Opening night of the 63rd running of the NOS Energy Drink Knoxville Nationals presented by Casey's at Knoxville (Iowa) Raceway commenced on Wednesday.
Giovanni Scelzi was the star of the night, earning the prelim victory while grabbing hold of provisional high-point honors with Thursday's second-round prelim looming. Among other headlines was Jacob Allen's strong evening, abnormal nights for David Gravel and Donny Schatz, and Corey Day's quiet but productive showing.
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For five takeaways from Wednesday's Knoxville Nationals qualifying night, read below.
Gio Scelzi's Time?
Giovanni Scelzi emerging from Wednesday’s qualifying night as its lone standout performer isn’t exactly what the masses had anticipated, but it shouldn’t be entirely unexpected.
The 22-year-old rising superstar has developed into one of the best qualifiers at the Knoxville Nationals since going full-time 410 racing at 16 in 2018. His 471-point performance Wednesday virtually locks him into the front five rows of Saturday’s finale for the fourth time in six runnings.
On Thursday, Kyle Larson and Brad Sweet are aiming for their fifth top-10 starting spot at the Nationals since 2018 while Carson Macedo can presumably tie Scelzi with four top-10 starting spots over the last six years should he also perform well Thursday.
The closest Scelzi’s come to Nationals victory is 2021 where he led 10 laps and finished fourth. After Wednesday, he might have his best shot at the Nationals yet.
“Honestly, it was pretty overwhelming the first time (I was high-point man),” Scelzi said. “All the thoughts roll through your mind … you could be the youngest Knoxville Nationals winner ever. We were extremely fast back in 2021. It wasn’t typical for them to do track work before the feature, but they’ve made it a normal thing now.
“We had such a good package that Wednesday we didn’t want to stray from it that Friday. The track will be different. Tomorrow will be different. Friday and Saturday will all be different. You have to stay on top of it. I feel like now I’m older and have been in position to win these races.”
Don’t take your lumps at Knoxville personally, Gio. It took Donny Schatz until his 12th attempt to win his first of 11 event wreaths. For Sweet, it took him nine tries to win his first in 2018 and for Larson, it took six for his first Nationals in 2021.
This year, of course, is Scelzi’s sixth Nationals attempt. While his five wins don’t seem like much, he’s actually on pace for his best statistical season to date. His three World of Outlaws victories are his most in a single season and his other two checkers are prelims of six-figure events.
He could easily have a six-figure payday by now, too. Remember he wrecked out of the lead of the $100,000-to-win Joker’s Jackpot at Eldora Speedway last month. Scelzi’s now won prelims leading into the Williams Grove National Open, a big-money event at Eldora, and now the Nationals.
His chances of becoming a Crown Jewel winner just increased all the more as Saturday nears.
A Refreshed Jacob Allen
Jacob Allen looked so smooth Wednesday, him sitting out last year’s Knoxville Nationals wasn’t relevant until the Hanover, Pa., driver put that into perspective in the post-race press conference.
“The fact that I didn’t race Knoxville last year … it felt good to put a night together like we did tonight,” Allen said after his runner-up finish in which he led 21 of 25 laps. “Really proud of our team. It’s just a bunch of dudes from Pennsylvania working hard."
Last year, Allen himself — not his No. 1A Shark Racing team — withdrew from the Nationals after essentially admitting he’d been burned out from racing.
“Like a lot of things in life, sometimes when you take a step back and come back to it, it actually feels a little better,” Allen said. "You learn and you gain from your experiences in the past. Truthfully, it feels a little that way.”
Allen wasn’t also all that worried he hadn’t raced at Knoxville since June 2023 prior to this week. He didn’t even race Sunday’s Capitani Classic. This year is Allen’s 10th trip to Knoxville. Eighth in the event standings with 453 points, Allen’s likely to be relegated to Saturday’s B-main, where 17th through 26th in points are top-10 lock-ins for the Last Chance Showdown.
Both of Allen’s Nationals A-main starts in 2018 and ’22 are by virtue of placing top-16 points from qualifying nights. Racing through Saturday’s B-main, should that be the case, won’t be his first obstacle of the week as Allen had to swap engines after Wednesday’s qualifying.
“Yeah the motor change was unfortunate,” Allen said. “We thought we had that one figured out. We had that one in at Eldora and it kind of gave us the same issues today, unfortunately. … Just a great effort by my guys.”
“Yeah, I’m proud of everything,” he added. “It’s a night to be proud of.”
What Happened To Donny Schatz?
Donny Schatz hadn’t endured a qualifying night that amiss Wednesday since 1997 when he, too, time trialed 30th or worse, started from the pole of a heat race, and was a non-factor in the main event.
Schatz’s 1997 Nationals qualifying night: 30th in time trials, pole to second in his heat, and 22nd to 15th in the feature.
Wednesdays qualifying night: 36th in time trials, pole to victory in his heat, 19th to 18th in the feature.
The 11-time Nationals champ went out 43rd qualifying and five of the nine drivers who went out behind him trumped his lap of 16.181 seconds: Jamie Ball, Sam Hafertepe Jr., Kraig Kinser, Brandon Wimmer, and Brock Zearfoss.
The highlight of Schatz’s qualifying night was an epic save of his blue-and-gold Carquest-sponsored No. 15 race machine on the opening lap of Wednesday’s feature. David Gravel accidentally clipped Schatz from behind, and the 19th-starting Schatz turned 180 degrees toward the infield before miraculously saving his race car from catastrophe.
All the above leaves Schatz in a precarious place the rest of the week, mired 25th in points and virtually relegated to Friday’s Hard Knox night. Only once in Schatz’s 25-straight Nationals main event starts has he started in the final two rows, and that was in 2013 when he won from the 21st-starting spot.
Off Night For David Gravel
David Gravel wasn’t as wayward as Donny Schatz on Wednesday, but he too found himself “on the wrong side of it all night long.”
The 2019 Nationals champ qualified eighth overall, but could only go seventh-to-sixth in his heat, and then by virtue of a late-race pass in the B-main, sneak into the 25-lap main event as the final transfer.
Oddly enough, with the way the format goes, Gravel says he likely would’ve benefited if he had qualified a few spots worse, implying that the row-three heat starters came away as beneficiaries of the night. Three of Wednesday’s top-six in points started the heats from row three — Gio Scelzi, Scott Bogucki, and Brent Marks — while the other three — Anthony Macri, Corey Day and Sheldon Haudenschild — came from row four.
“Like, we needed to be four spots worse in qualifying and we would’ve transferred through the heat race, and locked into the A-main probably battling for a win tonight,” Gravel said. “But we started seventh, and nobody who started seventh or eighth transferred.
“Sheldon started seventh but that crash put him to sixth, and then he transferred. It just wasn’t in the cards. We really, not got lucky, but we’re fortunate to make it out of the B starting seventh.”
Corey Day's Quiet But Productive Night
Corey Day was a little surprised to see himself fourth in points Wednesday — “I thought I was going to be seventh or eighth,” he added — but that’s a testament to how much he’s developed over the last year.
The 18-year-old on Wednesday made his ground up in qualifying where he timed ninth overall despite going out 28th, and especially in the heat race when he finished fourth after starting seventh.
“Qualifying ninth from where we went out was good,” Day said. “But, man, struggled with our race car.”
Starting alongside Gio Scelzi in the A-main, Day could’ve emerged as high-point man, too. But “we haven’t seen it this wet in the past two years” and his “package that’s worked in the really slick stuff” was of no use.
“We were kind of lost tonight,” Day said. “We figured, man, if we’re as tight as we are for the slick stuff, we should roll around just fine. It was just not good. Struggled in the heat race and luckily was able to regroup.”
