{"id":7194,"date":"2019-08-09T12:42:10","date_gmt":"2019-08-09T16:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=7194"},"modified":"2019-08-09T12:42:10","modified_gmt":"2019-08-09T16:42:10","slug":"david-gravel-wins-once-more-at-knoxville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2019\/08\/09\/david-gravel-wins-once-more-at-knoxville\/","title":{"rendered":"David Gravel wins once more at Knoxville"},"content":{"rendered":"

First he won the Capitani Classic on Sunday. Then he won Thursday night\u2019s feature event at Knoxville Raceway. Now, David Gravel <\/strong>has clinched a spot to start on the front row of the 59th<\/sup> annual NOS Energy Drink Knoxville Nationals on Saturday Night.<\/p>\n

Gravel had one of the very last pill-draws to start the night, going out in slot No. 71 out of the 75 possible spots.<\/p>\n

However, he didn\u2019t let it affect his run.<\/p>\n

David Gravel wins once more at Knoxville<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cI was nervous drawing a 71 out of 75 (for qualifying),\u201d Gravel said after the race. \u201cBut we\u2019ve been able to qualify well all year and were able to capitalize on that. It\u2019s an awesome night. It can\u2019t get any better than this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gravel qualified with the ninth fastest time of the night, and would start his heat race in seventh after the invert.<\/p>\n

He made quick work there, too.<\/p>\n

The No. 41 car rode its way around turns one and two on the inside line and went from P7 to P3 in half of a lap, finally finishing second at the end of the 10-lap sprint.<\/p>\n

Once the A-Main got there, it was evident that Gravel had the fastest car on the track.<\/p>\n

Gravel started in sixth and fighting for P2 with Brad Sweet <\/strong>in a matter of laps.<\/p>\n

He would get around Sweet and attempt to chase down Brock Zearfoss <\/strong>with just over 15 laps to go.<\/p>\n

Gravel took Zearfoss and the lapped car of Jacob Allen <\/strong>three-wide before a caution came out for a blown tire on Sye Lynch\u2019s <\/strong>car.<\/p>\n

It looked like the 41 would get a shot to do battle with Zearfoss for the lead, but Zearfoss pulled off the track shortly after the green flag flew with 15 to go, due to an engine issue.<\/p>\n

It handed Gravel the lead, and he pulled away from Sweet.<\/p>\n

With five to go, though, Sweet made up a lot of time on Gravel, and almost got within striking distance for a late pass.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just trying not to crash or hit the berm too hard,\u201d Gravel said. \u201cThe last five laps weren\u2019t very good. [I] Just had to get the job done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gravel shook out to 481 points and will start on the front row Saturday, along with\u00a0Aaron Reutzel<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>on the pole.<\/p>\n

Knoxville Nationals A-Main Confirmed Starters
\n<\/strong>1. Aaron Reutzel
\n2. David Gravel
\n3. Joey Saldana
\n4. Tim Shaffer
\n5. Parker Price Miller
\n6. Brad Sweet
\n7. Tim Kaeding
\n8. Paul McMahan
\n9. Brent Marks
\n10. Daryn Pittman
\n11. Trey Starks
\n12. Matt Juhl
\n13. Cory Eliason
\n14. Ian Madsen
\n15. Sheldon Haudenschild
\n16. Lance Dewease<\/p>\n

Full points<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First he won the Capitani Classic on Sunday. Then he won Thursday night\u2019s feature event at Knoxville Raceway. Now, David Gravel has clinched a spot to start on the front row of the 59th annual NOS Energy Drink Knoxville Nationals on Saturday Night. Gravel had one of the very last pill-draws to start the night, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":315,"featured_media":7195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,7],"tags":[603,1205,602,1121,1008,486],"class_list":["post-7194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dirt","category-more-racing","tag-brad-sweet","tag-brock-zearfoss","tag-david-gravel","tag-jacob-allen","tag-knoxville-nationals","tag-world-of-outlaws"],"modified_by":"Connor Ferguson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/315"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}