Austin McCarl was a bit emotional in Knoxville Raceway Victory Lane Thursday night. Minutes after winning a thrilling battle in the final laps, the feeling of accomplishment began to sink in as victor in one of his home track’s biggest events.
McCarl, of Altoona, IA, took the checkered flag on opening night of the 35th annual Xtream powered by Mediacom 360 Knoxville Nationals presented by Great Southern Bank, marking his second career preliminary Feature win in the marquee event. He’s yet to win the main event on Saturday night as his father, Terry McCarl, has five times, though he’s been close before.
But deep in the heart of a battle for the top spot Thursday night, racing some of the nation’s best drivers, Austin couldn’t help but remember some lessons learned from dad about racing around the historic 1/2-mile oval.
“I just thought about my dad,” he said. “Gotta be good in traffic, especially on a track like that.”
“I get so emotional. It’s just a prelim night, but I love winning.”
The win counts as McCarl’s third with the American Sprint Car Series and first since 2023. The three-time Knoxville 410 Sprint Car track champion last won a 360 Nationals preliminary Feature in 2020, which then led to a fifth-place finish in the finale on Saturday.
McCarl took the green flag from third on the starting grid and slid into the runner-up spot on the opening lap. For the first 16 laps of the race, he chased polesitter Chase Randall, who was maneuvering his way through lapped traffic with enough speed and agility to stay ahead of his opponents.
That was until Lap 17, when McCarl found great traction in the bottom lane against the inside berm and pulled even with Randall, who was keeping the momentum up on the outside lane of the track. The two drag-raced out of Turn 2, but McCarl inched ahead with the lead into Turn 3 as Randall bobbled down the backstretch.
McCarl sealed the pass by moving up to the high groove through Turns 3 and 4 and appeared to drive away from Randall slightly, until a new challenger entered the frame as the group crossed the start/finish line with only three laps remaining.
Kyle Larson, the three-time and defending 410 Knoxville Nationals champion, had got a great run off the bottom of Turn 4 and shot past Randall into second. Immediately, he made a bid for the lead, diving low underneath McCarl into Turn 1, but could not hold the line as McCarl zoomed past him one lane higher on the track.
Larson tried to make up the ground in the final two laps but was unable to catch the Country Builders Racing No. 88 in the end as McCarl crossed the finish line to bank the $3,000 check.
“I think I saw Kyle at least two or three times underneath me,” McCarl said. “Traffic got amazing. I had to make the right decisions in traffic there, and it kind of went my way and didn’t go my way a few times, and I just had to be really smart and really watch ahead.”
Larson crossed the stripe in second, beating third-place James McFadden to the line by .002 seconds. Starting from fifth, the California native fell back to sixth on the opening lap but was able to make his way back up through the field despite coming up one spot short in the end.
“I got to third a little bit quicker than I maybe thought I could,” Larson said. “I felt like I could bide my time a little bit and then traffic just got crazier than I thought.
“I made some kind of bad decisions and had some holes plug-up at the wrong time. Austin did a great job through traffic, and that was a lot of fun with him and Chase and James there at the end.”
McFadden entered the picture in the final lap, taking third from Chase Randall on Lap 19. He drag-raced Larson down the backstretch on the final lap and took the spot with a pass out of Turn 4, but Larson stole it back after one final drag race down the frontstretch, forcing McFadden to settle for third.
“I was kinda searching to find something different; it was a really busy race, and the track moved around a lot,” McFadden said. “I just kinda tried to be where everyone else wasn’t and keep my momentum up.”
Indiana racer Justin Peck crossed the finish line fourth while Randall hung on to claim the final spot in the top five.
Peck was also the fastest car in WEDG High Performance Karts Hot Laps.
Sam Hafertepe Jr. earned fast qualifier honors for his lap time of 16.002 in Qualifying.
Heat Races were won by Dustin Selvage (Heat 1), Jamie Ball (Heat 2), Matt Juhl (Heat 3), Tony Rost (Heat 4) and Matt Covington (Heat 5).
The Smith Titanium Last Chance Showdown was won by Tanner Holmes.
UP NEXT
The 35th 360 Knoxville Nationals continues at Knoxville Raceway with another full program on Friday, Aug. 1. Tickets for the event are on sale now at KnoxvilleRaceway.com. If you can’t be there, stream every lap live on DIRTVision.
FEATURE RESULTS (view all results)
360 A Feature (20 Laps): 1. 88-Austin McCarl[3]; 2. 57-Kyle Larson[5]; 3. 21T-James McFadden[4]; 4. 26-Justin Peck[6]; 5. 9R-Chase Randall[1]; 6. 63-JJ Hickle[2]; 7. 44-Chris Martin[7]; 8. 55-Kerry Madsen[12]; 9. 87-Justin Sanders[8]; 10. 40-Ryan Leavitt[9]; 11. 6-Dustin Selvage[13]; 12. 2M-Ryan Giles[10]; 13. 18T-Tanner Holmes[21]; 14. 09-Matt Juhl[15]; 15. 35-Skylar Prochaska[19]; 16. 99-Tony Rost[11]; 17. 13-Daison Pursley[22]; 18. 3F-Derek Hagar[16]; 19. 95-Matt Covington[20]; 20. 24H-Kade Higday[23]; 21. 5A-Alex Vande Voort[24]; 22. 4W-Jamie Ball[14]; 23. 55B-Chase Brown[18]; 24. 13M-Brett Moffitt[17]
