Thursday night, November 2nd, the Textron Off Road World Finals kicked off at the Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway. In an all World of Outlaws sanctioned event, the Sprint Cars, Late Models and Big Block Modifieds all went through opening night exercises as they started their qualifying procedures in preparation for two nights of racing action on Friday and Saturday.
All three classes went through qualifying laps on Thursday with the Sprint Cars running single car qualifying against the clock, the Late Models going three and four apiece against the cloud also while the Big Blocks ran group qualifying against everyone else in their heats with the heats being split into either four or five car waves.
Class totals found that fifty two Sprints signed in, along with seventy five Late Models and forty seven Big Blocks. All three totals are slightly higher than the 2016 race produced.
The weather was spectacular with perhaps the best night ever for this event in its history, a race that has been plagued from time to time with rain issues.
This is one race that features the best of the best with most of the top drivers in all three classes in action. The top twenty one drivers in WoO Sprint points were on hand before we got to a couple of absentees in Dominic Scelzi and Rico Abreu. The top nine in Late Model points are here with the concussed Frankie Heckenast being the only top ten runner not on hand. After that the next missing driver was sixteenth place Donald Bradsher who actually had Jonathan Davenport in his car until Davenport moves over to his new Lance Landers ride starting next week. The top ten in Big Block points are on hand with the first absentee being Stewart Friesen who is racing a Truck with NASCAR this weekend.
With nearly one hundred and eighty cars in the upper and lower pits in total and nearly every single one of them going up and down the road in an impressive toter or semi, just walking through the pits is quite the experience. The amount of spectacular equipment is truly mind boggling and even better than either Arizona or Florida as all the big classes are on hand all at once. Along with all the drivers that are on hand, lots of other top notch drivers are seen roaming the pits catching up on the latest developments in technology from all the builders but busy making deals for the 2018 racing season which will start in just a few short weeks. Now days there isn't much of a gap between one racing season and the next and many are already making their preparations for either/or Arizona or Florida.
Thursday night's program is a bit different than most you will see as qualifying is the big thing with all three classes doing their qualifying for both Friday and Saturday night's program on Thursday. The Sprints and Late Models do two full sets of time trials with each one setting the field for one of the two nights of racing while the Big Blocks, who seem to be treated somewhat like the "red headed stepchild", do group qualifying as stated earlier and then they participate in two rounds of heat races that determine starting positions and B feature lineups for both Friday and Saturday night's racing.
For those of us that aren't big fans of time trials, it's one of those "grit your teeth and bear it" kinds of nights as the time trials for so many cars seem to drone on nearly forever. Fans come and go, drifting in when their special class hits the track and then either heading for the pits to roam or to souvenir lane to do the same while the other classes are going through their exercises.
Once they start the qualifying, track officials don't touch the track. No watering or other such nonsense takes place once the first car hits the track as they figure the conditions are the same for everyone and by splitting the qualifying into groups, there is no big advantage to either drawing a low or high number. Reinforcing that is the amazing ability of this track to not "give up" as the laps continue to be laid down as it seems to stay remarkably consistent. That would be proven out later, especially in the Sprint Car ranks.
David Gravel was quick qualifier in the first round of Sprint qualifying, turning a lap at 12.530. However, the truly amazing thing was that Trey Starks would be quick qualifier in the second go round, turning a lap at 12.606, less than a tenth of a second slower than Gravel. However, Starks was the fifty first driver to qualify in the second round of time trials and nearly one hundred cars timed in between the two, yet the track basically remained just as it was much earlier! You just don't see that happen very often, if at all. There were also several other events that went on between the two rounds of Sprint qualifying including the first round of Late Model time trials!
Donny Schatz had two solid rounds of time trials and one of the surprises was Billy Balog as the Wisconsin driver was in the top three for both sets of qualifying.
Two sets of Late Model qualifying found Mike Marlar set the pace in the first round at 14,385 and Josh Richards top the boards in the second round at 14,536. Both the Sprints and Late Models will run six heats on Friday night with last chance races to grid the rest of the starting fields. It goes without saying that a lot of great cars and drivers will be sitting on the sidelines when the feature races start.
The Big Blocks are really under the gun on Thursday night. Not only do they qualify but they also run heat races to set the starting fields for both Friday and Saturday so the only true racing action presented on Thursday night is two rounds of heats for the Big Blocks. Their night is very risky in that any problem in qualifying or one of the first rounds of heats could severely affect their entire weekend.
This came to light twice in the Big Blocks as both Brett Hearn and Jimmy Phelps, top runners both, had trouble in first round time trials and had to go to back up cars. Not being able to qualify in the second round, both had to start in the back of both their heats and neither qualified for the main event so both are looking at two Last Chance races in the next two nights and hope to squeak their way into the mains.
The lone racing of the night, the Big Block heats, were very disappointing events. Two sets of five heats for each night's qualifying found that the win of all ten started in the front row and there was virtually no passing at all in any of the heats. Certainly part of that was due to the straight up heat race lineups and also in part that the track remained fast with a healthy berm that most of the drivers were running off of, which made passing that much harder. Knowing how exciting the Big Blocks can be, the heats were a major disappointment. Hopefully the track will slow down and widen out for the racing the rest of the weekend which is likely since with no qualifying, not everyone will be running in the same groove all night and there will be more actual racing which helps to widen out the track. With the tedious portion of the weekend now behind us, the hope is that things will pick up dramatically for the weekend. Certainly that will likely be the case as the best in the business are on hand here in all three classes.
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