Huset’s points leader takes crack at Knoxville Nationals

The 61st annual Knoxville Nationals begin today on the famed ½-mile dirt oval south of Des Moines, and the world’s greatest Sprint Car drivers will take a shot at immortality in hopes of winning Saturday night’s championship.

This year’s entry list reached 103 earlier this week, and it includes last year’s champion, Kyle Larson. Larson is the defending NASCAR Cup Series champion and has 17 career NASCAR wins on his resume. Yet he calls winning last year’s Knoxville Nationals one of his motorsports highlights.

That tip of the cap from last year’s champion alone says volumes about how big of a motorsports event Knoxville is. There may be a pair of other Sprint Car events in the country that pay more to the winner, but the prestige of Knoxville makes it the crown jewel of the sport.

Realistically, just like every year over the past four decades, there’s really only a handful of drivers who have a legitimate chance of claiming the $175,000-to-win Saturday night main event. But those difficult odds haven’t deterred several local drivers from at least taking a crack at the event.

Although a big chunk of the prize money goes to the winner, the entire four-day purse is $995,105. Just to start Saturday night’s A feature pays $10,000, and the combination of big money and prestige brings out top drivers from coast-to-coast.

Current Huset’s Speedway points leader Matt Juhl of Tea is one of those that will take to Knoxville’s fast surface later this week to see if he can again keep pace with the regulars on the World of Outlaws circuit, who typically dominate the Nationals.

In 2018 and 2019, Juhl had a successful Nationals week and actually qualified for the Saturday night championship. That feat alone is a massive accomplishment for a weekly racing team. The top 24 drivers make the event each year, and Juhl finished 18th in 2019 for his best career finish.

That finish three years ago was impressive. Clearly, he wants more, but things are going to have to swing in another direction for him to get up front later this week.

For as strong as he’s been at Huset’s this year, he’s struggled on a weekly basis at Knoxville. He’s ninth in championship points but said anything is possible at the Nationals.

“We’ve done it before,” Juhl said, referring to 2018 and 2019. “But it just seems like this year we’ve been off just a little bit, which at Knoxville, is a lot.”

At Knoxville, it all comes down to each driver’s qualifying night where they acquire points that help determine the starting position for Saturday night’s events. Juhl is scheduled to qualify on Thursday, and his performance will dictate how the rest of the week will go.

“Hopefully we can be locked in, or be up front on Saturday,” he said. “But you need to have a solid (qualifying) night and be in the Top 10, which is my goal with how things have gone this year at Knoxville. If I can time good, have a good heat race and get through so I can start around the 10th-15th spot and then just hang around the 10th place spot – that sets you up pretty good points-wise (for Saturday).”

By Thursday night, Juhl will know what type of mountain he’ll need to climb on Saturday to reach his goal. Winning the entire thing is a long shot at best, and Juhl said he knows that.

“Obviously you want to go out there and want to be able to run up front and be competitive to win the race, but you also have to be realistic and know there are certain teams and certain guys that you know where they’re going to be at,” he said. “It’s just hard. A team like mine, we’re just a weekly team that has full-time jobs. We can’t focus as much as the big teams do. It would be unbelievable, even to run in the Top 5.”

Despite the struggles this year at Knoxville where he’s finished in the Top 5 only once during the regular season, Juhl said the tiny team from Tea still has goals for the Nationals.

“A realistic goal would be just making the A main on Saturday night,” he said. “I’ve done it before, but it’s obviously not easy either.”