The second qualifying night for the 52nd annual Goodyear Knoxville Nationals has been another great one for the Australian contingent, with Sydney-sider, Ian Madsen setting the quickest time in qualifying and then qualifying for the preliminary A-Main with compatriots James McFadden and Jamie Veal.
Despite hitting the track 15th of the 50 qualifying cars, the younger brother of World of Outlaws regular, Kerry Madsen blistered around the half-mile in 15.491 seconds, almost a tenth of a second quicker than fellow Knoxville Raceway regular, Brian Brown.
Veal was 29th quickest, McFadden 33rd in his first Nationals attempt, Marty Perovich timed in 43rd quickest with Domain Ramsay stopping the clocks 46th.
In the heats, Madsen slotted into the A-Main after finishing the first heat third, McFadden got through heat three in second placing, whilst Veal finished third in heat number four to line-up on the biggest stage possible. Ramsay would have to be content with a B-Main start after finishing eighth in his heat. His night ended in the B, finishing 17th.
Perovich failed to front for his heat race before going on to finish eighth in the C-Main.
Multi World of Outlaws Champion, Jason Meyers took the preliminary feature victory after assuming the lead mid-race after a strong battle with Mark Dobmeier.
Madsen was in the thick of the action, spinning during the course of the race only to be collected by Danny ‘The Dude’ Lasoski. After a visit to the work area, he was back into the fray.
There was a fantastic battle for second over the closing laps involving Dobmeier, Stevie Smith and Kraig Kinser – but it was 2010 Nationals Champion, Tim Shaffer who was the runner up with Kraig Kinser third, Smith in fourth and Dobmeier being relegated to sixth behind Lance DeWease.
McFadden was the best of the Aussies in 13th with Veal in 15th. Madsen wound up 16th in the end.
Ian Madsen is the only Australian that has – thus far – directly qualified for Saturday night’s $150,000 to win Championship A-Main.
