Sprint Car Racing’s biggest event begins Wednesday night with the first of two night’s of qualifying at the Knoxville Nationals. Saturday night’s championship lineup will be determined by a point system that even includes time trials and heat races.

That’s race director John McCoy. Saturday night’s feature winner will pocket 175 thousand dollars and the total purse will top one million dollars.

The last five Nationals have crowned five different winners and McCoy says the talent pool in sprint car racing is deep and young.

Fans from across the country will be on hand and McCoy says there is always a large contigent of Australians and many never leave.

Half of the field will qualify on Wednesday night while the other half of the field will make a qualifying run on Thursday night. Reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson is the defending champion.