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May 26, 2006

Eckerd Outlaw Showdown at Charlotte
By Mike Neff

The Eckerd Outlaw Showdown at Charlotte was a coming out party for Kevin Swindell. The son of sprint car legend Sammy Swindell took his first Feature win Wednesday night at the age of 17. He topped a field of seasoned veterans on a fast track where his father took the inaugural event some six years ago.

The evening started off in truly bizarre fashion. While packing the track, one of the packing cars was attempting to turn some fast laps. The driver slid off of the fourth turn into the infield. He stayed in the gas, which added some significant speed, and got back onto the track at the end of the front straight. The speed was too much for the car to hold its line and he slid up the track and hit hard with the passenger side of the car. The impact apparently knocked the driver unconscious. As the car rolled down the track towards the infield, another packing car observed what was happening and crashed into the car in order to stop it. The track safety crew had to cut the roof off of the car to extricate the driver. He was taken to a local hospital and it was reported later in the evening that he only had a concussion.

As the safety workers were extricating the first accident victim, another packing car stopped on the outside of turn four. For some unknown reason, the driver of the car got out and was standing behind his vehicle. Another packing car came around the corner and ran into the back of the first car, smashing the driver between the two vehicles. The injured driver was airlifted to a hospital. It was later reported that he only had fractures in his legs and was in good spirits.

The Outlaw racing got off to a great start with a different qualifying format. The cars went out if groups of four. They ran two hot laps, one caution and then two more hot laps. The fastest of the four hot laps was the qualifying time. The process seemed to move very efficiently and appeared to be quicker than single car qualifying.

The big news of the heat races was that points leader Donny Schatz spun in his heat race. He had to start at the back of the pack with three laps to go. He passed four cars in three laps to move into the last transfer position but was penalized for passing a car before the cone on the restart and was therefore scored as last in his heat. He made up for that by leading the last chance qualified wire-to-wire. He went on to finish fifth in the feature coming from an 11th place starting position.

The other car to transfer from the B main was Tyler Walker. He was running well and had moved into second in his heat race when his right rear tire failed. His team was unable to get him out with a new tire in the prescribed two caution flag laps so he was forced to the last chance race. He started outside the front row and followed Schatz for the entire B main to transfer to the feature. His success in the feature was not as good as Schatz and he came home 10th.

In the feature, Swindell started on the front row and was gone from the beginning. Through two red flags for flips, one by Jac Haudenschild and one by Jason Martin, and just two other caution flags, he never lost the lead and was really never pressured. The feature completed an evening sweep for Swindell who also won his heat race and the dash.

Chad Kemenah was second on the evening. His car seemed to bog down on restarts the entire evening and was never really a threat to pass Swindell. Brooke Tatnell was third and Tim Shaffer, who is substituting for an injured Terry McCarl was fourth. The rest of the top ten were Jason Meyers, Daryn Pittman, Joey Saldana, and Craig Dollansky.

In the Goodyear Fasttrack Challenge Series, Dennis "Rambo" Franklin came home in first. Franklin and second place finisher Buddy Smith had an incredible side-by-side duel for the first half of the race. Franklin eventually prevailed and went on to take the checkered flag. Franklin is a regular competitor at Cherokee Speedway in Gaffney, South Carolina. Third was Jonathan Davenport, with Mike "Flintstone Flyer" Duvall coming home in the fourth position. Rounding out the top five was John Pursley.

The Charlotte track has made great strides from the first couple of years. The surface stayed consistent and offered up two grooves of racing for the entire evening. There were no ruts or holes and the drivers could move all over the track. Swindell was just too good to be passed.