Hindi Wins at Knoxville Raceway
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8/25/2007 - After a very rough start with the World of Outlaws, NEON Dion Hindi has found his stride at the historic Knoxville Raceway in Knoxville, IA. After a terrific qualifying effort (5th quick) at the Knoxville Nationals and a finish of 17th in the "A" main, Hindi proved tonight it was no fluke.
He would qualify 12th and finish 4th in his heat locking into the "A" main for the 20-lap feature and start on the outside of the front row. Hindi took advantage of the great starting position and took the lead from the opening lap. The night's only caution came for Jack Dover tipping over, but when the green flew again, Hindi got a terrific restart and never looked back. He would lead every lap and finish a half straight-a-way ahead of the Knoxville 2007 track champion, Brian Brown.
"This is what it is all about." said an elated Neon Dion Hindi. "We did struggle with the Outlaws earlier this year but, not to make excuses, before the Nationals we found that our front axles had been off by 3 degrees all year. We got it corrected before the Nationals and it showed. All year we made adjustments and nothing seemed to help and when we figured out the error and got new axles, Bingo, things straightened out. This is incredible to win at Knoxville, to have my name mentioned as a winner with the legends that have won here is incredible. What can I say? It's just unreal!"
KNOXVILLE, Iowa (August 25)--Two new faces graced victory lane at Knoxville Raceway Saturday night. Winning feature events were Dion Hindi and Chad Meyer, each grabbing his initial feature event victory here at this central Iowa race track.
Hindi, a World of Outlaws regular who did not travel with that organization to the West Coast, started on the front row and led the distance in the twenty lap event to carry away the $3,000 first place prize money.
When the green dropped on the event, Hindi raced to the cushion as Brian Brown, who started right behind him had enough momentum to try to slide him in turn two. Hindi then out-dragged Brown down the backstretch for the lead with "Brownie" beside and below him. Brown tried to shoot low in turns three and four but again Hindi's momentum gave him the lead as he exited turn four with the lead on lap one.
With the lead secured, Hindi roared around the Knoxville's big half mile on the high cushion as did second running Brown and third running Jack Dover. On lap seven Hindi entered the backmarkers of lap traffic but encountered no problems. One circuit later, Wayne Johnson made a pass of Dover to take third. Dover tried to regain his lost spot and actually did but in the fourth turn of lap nine a bumping incident between those two drivers brought out the red flag when Dover went upside down. Amazingly, Dover was able to repair his mount (only a top wing was damaged) and he reappeared on the track at the tail. Additional problems must have nagged at his machine as he was unable to make up positions and ended up eighteenth.
Once the race went green again, Hindi again pulled away from Brown and the rest of the field. By lap fifteen he enjoyed a two-turn lead. Though he again would encounter lap traffic, this night belonged to Hindi in his self-owned sprinter. In the end he claimed a full chute win over Brown when the checkered flags flew. Johnson claimed third, Billy Alley was fourth and Mark Dobmeier took fifth. Rounding out the top ten finishers were Clint Garner, Bronson Maeschen (who started 20th), Travis Cram, Calvin Landis and Ricky Logan.