{"id":8157,"date":"2020-05-04T08:35:34","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T12:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonmotorsport.com\/?p=8157"},"modified":"2020-05-04T08:35:34","modified_gmt":"2020-05-04T12:35:34","slug":"austin-mccarl-ready-for-outlaws-challenge-after-covid-postponed-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2020\/05\/04\/austin-mccarl-ready-for-outlaws-challenge-after-covid-postponed-plans\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin McCarl ready for Outlaws’ challenge after COVID postponed Plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2020 season was supposed to be the start of something new for\u00a0Austin McCarl.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Altoona, Iowa native had planned on broadening his horizons and taking a sprint car outside of Knoxville Raceways borders.<\/p>\n

Friday (Hot laps @ 6:30 p.m. on DirtVision<\/strong><\/a>) however, McCarl will strap into his own No. 17A car. He\u2019ll be racing for himself against some the best drivers in the world, in a race of historic proportions right in his back yard, at Knoxviile.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s awesome,\u201d McCarl said. \u201cIt\u2019s awesome just to get to race. Honestly, I\u2019m just fortunate to be in an area where sprint car racing is a pretty big deal \u2013 or just where we\u2019re allowed to race. If I was in California or up in Pennsylvania, I\u2019d want to be in Des Moines, Iowa where I\u2019m at.\u201d<\/p>\n

Austin McCarl ready for Outlaws’ challenge after COVID postponed Plans<\/strong><\/h2>\n

McCarl had just finished the 2019 Knoxville Championship Cup Season, his third and final campaign at the track with TKS Motorsports.<\/p>\n

He finished third in the points standings as the defending series champion, but had ended his run with the team with three straight top 3 finishes in the standings.<\/p>\n

After the season ended, the two groups mutually parted ways, as McCarl was hungry to go outside of Iowa.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just kind of wanted to go in a different direction,\u201d McCarl said. \u201cI wanted to travel more. He wants to stay kind of local and run Knoxville. I\u2019ve been wanting to branch out a little bit and go to the east coast and the west coast more\u2026 just kind of doing some more traveling and not committing myself to be here at Knoxville every week. I was just looking for some other things to do to try and grow as a racecar driver.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCarl was set to explore the country with the help of former World of Outlaws crew chief Brandon Ikenberry <\/strong>and the No. 25 Deuce Motorsports car.<\/p>\n

He had planned to run the 25 in the 410 class when he could while pulling double duty in Jimmy Davies\u2019 <\/strong>No. 99 car in the 360 class.<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t going to commit to Knoxville for the entirety of the season, and he was going to look at running some All Star Circuit of Champions races in the 99 in an effort to race on bigger and different stages.<\/p>\n

Now, it looks like Knoxville will provide the biggest stage \u2013 at least for this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe COVID thing really threw a wrench in that,\u201d McCarl said. \u201cI want to get away and run more all-star shows and travel and stuff like that, but sometimes you just have to deal with expense. Knoxville (makes the most) sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCarl will be ready to go on Friday night in the 48-car, World of Outlaws Sprint Car series race at Knoxville.<\/p>\n

The race, operating to Outlaws\u2019 outsiders as invitation-only<\/strong><\/a>, will include the top 20 finishers from the 2019 Knoxville Cup season.<\/p>\n

That meant McCarl would easily qualify for his spot, and he\u2019s been wanting to take advantage since the day that sports stopped \u2013 on March 12.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s looks like it\u2019s going to be historic,\u201d McCarl said. \u201cWhen this whole thing happened and they shut the NBA down, I was sitting at a buddy\u2019s house. I was like, \u2018Man this is going to be in like history books someday. There\u2019s going to be chapters in history books someday.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He will come into Friday at Knoxville with some recent racing already under his belt, too.<\/p>\n

McCarl\u2019s dad, Terry<\/strong>, put on a 32-car invite-only race at Park Jefferson Speedway in South Dakota at the end of April, which went on without a hitch.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really awesome to be a part of Park Jefferson last week and I think it was really part of what got the ball rolling,\u201d McCarl said. \u201cI think it was really what got the ball rolling on other sanctioning bodies, mainly the Outlaws, to try and figure out a way to come back and race. We showed that it can be done and can be done in a healthy and safe way as well as an entertaining way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The event, held without fans, was admittedly different, for McCarl.<\/p>\n

However, from a drivers perspective, everything on the infield is business as usual.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing in the pit area with the crew guys and the race cars wasn\u2019t too abnormal,\u201d McCarl said. \u201cIt was definitely weird looking into the stands. As far as the racing, (though), everything was back to normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The event just solidified what some wondered about sporting events in the middle of a COVID crazed world.<\/p>\n

Was there going to be enough people willing to risk being around each other to race?<\/p>\n

The answer was absolutely.<\/p>\n

\u201cRacers just want to race, man,\u201d McCarl said. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to put on a race, no matter what\u2019s going on, they\u2019ll support it. It\u2019s kind of like that old Field of Dreams thing, \u2018If you build it, they will come.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s race at Knoxville will be one that goes straight into the history books \u2013 no matter what happens.<\/p>\n

It might be the biggest race and the biggest spotlight that has ever been on the track, and that\u2019s nothing to take away from the Knoxville Nationals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely feel like we were a part of history in being the first race back, doing this the way we can, and showing the country that we can race and still have normal lives in the (shadow) of the pandemic,\u201d McCarl said.<\/p>\n

But, for the local star and generational talent, it was going to be another big date with the Outlaws, right in his backyard.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to Knoxville with the World of Outlaws\u2026 it\u2019s going to be a big deal,\u201d McCarl said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 2020 season was supposed to be the start of something new for\u00a0Austin McCarl. The Altoona, Iowa native had planned on broadening his horizons and taking a sprint car outside of Knoxville Raceways borders. Friday (Hot laps @ 6:30 p.m. on DirtVision) however, McCarl will strap into his own No. 17A car. He\u2019ll be racing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":315,"featured_media":8158,"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":[1391,1392,1393,957,486],"class_list":["post-8157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dirt","category-more-racing","tag-austin-mccarl","tag-brandon-ikenberry","tag-jimmy-davies","tag-knoxville-raceway","tag-world-of-outlaws"],"modified_by":"Connor Ferguson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8157","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=8157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}