Knoxville, IA - Dakota Hendrickson's debut season in 410 Sprint Cars has had it's ups and downs. For example on July 13th, Dakota was 6th fastest in hot laps clocking a 14.97 lap at Knoxville's historical half-mile. And despite going out in the final qualifying session the Omaha teenager was 16th quick making the invert on the 31 car field.
After starting on the pole Dakota ran 4th in the heat and started 15th in the A-Main. Unfortunately, the A-Main had two initial red flags and on the second one the LR bleeder on Dead Down Wind machine stuck causing a flat tire and sending Dakota to the rear. After two laps the car picked up a wicked vibration and Dakota was forced to retire.
Bad luck continued on July 20th as Dakota made hard contact with the armco barrier exiting turn two on his first qualifying lap. Fortunately, Dakota was uninjured but the only thing salvageable from the Dead Down Wind mount was the tail tank, driver's seat, and steering wheel! Jeff White from Depicted Image caught the nasty sequence as Dakota went for a long hard ride down the backstretch at Knoxville.