into Saturday morning — and with more storms threatening Saturday evening — Nationals officials are doing everything possible to complete the event without pushing the finale to Sunday.
When Knoxville pit reporter Wade Aunger reminded Schatz that “it takes a village” to overcome the undesirable weather-related circumstances, Schatz acknowledged the predicament officials are facing.
“It does,” he said.
That doesn’t lessen his disappointment.
“Really disappointed in the change of formats, really. I guess it’s their baby and we’re playing in it. It is what it is,” Schatz said. “We’ll try to do the best. Yesterday, if we came here tonight, you were racing for four lock-in spots. Tonight if you win, you’re racing for 11th in the C. That’s a pretty big change up. It is what it is."
And it’ll take quite a charge for Schatz to extend his streak to 28 consecutive Nationals A-main appearances.
He’ll need to gain at least seven positions in the 15-lap C-main to reach the B-main. From there, he’d have 22 laps to rally from either 21st, 22nd, 23rd or 24th into one of the four transfer positions for finale.
Schatz knows such a rally isn’t impossible. He transferred to last year’s Nationals finale from 11th in the B-main, but he wasn’t nearly as optimistic about his chances this time around despite winning Saturday afternoon’s 25-lap preliminary feature.
“No, not really,” Schatz said when asked if he found anything during the victory that could help him make a charge later Saturday. “Guys done a tremendous job. We’re making huge strides here. I mean, the track kind of played our way. We were really good early and the other guys weren’t.
"The guys at the CJB (Motorsports) crew, they’ll go back and work a couple hours — see if we can make a charge," he added.
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