Knippel ends dry spell on wild night at Grundy

Task Force · 8/26/12, 4:16 PM

KNIPPEL ENDS DRY SPELL ON WILD NIGHT AT GRUNDY COUNTY
By Zach Tasker
The Illini Racing Series made their way back to the Grundy County Speedway on Saturday night and as always the stars and cars of affordable midget racing put on an entertaining show. 22 cars were set to do battle in the D'arcy Shootout, Ben Gillis and Loran Critchett Jr. started on the front row for the 30 lap feature. It didn't
take long for fireworks to fly as on lap 2 there was contact between the #5 car of Sean Murphy and the #33 of Loran Critchett Jr. Critchett's car was sent airborne in between turns 3 and 4 and begin to tumble multiple times before landing on his wheels. Luckily, Critchett escaped with only minor leg injuries. The car however was a different story. The #33 Schiling Lumber/KCM Accounting/Stray Bar/Derek Strough & Nick Willet Music Buzzard/Quad 4 is believed to be the 3rd Buzzard chassis ever built and has had over 40 feature victories with multiple drivers. After a brief red flag the field was ready to do battle once again. Joe Knippel would start to stretch his lead he inherited at the start of the race before another early yellow flag, this time for the #22 of Tom Shilkuski spinning in turn #2. Knippel would once again open up the gap to the rest of the field after the restart, there was plenty of close hard racing behind him. Patrick Bruns, Mike Anderson, and Scott Koerner all battled for the 2nd position the majority of the race. Sean Murphy worked all the way back up to 5th position after being sent to the tail of the field for the lap 2 incident. In the end it was Knippel taking the checkered flag well ahead of Bruns and Koerner.
The multiple time series champion out of Mokena was relieved to finally score a victory this season "We didn't run at Rockford last week and we didn't touch the car from the week before when we lead the first ten laps here and I didn't change a thing on the car all night. I got in and I didn't change stagger or change anything. We have been having some fueling issues and its always in the back of my mind so I went through the fuel system before the feature because I knew we were going to get a good starting spot tonight." The driver of the Task Management/Schiling Lumber/KCM Accounting/Stary Bar Stealth/Focus had to be perfect on the restarts early on to build up his gap "The biggest thing after a yellow is you have to be inconsistent on your starts, you can never start in the same spot. On the first restart I picked it up kind of late out of 4 and on the second restart I picked it up in between three and four so I was hoping to build a little gap going into turn 1 that way. One thing you never want to do is start a restart on the same spot." This is Knippels second straight podium at Grundy County Speedway "I have to say a big thank you to Glenn Winstrup ,he is here in the stands tonight. It's his car, I have the privilege of driving it. Without him I really couldn't be this competitive anymore and a big thank you to Allen Gillis because he has been trashing on this car for the last two years and we have had so many issues with the fueling system and we fixed it and I think tonight is the first night between Laverne's 24 car and the 11 car which he wrenches on both of him he didn't have to do anything to the car, so its nice for him to have a little break too."
The man that is running away with the series championship points lead so far had another smooth and consistent night finishing second. Patrick Bruns was pleased with another podium finish "It was an exciting night but first off congratulations to Joe Knippel, its really exciting to see him win a race and by the time I was able to maneuver into second he was checked out and was long gone. I think (Mike) Anderson schooled me on the outside and I think a little bit later I was able to get him back. Me and the 9 car (Koerner) went back and forth a little bit. All in all some real good clean racing, exciting night I can't wait to do it again." The Champaign native, like many was concerned over fellow driver Loran Critchett Jr.'s condition "I hope Loran is feeling all right and his leg heels quickly after getting crashed out tonight. He had a pretty nasty gash in his leg and the paramedics had to bandage him up." When asked if the series championship is starting to way on his mind, the driver of the #83 Full Throttle Racing Tin Cup RV Park/Advanced Financial/Cains Marine Welding/Mobil 1/Triple T Car Wash & Lube was very blunt "Ill let Sean Murphy worry about the championship, I'm just here running races. I had a phone call last week about a USAC Silver Crown ride next Sunday at DuQuoin. We will definitely be here Saturday but me and the guys have to talk about what is more important next Sunday, if we want to go to DuQuoin or if we want to stay here. "
Another driver who has been improving week after week is the pilot of the #9K Task Management/CPC Powder Coating Stanton/Ecotec. Scott Koerner's first podium finish of the year in the IRS bodes well for the rest of the season "We have had some good runs in the late model and we finally got the midget to run, got her dialed in pretty good tonight. If everything stays together we will run all 5 of them and we are back here for two races next week so hopefully we will be better then."
The Illini Racing Series will be in action next week with a unique double header. Two full programs of racing at Grundy County Speedway. First on Saturday September 1 with STARS as part of the Alex Pruett Memorial/Bob Lockard Memorial and then back on Sunday for the annual running of the Tom Arthur Memorial.

UNOFFICIAL RESULTS:
Feature (30 Laps) 1-#11 Joe Knippel 2-#83 Patrick Bruns 3-#9K Scott Koerner 4-#7 Mike Anderson 5-#5 Sean Murphy 6-#24 Ben Gillis 7-#52 Mike Gass 8-#22 Tom Shilkuski 9-#0 Doug Orseske 10-#9A Bob Adams 11-#79 Eric Pershey 12-#17 Brian Dobis 13-#72 Frank Reiss 14-#8 Jason Allen 15-#76 Danny Drogemuller 16-#10 Vinny Kuelbs Jr. 17-#53 Aaron Schuck 18-#21 Bob Shreffler 19-#22 Loran Critchett Jr. 20-#88 Basil Hicks 21-#77 Lamont Critchett (DNS) 22-#2a Andrew Henning (DNS)

Heat race #1 (8 Laps) 1-#52 Mike Gass 2-#7 Mike Anderson 3-#11 Joe Knippel 4-#33 Loran Critchett Jr. 5-#0 Doug Orseske 6-#22 Tom Shilkuski 7-#72 Frank Reiss 8-#9 Bob Adams 9-#79 Eric Pershey 10-#21 Bob Shreffler 11-#2a Andrew Henning

Heat race #2 (8 Laps) 1-#5 Sean Murphy 2-#83 Patrick Bruns 3-#9 Scott Koerner 4-#24 Ben Gillis 5-#17 Brian Dobis 6-#10 Vinny Kuelbs Jr. 7-#53 Aaron Schuck 8-#76 Danny Drogemuller 9-#77 Lamont Critchett 10-#8 Jason Allen 11-#88 Basil Hicks

Trophy Dash (4 Laps) 1-#24 Ben Gillis 2-#9a Bob Adams 3-#17 Brian Dobis 4-#2a Andrew Henning

8/26/12, 4:16 PM	#1 Knippel ends dry spell on wild night at Grundy
Task Force Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2012 Posts: 598	KNIPPEL ENDS DRY SPELL ON WILD NIGHT AT GRUNDY COUNTY By Zach Tasker The Illini Racing Series made their way back to the Grundy County Speedway on Saturday night and as always the stars and cars of affordable midget racing put on an entertaining show. 22 cars were set to do battle in the D'arcy Shootout, Ben Gillis and Loran Critchett Jr. started on the front row for the 30 lap feature. It didn't take long for fireworks to fly as on lap 2 there was contact between the #5 car of Sean Murphy and the #33 of Loran Critchett Jr. Critchett's car was sent airborne in between turns 3 and 4 and begin to tumble multiple times before landing on his wheels. Luckily, Critchett escaped with only minor leg injuries. The car however was a different story. The #33 Schiling Lumber/KCM Accounting/Stray Bar/Derek Strough & Nick Willet Music Buzzard/Quad 4 is believed to be the 3rd Buzzard chassis ever built and has had over 40 feature victories with multiple drivers. After a brief red flag the field was ready to do battle once again. Joe Knippel would start to stretch his lead he inherited at the start of the race before another early yellow flag, this time for the #22 of Tom Shilkuski spinning in turn #2. Knippel would once again open up the gap to the rest of the field after the restart, there was plenty of close hard racing behind him. Patrick Bruns, Mike Anderson, and Scott Koerner all battled for the 2nd position the majority of the race. Sean Murphy worked all the way back up to 5th position after being sent to the tail of the field for the lap 2 incident. In the end it was Knippel taking the checkered flag well ahead of Bruns and Koerner. The multiple time series champion out of Mokena was relieved to finally score a victory this season "We didn't run at Rockford last week and we didn't touch the car from the week before when we lead the first ten laps here and I didn't change a thing on the car all night. I got in and I didn't change stagger or change anything. We have been having some fueling issues and its always in the back of my mind so I went through the fuel system before the feature because I knew we were going to get a good starting spot tonight." The driver of the Task Management/Schiling Lumber/KCM Accounting/Stary Bar Stealth/Focus had to be perfect on the restarts early on to build up his gap "The biggest thing after a yellow is you have to be inconsistent on your starts, you can never start in the same spot. On the first restart I picked it up kind of late out of 4 and on the second restart I picked it up in between three and four so I was hoping to build a little gap going into turn 1 that way. One thing you never want to do is start a restart on the same spot." This is Knippels second straight podium at Grundy County Speedway "I have to say a big thank you to Glenn Winstrup ,he is here in the stands tonight. It's his car, I have the privilege of driving it. Without him I really couldn't be this competitive anymore and a big thank you to Allen Gillis because he has been trashing on this car for the last two years and we have had so many issues with the fueling system and we fixed it and I think tonight is the first night between Laverne's 24 car and the 11 car which he wrenches on both of him he didn't have to do anything to the car, so its nice for him to have a little break too." The man that is running away with the series championship points lead so far had another smooth and consistent night finishing second. Patrick Bruns was pleased with another podium finish "It was an exciting night but first off congratulations to Joe Knippel, its really exciting to see him win a race and by the time I was able to maneuver into second he was checked out and was long gone. I think (Mike) Anderson schooled me on the outside and I think a little bit later I was able to get him back. Me and the 9 car (Koerner) went back and forth a little bit. All in all some real good clean racing, exciting night I can't wait to do it again." The Champaign native, like many was concerned over fellow driver Loran Critchett Jr.'s condition "I hope Loran is feeling all right and his leg heels quickly after getting crashed out tonight. He had a pretty nasty gash in his leg and the paramedics had to bandage him up." When asked if the series championship is starting to way on his mind, the driver of the #83 Full Throttle Racing Tin Cup RV Park/Advanced Financial/Cains Marine Welding/Mobil 1/Triple T Car Wash & Lube was very blunt "Ill let Sean Murphy worry about the championship, I'm just here running races. I had a phone call last week about a USAC Silver Crown ride next Sunday at DuQuoin. We will definitely be here Saturday but me and the guys have to talk about what is more important next Sunday, if we want to go to DuQuoin or if we want to stay here. " Another driver who has been improving week after week is the pilot of the #9K Task Management/CPC Powder Coating Stanton/Ecotec. Scott Koerner's first podium finish of the year in the IRS bodes well for the rest of the season "We have had some good runs in the late model and we finally got the midget to run, got her dialed in pretty good tonight. If everything stays together we will run all 5 of them and we are back here for two races next week so hopefully we will be better then." The Illini Racing Series will be in action next week with a unique double header. Two full programs of racing at Grundy County Speedway. First on Saturday September 1 with STARS as part of the Alex Pruett Memorial/Bob Lockard Memorial and then back on Sunday for the annual running of the Tom Arthur Memorial. UNOFFICIAL RESULTS: Feature (30 Laps) 1-#11 Joe Knippel 2-#83 Patrick Bruns 3-#9K Scott Koerner 4-#7 Mike Anderson 5-#5 Sean Murphy 6-#24 Ben Gillis 7-#52 Mike Gass 8-#22 Tom Shilkuski 9-#0 Doug Orseske 10-#9A Bob Adams 11-#79 Eric Pershey 12-#17 Brian Dobis 13-#72 Frank Reiss 14-#8 Jason Allen 15-#76 Danny Drogemuller 16-#10 Vinny Kuelbs Jr. 17-#53 Aaron Schuck 18-#21 Bob Shreffler 19-#22 Loran Critchett Jr. 20-#88 Basil Hicks 21-#77 Lamont Critchett (DNS) 22-#2a Andrew Henning (DNS) Heat race #1 (8 Laps) 1-#52 Mike Gass 2-#7 Mike Anderson 3-#11 Joe Knippel 4-#33 Loran Critchett Jr. 5-#0 Doug Orseske 6-#22 Tom Shilkuski 7-#72 Frank Reiss 8-#9 Bob Adams 9-#79 Eric Pershey 10-#21 Bob Shreffler 11-#2a Andrew Henning Heat race #2 (8 Laps) 1-#5 Sean Murphy 2-#83 Patrick Bruns 3-#9 Scott Koerner 4-#24 Ben Gillis 5-#17 Brian Dobis 6-#10 Vinny Kuelbs Jr. 7-#53 Aaron Schuck 8-#76 Danny Drogemuller 9-#77 Lamont Critchett 10-#8 Jason Allen 11-#88 Basil Hicks Trophy Dash (4 Laps) 1-#24 Ben Gillis 2-#9a Bob Adams 3-#17 Brian Dobis 4-#2a Andrew Henning