KNOXVILLE, Iowa – Saturday night’s 5-hour Energy Knoxville Nationals didn’t end with a win for David Gravel and CJB Motorsports, but it surely could have been classified as such compared to their result at Knoxville Raceway one year prior.
In stark contrast to the 2017 Knoxville Nationals, where Gravel started from the pole after a perfect qualifying night and led nearly the entire first half of the 50-lap feature before retiring with a mechanical failure, he had to race his way into the big show this year from the B-main.
The Watertown, Conn., native did so by finishing third in that 22-lap contest and gridded up for the $150,000-to-win grand finale 23rd on the grid in the No. 5 Mainstream Holdings/GoMuddy.com entry.
Once the green flag waved, Gravel wasted no time in moving forward, either. He passed five cars in the opening revolution of the black-dirt half-mile and then steadily picked cars off one by one.
Gravel ended the first 25-lap segment of the feature 13th, but struggled slightly following the three-minute competition break for fuel and adjustments and lost two positions on the ensuing restart.
Settling into the 14th position, Gravel seemed destined to finish there before a flip by Kerry Madsen drew the red flag with two laps remaining, setting up a green-white-checkered finish.
Gravel was able to dive around both Tim Shaffer and Jacob Allen in the first corners after the final restart, before passing Ian Madsen on the last lap to secure a top-10 result by crossing the line 10th.
Saturday night marked Gravel’s seventh-straight Knoxville Nationals A-main appearance and the second top-10 finish of his Nationals career. He also tied his career-best result in the event, set in 2016 with CJB.
Though he picked up the MPI Hard Charger of the Nationals Award by advancing 13 positions during the championship feature, Gravel circled his preliminary night on Thursday as being where his shot at victory evaporated.
“(Our struggles) just came from not qualifying well on our prelim night, but we never gave up,” noted Gravel. “We had the mindset that if we made it to the A-main, we were going to pass a lot of cars, and we certainly did that.
“We were fairly good; we kind of stalled out in 14th before that last restart, but we were able to pick up a few spots right at the end,” Gravel added. “I wish we could have been a little bit better … if we had been, I feel like we could have charged up there a little further and gained a few more spots, but all in all it’s a good run to get in the top 10.”
Despite the disappointment of not being able to avenge the disappointment of 2017 with a Knoxville Nationals win, Gravel easily admitted that things could have been much worse than they were on Saturday night.
“When you lead laps and then don’t finish, it really bites,” Gravel said. “I’d rather finish 10th than DNF any day. We’ll take that and come back next year.”
