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Saldana opens WOO weekend with first Thunderbowl win
By Gary Thomas
Tulare, Ca - February 24, 2007... When Joey Saldana and Kasey Kahne Racing acquired expert tuner Ricky Warner in the off-season, big things were expected and on Friday night at the Tulare Thunderbowl Raceway, they showed why. The Brownsburg, Indiana driver started on the outside of the front row and fell back to third early on but waited patiently, taking advantage of a couple of restarts to work his way to the top spot late in the race, and pick up his first World of Outlaws Sprint Series win of the season.
The 35 lap contest started out with Wooster, Ohio’s Jac Haudenschild storming into the lead from the pole position. Haudenschild was coming off of a spectacular run at the Thunderbowl’s final event of the 2006 season where he won the Trophy Cup main event from the 13th starting spot. On this night however, Haud won the trophy dash to give himself a much easier route to work from. Lap three saw San Jose’s Tim Kaeding, who was running in the top 10, spin in turn four. Also involved were Bud Kaeding and Danny Faria Jr.
The restart saw Aliquipa, PA’s Tim Shaffer take advantage of a bobble by Haudenschild to claim the lead off of turn two. The pass was all for naught however, as B. Kaeding spun around in turn four to bring out a caution and force another restart, which saw Haudenschild back in front.
When the green flag waved again Haudenschild took off and the rest of the competitors followed suit. Cold temps and rain the previous day made the 1/3 mile clay oval extremely fast, which made passing opportunities limited.
Another caution came out around lap 10 when Australian Kerry Madsen spun the Selma Shell Racing No. 11h. Earlier in the night after qualifying, drivers and crew members came out to the front stretch to observe a moment of silence for Dave Helm (long time owner of the Selma Shell 11h) who passed away last week. Helm, from nearby Selma, campaigned a car for nearly 10 years with the World of Outlaws Sprint Series.
The restart saw Saldana make the move around Shaffer and set his sights on Haudenschild. Several green flag laps were clicked off, which brought traffic into play for the first time. Right around the midway point of the race the top three drivers ran nose to tail as they navigated their way through the thick and heavy lapped traffic. The action was hot and heavy as Haudenschild expertly carved his way around the traffic running his trademark high line. The race changing incident happened on lap 23 though, as lapped car Jonathan Allard was tagged in the rear and spun around to bring out a caution. Under World of Outlaws Sprint Series rules all lapped cars are sent to the tail, which meant Saldana would be right on Haudenschild’s tail for the restart.
As the green waved Saldana stuck his Open Joist No. 9 machine to the rear of Haudenschild’s Wright One No. 35 and as the pair rounded turn four, Saldana slid under Haud to take the lead. From there on out it was all Saldana as he pulled away to convincingly pick up his first World of Outlaw Sprint Series win of the year.
Haudenschild hung on for second in the Wright One Construction No. 35 and Shaffer rounded out the podium in the Casey’s General Store No. 6t. Clovis driver Jason Meyers finished fourth in the Elite Racing No. 1 and Terry McCarl completed the top five in the Big Game Tree Stands No. 24. Finishing sixth through tenth were Craig Dollansky in the Caravan Racing No. 7, Brooke Tatnell in the Volcano Joe’s Coffee No. 2, Justin Henderson in the Jolt Energy Gum No. D1, Ronnie Day in the Ridgeline Framing No. 1 and Jason Solwold in the City Wide Insulation No. R19.
The dash was won by Haudenschild who held off a strong charge from Saldana to earn the pole position for the main event.
The four 10 lap heat races were picked off by Terry McCarl, Kerry Madsen, Jac Haudenschild and Joey Saldana.
Fast time was set by Tim Shaffer with a 13.136 |
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