Austin McCarl thought something had gone wrong when he saw his father, Terry McCarl, on a dead sprint from the rearmost pits toward the scales along the frontstretch Thursday at Knoxville Raceway.

“We’re not fighting anybody, are we?” the driver of the Country Builders No. 88 Sprint Car thought to himself after his fourth-place finish Thursday on the second Knoxville Nationals qualifying night.

McCarl’s day had already been a sweet one, as wife Alyssa McCarl got news that morning she’ll be expecting a baby next February, so God forbid it’d end on a bad note. Terry, however, had been his son’s next uplifting messenger.

“He had a little tear in his eye and told me we were starting on the pole (of Saturday's Knoxville Nationals),” McCarl said. “I didn’t believe him, truthfully.”

The Altoona, Iowa, driver and regular at the famed Knoxville half-mile best believe it. With his 477 points, McCarl will lead Saturday’s 61st installment of the crown jewel feature to green. Alongside will be reigning Tezos All-Star Circuit of Champions champion Tyler Courtney.

Chasing in the row behind? Ten-time Knoxville Nationals victor Donny Schatz and 2019 champion David Gravel. McCarl is a 2018 track champion at Knoxville but never did he picture himself at the forefront of a Knoxville Nationals title chase.

Turns out, Field Of Dreams isn’t secluded to a 1989 baseball movie filmed in the cornfields of Iowa.

“It’s an amazing feeling. The four-wide on Saturday is going to be awesome,” McCarl said. “This is a moment I’ll never forget. This may never happen again, you never know. Hopefully it does happen a lot more times."

Thursday’s Field Of Dreams plot also wasn’t secluded to McCarl as its only character, as Knoxville regulars J.J. Hickle and Tasker Phillips additionally delivered on starry-eyed hopes of their own by qualifying for Saturday’s big dance.

Hickle, a 360 Sprint Car ace who uprooted life in Washington State to move to Knoxville and race weekly with Deuce-Five Racing this year, will start 10th on Saturday after a solid Thursday qualifying night. Before this year, Hickle’s last Knoxville Nationals attempt had been in 2008 and opportunities in a 410 — much less a viable chance to race in Marion County Fairgrounds’ legendary event — were practically nonexistent.

“I am poor. I’m a poor person that doesn’t race 410s very often, but finally got an opportunity,” said Hickle, who finished runner-up in last year’s Lucas Oil ASCS points to help spur his latest opportunity. “Yeah, from Washington state, it’s hard to get out here, man. … I’ve raced here every week this year, and that’s probably why we’re in the show. We put in a lot of time and effort to really improve our game here.

“We basically based our whole season around this weekend, and thank the Lord when it goes the way you hope.”

Phillips, meanwhile, runs a race program far more frugal than those of the high-powered Knoxville Nationals contenders. The farmer down the road in Pleasantville, Iowa, has yet to win in the 410 ranks since moving up to the premier class in 2012, but that bare spot on the resume didn’t show itself Thursday.

Tasker Phillips' one of two career quick times came Thursday at Knoxville.

“Man, we were battling (Kyle) Larson in the B-main. … This is nuts. We aren’t even in the same league,” Phillips said. “These last couple weeks we’ve been rolling. Every dog has its day I guess.”

Based upon Wednesday’s qualifying night, when fast qualifier Parker Price-Miller, as for so many other frontrunners, couldn’t transfer directly from his heat to the feature, Phillips thought he “shot himself in the foot” when he raced to quick time honors Thursday with a lap of 15.407 seconds.

Phillips, like Price-Miller the night before, didn’t transfer outright from his heat to the feature, but he did gain two positions in the 10-lap heat to start from the pole of the B-main. The 29-year-old held onto the third position behind Larson and Daryn Pittman.

Finishing 18th from the 23rd-starting spot in the 25-lap feature sealed Phillips’ first career Knoxville Nationals start at 451 total points — four points better than Aaron Reutzel in 16th and six points ahead of Giovanni Scelzi, the first driver relegated to Saturday’s B-main.

Phillips’ good fortune only started recently. Prior to the weekend, he’s cycled through three motors and has had to miss three of the 13 weekly shows at Knoxville.

“Heck, the local O’Reilly’s people give me their employee discount. I have people that give me $20 for car wash money,” said Phillips of the support he garners. “That’s honestly the coolest thing: when somebody hands me a roll of quarters.”

McCarl and Hickle took similar paths to solidifying themselves in Saturday’s lineup. Both started the season with new teams, as Hickle teamed with Brandon Ikenberry’s new Deuce-5 Motorsports while McCarl joined the California-based team that’s long been established.

“I’m so happy, I feel like it’s for them,” McCarl said. “I always believed I could do something like this and I’m capable. To do it is pretty wild.”

McCarl and Hickle needed gusty drives in their heats and they got just that. While McCarl clawed from eighth to fourth, Hickle went an unforeseen sixth to the win.

“That was it. Basically what made our Nationals is the start of our heat race,” Hickle said. “Right before I pushed out, Brandon told me to find a hole and go there and if you can’t find one, make one.

McCarl added: “The heat race is everything, especially when you qualify that good. You want to be excited about it, but the tough part is the heat race, man. Just getting through that deal is so, so tough. It’s so, so important. Last night was such a weird, low point night. The track was still kind of weird tonight. It’s just weird.

“I tell people early in the year it’s so much different than this week. You get kind of stuck early in the year you think might work. Then when everyone comes to town you’re not as good as you think. The track gets a little weird and the weather is different.”

Eight drivers set to start in Saturday’s top 10 — Courtney, Schatz, Gravel, Brent Marks, Larson, Daryn Pittman and Brad Sweet — have previously won at least one crown jewel and/or a national-touring championship.

The other two are McCarl and Hickle, this year’s virtual Cinderella teams if we’re speaking on the level of college basketball’s March Madness.

“We’ll give it our best, that’s all we can do,” McCarl said. “I feel like the hard part is over. We’ll do what we can and see how the cards fall Saturday.”

Hickle added: “I uprooted my life to come to Knoxville and be a 410 guy … to work towards this. All I want to be is a race car driver in my life. Weekends like this make a guy get your name out there. It really helps. No, it’s just an awesome deal. Just super grateful to be top-10 going into the Nationals. It’s a dream come true.”