Woodward Racing Knoxville summary

Tatnell Runs Ninth in Budweiser Shootout

KNOXVILLE, IA (April 28) -- Brooke Tatnell's single-lap record at Knoxville Raceway is still intact but, even more importantly, he regained his confidence Saturday while driving Woodward Racing's #2 Volcano Joe's Coffee Schnee into ninth place in the Budweiser Shootout at "The Home of the Nationals."

"We'll definitely take a ninth-place finish after what we've been through the last few weeks," Tatnell said. "We're usually not happy with a ninth-place finish. We had a new Ott motor in and testing Monday at Knoxville definitely helped us get up to pace with our Shaver motor -- what works for Donny Schatz doesn't always work for Brooke Tatnell. We made improvements on Monday and modified our package. Ninth place doesn't really show the run we had, but we had a good night. I'll take that right now for as bad as my confidence has been."

The three-time defending Australian Sprintcar champion moved ahead of fellow Aussie Kerry Madsen into 13th place in the World of Outlaws point standings with his eighth top-10 finish of the season.

Tatnell was the fifth-fastest qualifier in the 56-car field, with a 14.964-second lap that was only .211 seconds off Jason Meyers' pace-setting 122.009-MPH trip around the hallowed half-mile oval.

Tatnell followed Madsen across the finish line in the First Heat Race, and his ninth-place finish in the Dash Race gave him the luxury of starting inside the fifth row in the 25-lap "A" Feature.

"There were things that happened in the race that could have had us finish in the top five," Tatnell said. "We had a terrible start -- we actually lost five or six spots on the first lap. We worked our way back to up around sixth, and we lost a few spots on the last couple of restarts. Sometimes, the results don't show what happened."

-credit: wr