Shaffer Captures
Tim Shaffer cruised to the checkered flag Friday night in the
Shaffer worked the low groove for nearly the entire 40-lap feature, sliding
into the lead in Turn 4 on Lap 7 when pole-sitter Daryn Pittman was hung up in
traffic. Shaffer then began to stretch his lead as McMahan started slicing toward
the front from his seventh-place starting position.
With Shaffer working the bottom on the 1/3-mile oval, Pittman kept the pressure
on by carrying his momentum along the cushion. But as he was figuring his next
move on Shaffer, Pittman caught some
Kinser and McMahan were already engaged in a battle for the third position.
With Pittman’s tire trouble, the fight for third suddenly became even more
important as Shaffer would have to hold off Kinser and the hard-charging
McMahan on the restart.
Shaffer shot out fast, almost too fast. He was so quick into Turn 1 he wound up
going through the turns on the high side of the track for the first time all
night. Kinser saw the opening and tried to get to the bottom to steal the lead,
but Shaffer scrambled to the inside and locked his Lonny Parsons-owned car back
into the low groove.
Another caution with nine laps to go would be Kinser’s last chance, but Shaffer
smoothly powered back to about a four-car advantage on the restart before
winning for the second time this season. Instead, Kinser was forced to hang
onto second by fending off McMahan and his David Helm-owned machine. First
McMahan went to the outside of Kinser, then he cut back to the bottom looking
for any room to grab the position.
But Kinser didn’t leave an inch, fighting off McMahan all the way to the
checkered flag to finish second. Following the top three were Stevie Smith, Sammy
Swindell and Joey Saldana, who continues to post strong runs since some
early-season motor woes.
“Last week the guys talked me into putting this new car together, and it’s been
awesome ever since,” said Shaffer, who collected $10,000 for the effort. “Friday
night at Knoxville we didn’t make the show and Saturday night we actually ran
pretty good, from the back to eighth. I was hoping it wasn’t a fluke, so
tonight’s showing that we’re still going good. We need to keep it going, but
the neat thing about it is we’re all working together as a team and it’s a lot
of fun.”
With Kinser and McMahan bearing down on him, Shaffer never was convinced he had
the victory wrapped up until he saw the checkered flag.
“The last five laps, I could hear Steve breathing back there waiting for a
mistake,” said Shaffer, whose earlier victory was at 1/3-mile Thunderbowl
Raceway. “But I didn’t hear him go around the outside of me so I just held my
own and made good laps and tried not to make mistakes.”
After Shaffer got the better of Kinser in the second Dash, Parsons believed his
team had a shot at winning the feature, especially once Pittman encountered
trouble. Of course, as a car owner, Parsons started thinking of all the things
that could go wrong after the final retstart.
“At that point of the race, you’re thinking about all kinds of things,” Parsons
said. “We were watching to make sure tires were staying up. We were concerned
about fuel because we ran off a lot of caution laps. I felt fairly comfortable
after running in the Dash with Steve. I felt that maybe we had something for
Steve so I felt better with him behind us than Pittman.”
As it turned out, Kinser had his hands full with McMahan.
“I couldn’t keep up on the bottom,” said Kinser, who increased his lead in the
standings to 114 points over Craig Dollansky. “Then Paul just about got by me
in the middle so I thought I’d take one last stab and almost got it, but I
dragged the wing back a little bit too far and was pushing a little bit. I just
couldn’t get it to drive out of there right. Then on the last lap I went back
to the bottom and actually cut Paul off and got into him a little bit, but I
was worried if I stayed up there I would lose another spot coming to the
checkers. We just got outrun tonight.
“It’s never fun when you get outrun, but it is fun to be in a good race. It’s a
lot more fun to get in a good race and win it, but we can’t complain. We’re
still hanging around the top two all the time and it’s hard to complain about
that.”
McMahan might have had the fastest car in the feature, but he needed long
green-flag runs to show it off. The caution with nine laps to go virtually
ended his chance at a victory.
“Our car was real good. The longer we ran, the better we got,” McMahan said. “I
didn’t need that last yellow flag because we were running real good. I think we
had something for Steve — and Shaffer if I could have gotten by Steve. Once I
got next to Steve, he kind of started racing me harder than he was racing for
the win. We’ll take a third. It was a good night. Hopefully we can move on up
to Granite City tomorrow night and have the same run.”
Pittman easily won the Stacker 2® Dash, giving him the pole for the second time
in the past four race nights with Stevie Smith, Saldana, McMahan, McCarl and
Kraig Kinser rounding out the finishers. In the second Dash, Shaffer fought off
Kinser early and stretched his lead to win. Behind Kinser was Sammy Swindell,
In the B-main, Danny Lasoski got a quick jump before a caution came out only
three laps in. Lasoski again showed off his horsepower that helped him turn the
fastest lap of the night in time trials by charging out to a huge lead on the
restart.
In the first heat race, Shane Stewart grabbed the lead coming off Turn 4 and
led flag-to-flag while Lasoski came up short in a battle with Jason Solwold for
the final transfer spot. In the second heat, Brooke Tatnell cruised to a
victory while Sammy Swindell picked up the final transfer position. In the
third heat,
Lasoski set the quick time in the
The
If fans can’t get to a track to see the series, they can experience the
excitement of the
The
Qualifying
1) Danny Lasoski, Stewart 20, 11.907
2) Terry McCarl, McCarl 24, 11.968
3)
4) Joey Saldana, Woodward 2, 12.051
5) Sammy Swindell, Forbrook 5, 12.056
6) Stevie Smith, Smith 19, 12.061
7) Steve Kinser, Kinser 11, 12.081
8) Daryn Pittman, Titan Racing USA 21, 12.105
9) Tim Shaffer, Parsons 6, 12.109
10) Paul McMahan, Helm 11H, 12.111
11) Kevin Swindell, Swindell 1, 12.117
12) Kraig Kinser, Kinser 11K, 12.122
13) Shane Stewart, Rudeen Racing 26, 12.137
14) Donny Schatz, .Schatz 15, 12.152
15)
16) Tim Kaeding, Roth 83, 12.208
17) Brooke Tatnell, Rush Racing 8, 12.217
18) Brandon Wimmer, Wimmer-Luck Motorsports 7TW, 12.223
19) Jason Solwold, Carnahan R19, 12.233
20) Jason Sides, Sides Motorsports 7S, 12.250
21) Adam Jones, Jones 1A, 12.352
22) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Fast Effects 40R, 12.373
23) Travis Rilat, Wright 35, 12.423
24) Craig Dollansky, Karavan 7, 12.429
25) Bill Rose, Rose 6R, 12.467
26) Sean Walden, Walden 14W, 12.538
27) Derek O’Dell, O’Dell 11D, 12.586
28) Mike Deavers, Deaver 72, 12.640
29) Chris Sloan, Sloan D12, 12.921
30) Eddie Lynch, Lynch 29, 12.923
31) Kent Buckley, Buckley 1B, 13.295
First Heat Race (10 laps, top 6 finishers transferred to A-feature)
1) Shane Stewart
2) Brandon Wimmer
3) Steve Kinser
4) Kraig Kinser
5) Stevie Smith
6) Jason Solwold
7) Danny Lasoski
8) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.
9) Bill Rose
10) Kent Buckley
11) Mike Deavers
Second Heat Race (10 laps, top 6 finishers transferred to A-feature)
1) Tim Shaffer
2) Donny Schatz
3) Daryn Pittman
4) Kevin Swindell
5) Terry McCarl
6) Sammy Swindell
7) Jason Sides
8) Travis Rilat
9) Sean Walden
10) Eddie Lynch
Third Heat Race (10 laps, top 6 finishers transferred to A-feature)
1)
2) Tim Kaeding
3) Tim Shaffer
4) Paul McMahan
5)
6) Joey Saldana
7) Craig Dollansky
8) Derek O’Dell
9) Adam Jones
10) Chris Sloan
Stacker 2® Dash (6 laps, finishing order determined inside first 6 rows of
A-feature)
1) Daryn Pittman
2) Stevie Smith
3) Joey Saldana
4) Paul McMahan
5) Terry McCarl
6) Kraig Kinser
Second Dash (6 laps, finishing order determined outside first 6 rows of
A-feature)
1) Tim Shaffer
2) Steve Kinser
3) Sammy Swindell
4)
5) Shane Stewart
6) Kevin Swindell
B-main (12 laps, top 6 finishers transferred to A-feature)
1) Danny Lasoski [$20]
2) Craig Dollansky [$20]
3) Jason Sides [$20]
4) Bill Rose [$20]
5) Travis Rilat [$20]
6) Sean Walden [$20]
7) Derek O’Dell [$200]
8) Mike Deavers [$180]
9) Eddie Lynch [$175]
10) Kent Buckley [$160]
11) Chris Sloan [$150]
12) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. [$150]
13) Adam Jones [$150]
A-main (40 laps)
1) Tim Shaffer [$10,000]
2) Steve Kinser [$5,500]
3) Paul McMahan [$3,200]
4) Stevie Smith [$2,800]
5) Sammy Swindell [$2,500]
6) Joey Saldana [$2,300]
7)
8) Shane Stewart [$2,100]
9) Craig Dollansky [$2,050]
10) Tim Kaeding [$2,000]
11) Terry McCarl [$1,500]
12)
13) Travis Rilat [$1,100]
14) Donny Schatz [$1,050]
15) Daryn Pittman [$1,000]
16) Brandon Wimmer [$900]
17) Kraig Kinser [$800]
18) Jason Solwold [$800]
19) Brooke Tatnell [$800]
20) Bill Rose [$800]
21) Jason Sides [$800]
22) Danny Lasoski [$800]
23) Kevin Swindell [$800]
24) Sean Walden [$800]
Lap leaders: Daryn Pittman 1-6, Tim Shaffer 7-40
Notes: Adam Jones was running 3rd in the B-main when he stopped in Turn
1. Jones was unable to restart. … Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. was running 4th in the
B-main when he stopped on the backstretch. Stenhouse could not restart.
Rk. Driver Points Back
1 Steve Kinser 2496 0
2 Craig Dollansky 2382 -114
3 Kraig Kinser 2295 -201
4
5 Donny Schatz 2239 -257
6 Danny Lasoski 2231 -265
7 Joey Saldana 2143 -353
8 Daryn Pittman 2141 -355
9 Tim Kaeding 2119 -377
10 Tim Shaffer 2115 -381
11 Paul McMahan 2112 -384
12 Shane Stewart 2103 -393
13 Terry McCarl 1970 -526
14
15 Jason Sides 1923 -573
16 Brooke Tatnell 1882 -614
17 Jason Solwold 1837 -659
18 Brandon Wimmer 1746 -750
19 Sammy Swindell 1511 -985
20 Mark Kinser 1333 -1163
21 Randy Hannagan 1306 -1190
22 Kevin Swindell 1200 -1296
23 Chad Kemenah 1048 -1448
24 Danny Smith 946 -1550
25 Peter Murphy 836 -1660