race of the lead was on. On trip No. 44 around Knoxville, the slide jobs came, as Schatz delivered an onslaught of haymaker moves with Johnson returning in kind.
With under five laps to go, the scream of the crowd roared louder than the cars as Johnson ran the right rear of his No. 41 on the ragged edge with traffic about to come into play. With three laps to go, off the fourth turn, Johnson nearly tagged the wall. The bobble was just what Donny needed as the No. 15 was ferocious around the bottom of the Knoxville Raceway.
To the white flag, the stage was set as Johnson entered the final two turns. Powering the bottom side, it was all or nothing as Donny gave it one last run, but it was not to be as Jason Johnson worked to the checkered flag a mere. 168 seconds over the nine-time champion. The win is also Johnson’ s third at the Knoxville Raceway in 410cid competition.
Donny’ s runner-up finish is the 12th time in as many years that Schatz has been on the podium at the Knoxville Nationals.“ We did everything we could,” he said.“ Jason [ Johnson ] did a great job. I didn’ t think you could run that hard a pace for 50 laps, but he did, and once he got out there, I tried everything to catch him and just couldn’ t do it,” commented Schatz from the second podium step.
Rookie of the Year honors went to Matt Juhl in the Octane Ink No. 09. Juhl advanced from the C-Feature to finish 16th in the‘ B’. The Jesse Hockett Mr. Sprint Car Award presented by Cox Fabrication was awarded to Jamie Veal, who is the first Australian to earn the title since