Coons Dominates Knoxville Midget Event

By Bryan Gapinski Knoxville, Iowa, June 5, 2004--Jerry Coons scored a wire to wire victory capturing the 3rd annual Pepsi/Mountain Dew Knoxville Midget Championship, Saturday Night at the Knoxville Raceway. The event was sanctioned by the ARDC, Badger, MARA, and RMMARA Midget Series. Coons drove the Karl Warnke owned Stealth-Fontana entry.
Coons jumped into the lead of the 25-lap event, and quickly pulled out to a 3 second lead by the fourth lap. One lap later a chain reaction incident happened, with Josh Wise flipping. Wise escaped injury. On the restart Coons led Davey Ray, Chad DeSelle,and Roger Rager. Coons again pulled away from Ray, and held a 2.3 second lead at the midway point over Ray, DeSelle, Kevin Doty, and Brian Gerster. Great racing took place behind the leaders with two,and three wide racing taking place but the attention was focused on Coons and Ray.
Coons and Ray pulled away from the field, and Coons began lapping the tail of the field with six laps remaining. Within two laps Coons's four second advantage was narrowed to three car lengths. Heavy lapped traffic played to Coons's favor on the final lap as he used the high groove with Ray on the bottom of the track. Coons crossed the line 0.82 seconds ahead of Ray. Last years winner DeSelle, Doty, and Gerster completed the top five. Twenty-five cars finished the event of the starting field of thirty.
On Friday Night Coons passed Critter Malone on the final lap to win the King Doodlebug Invitational feature for heat winners, and top finishers from last years major midget events, and series points.