One might think Shay Knight is struggling.
He has had two DNFs in features and one in a heat race in his last three appearances at Magnolia Motor Speedway.
Still, that hasn’t been enough to discourage the Lowndes County native who, in his first full season racing Super Late Models, feels like his team is performing at its best level of the year. His reasoning is tangible: He’s been fast, albeit unlucky.
“We’ve been qualifying on the front row, and two of last three we’ve been leading when we broke,” Knight said. “Freak stuff has happened. It’s been stuff that’s out of our hands, things that I’ve never experienced in 20 years in a race car. And nothing like a maintenance issue. In the last feature, we led by a half a straightaway and broke. I think we have our program the best it’s ever been.”
Bad luck is like a cold for racers — it’s always around, and it’s just a matter of time before it makes it to you. Knight broke an axle, an upper lift arm, and a transmission in the aforementioned races. As puzzling as the breakdowns have been, Knight is confident his team’s hard work — typically more than five hours a day in the shop — will begin to produce at the end of races.
He will get his first crack at it this weekend at the Cotton Pickin’ 100 at Magnolia. The Super Late Model feature will headline the event with a $20,000-to-win, $1,200-to-start, 100-lap finale Saturday night. Practice began Thursday night, while qualifying and heat races begin tonight. The purse for all divisions has approached $70,000.
Saturday’s race marks a lucrative stretch of feature races at numerous tracks across the region. Magnolia will play host to the Cotton Pickin’ 100 Saturday, the $5,000-to-win Fall 40 Street Stock Championship in October, and the Possum Town Grand Prix in November, a race that was moved to Magnolia after Columbus Speedway closed earlier this year. That slate will feature a $10,000 prize to the winner of the NeSmith Late Model race. Whynot Motorsports Park will play host to a $15,000-to-win Super Late Model race in late October.
If there were ever a time to get on a roll, it’d be now. But it won’t be easy. The nation’s best Super Late Model racers will be in the house Saturday. On average, roughly six or seven regulars make the Super Late Model features at the big-money events at Magnolia — the race that pays out more than $15,000 to the winner.
Just making the show is a decent payday, and actually a more difficult task than advancing through the field, Knight said.
“A top-five (finish) this weekend would be like winning,” Knight said. “Realistically, we’re going this week to make the show. If we can get in, 100 percent, our goal is to run top five, top 10. It’s all about qualifying and not making a mistake because these guys don’t make mistakes. The guy that won this race last year, Morgan Bagley, that was his first bigger race to win. A couple of weeks after, he didn’t make the feature for the Fall Classic in Meridian.”
The gap between the guys with greater resources and the local drivers often is seen in the lineups, which makes earning one of the 24 starting spots an accomplishment. But Knight feels like he’s close to the big names — Dennis Erb Jr., Billy Moyer, Scott Bloomquist — in his equipment and setup. He also has learned a lot this season.
“You just have to prepare your tires a little different and prepare for a longer run, and Magnolia is known to be slick,” Knight said. “A lot of it is tire choice and how you prepare them. I’ve learned this year — don’t use your equipment up early in the feature. You have to be there in the end. This is our first full year in Supers … In Crates, we weren’t running more than 30-lap features. The 50-lap features, like we run on the State Series, teach you a lot in how to be ready and be there at the end of the race.”
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