World of Outlaws 25th Anniversary
Pennzoil World of Outlaws Gold Cup Race of Champions PRELIM Silver Dollar Speedway - September 6, 2002
CHICO- Tim Kaeding showed why he was named the "King of California" this year with a crowd raising victory during the second night of preliminary action in the 49th annual Gold Cup Race of Champions on John Padjen's Silver Dollar Speedway. Aboard the Cowen Motorsports 7T Eagle, the former Silver Dollar Speedway track titlist and 2002 Golden State Challenge champion of San Jose held off charges from some of the world's best drivers to garner a victory in the 30-lap preliminary A-feature and insure a top starting spot in the big 40-lap feature Saturday night. "I just hope we can come back here and do good tomorrow night, these guys will be tough," said Kaeding.
"On the last restart I didn't know who was running behind me. I just tried to keep the car straight and run good laps. My guys gave me a great car. Chico's kind of been my home away from home the last couple of years. We didn't get to run this race last year but it seems like we get lucky every time we come here."
After qualifying third, Kaeding finished fourth in the third heat race of the evening and followed up the transfer earning finish with a third place finish in the first O'Reilly Auto Parts Dash of the night behind winner Sammy Swindell and his father Brent Kaeding, two of many drivers that were hot on his tail for the 30-lap event later in the evening.
The opening green flag saw Sammy Swindell in the Beef Packers 83Jr. machine jump out into the early lead with Brent Kaeding powering into the second position as Tim Kaeding stole the third position from Jac Haudenschild low in the first set of turns during the action packed opening circuit. On lap two second place was next on Tim Kaeding's checklist as he used the fourth turn to overtake Brent for the bridesmaid position and set is sights on Swindell for the lead.
After pulling beside him for much of the third lap, the younger Kaeding made his move exiting the second turn of lap four to move into the lead one lap before a pair of cautions flew to delay the race for a stalled Roger Crockett followed by a front stretch wall collision by Stevie Smith. Once the green flag waved again Tim Kaeding powered ahead while Brent overtook Swindell for the second position to make the battle for the lead a family affair. For the entire sixth lap and half of the seventh, it was Tim hugging the low line with Brent on the move using the high side trying to make a pass, trying so hard he slid off the edge of the backstretch doing so and allowed Swindell to regain the second position
Meanwhile, Craig Dollansky and Jac Haudenschild raced side by side for the fourth position, trading it several time in the laps that followed. On the 11th lap a caution flew when Mike Henry of Sacramento stopped in the fourth turn just as Destiny Hays and Nick Rescino Jr. collided in the second turn. The caution prompted a single file restart and put Swindell and the elder Kaeding back on Tim's tail for the green flag. On that restart, Tim Kaeding muscled to a fair lead once again as Brent passed Swindell for second place while P.J. Chesson used the high line of turns one and two to passed Daryn Pittman and Danny Lasoski for the sixth position. Chesson attempted to overtake Dollansky for the fifth spot two laps later only to be passed back by Pittman who took sixth on the 17th lap.
With less than ten laps remaining, Tim Kaeding's lead remained several car lengths but Swindell was closing in as he passed Brent for second place, closed in on Tim and stole the lead for the 25th lap in the fourth turn. Kaeding answered back one lap later using the high sides of turns three and four. The dog fight for the lead between Tim Kaeding and Swindell continued for the final laps of the race, bringing the cheering capacity crowd to their feet with the white flag waving. Despite charges from Swindell high and low, Kaeding held on for the win while Swindell finished second followed by Pittman, Dollansky, Chesson, Haudenschild and Brent Kaeding who faded back in the field in the closing laps.
"I hope you guys liked that one," Kaeding told the ecstatic crowd. "Sammy was fast on the top and I got lucky and got a car that hauls butt on the bottom and this ABC Ready Mix, HD graphics car got it done for me. My guys gave me a great car tonight and now it's time to do some partying at Chico." With the win, Kaeding will start third in tonight's A-feature behind Steve Kinser and Tim Shaffer. Joey Saldana won the B-main event on Friday and was followed by Stevie Smith, Roger Crockett and Jason Statler. Heat race wins went to Haudenschild, Swindell, Johnny gray and Jim Skinner. Swindell and Haudenschild won the O'Relly Auto Parts dashes. Saldana set quick time with a 12:183.
Pennzoil World of Outlaws Gold Cup Race of Champions Silver Dollar Speedway September 6, 2002 Qualifying 1) Joey Saldana, Saldana 17, 12.183 2) Stevie Smith, Helm 11H, 12.286 3) Tim Kaeding, Cowen 7t, 12.333 4) Craig Dollansky, Karavan 7, 12.339 5) Tommy Tarlton, Tarlton 21T, 12.385 6) Roger Crockett, Doyle 11C, 12.400 7) Danny Lasoski, Stewart 20, 12.461 8) Brent Kaeding, Kaeding 69, 12.537 9) Jac Haudenschild, Forbrook 5, 12.562 10) Sammy Swindell, Roth 83JR, 12.583 11) P.J. Chesson, Chesson 76, 12.599 12) Mike Henry, Henry 93, 12.644 13) Jason Statler, Statler 00, 12.720 14) Andy Forsberg, Forsberg 92, 12.731 15) Daryn Pittman, Sher-Don Motorsports 21, 12.736 16) Billy Wallace, Jacobson 30W, 12.819 17) Jonathan Allard, McMillen 10, 12.970 18) Nick Rescino Jr., Rescino 65X, 13.065 19) Johnny Gray, Gray 71G, 13.077 20) Jim Skinner, Skinner 73, 13.119 21) Ryan Flynn, Flynn F1, 13.305 22) Destiny Hays, Hays 20D, 13.317 23) Johnny Rodriguez, Tri-R Motorsports 3R, 13.327 24) Chris Scott, Scott 1C, 13.394 25) Greg DeCaires, Kumar 1K, 13.484 26) Jon Lovell, Lovell 61, 13.722 27) Steven Tiner, Tiner 83T, 13.738 28) Kevin Lovell, Lovell 81, 13.893 29) Mark Tabor Jr., Tabor 38N, 13.894 30) Andy Greg, Greg 16X, 13.979 31) Steve Osbourne, Osbourne 9J, 13.984 32) Kevin Sharrah, Sharrah 1, 14.311 33) Eric Hopkins, Hopkins 21X, 14.353 34) Chuck Gurney Jr., Vertullo 83V, 14.388 35) Jim Marsh, Marsh 28, 14.466 36) Jon Maiwald, Willey 2MC, 14.547 37) Tim Sherman, Sherman 87, 14.914 38) Marv Magouirk, Magouirk 64V, 15.291 39) Doug Lippincott, Lippincott 4, No Time
First Heat Race (10 laps, top 5 finishers transferred to A-feature)--1) Jac Haudenschild 2) Jonathan Allard 3) Billy Wallace 4) Chris Scott 5) Brent Kaeding 6) Joey Saldana 7) Greg DeCaires 8) Eric Hopkins 9) Mark Tabor, Jr. 10) Tim Sherman
Second Heat Race (10 laps, top 5 finishers transferred to A-feature)--1) Sammy Swindell 2) Daryn Pittman 3) Danny Lasoski 4) Johny Rodriguez 5) Nick Rescino, Jr. 6) Andy Greg 7) Jon Lovell 8) Marv Magouirk 9) Chuck Gurney, Jr. 10) Stevie Smith
Third Heat Race (10 laps, top 5 finishers transferred to A-feature)--1) Johnny Gray 2) Destiny Hays 3) P.J. Chesson 4) Tim Kaeding 5) Andy Forsberg 6) Roger Crockett 7) Steven Tiner 8) Steve Osbourne 9) Jim Marsh
Fourth Heat Race (10 laps, top 5 finishers transferred to A-feature)-1) Jim Skinner 2) Tommy Tarlton 3) Craig Dollansky 4) Kevin Lovell 5) Mark Hanry 6) Jason Statler 7) Jon Maiwald 8) Kevin Sharrah 9) Ryan Flynn
First O'Reilly Auto Parts Dash (7 laps, finishing order determined inside first 8 rows of A-feature)--1) Sammy Swindell 2) Brent Kaeding 3) Tim Kaeding 4) Tommy Tarlton 5) Daryn Pittman 6) Mike Henry 7) Johnny Gray 8) Jonathan Allard
Second O'Reilly Auto Parts Dash (7 laps, finishing order determined outside first 8 rows of A-feature)-1) Jac Haudenschild 2) Craig Dollansky 3) Danny Lasoski 4) Andy Forsberg 5) Billy Wallace 6) Nick Rescino, Jr. 7) P.J. Chesson 8) Jim Skinner
B-main (12 laps, top 4 finishers transferred to A-feature)-1) Joey Saldana 2) Stevie Smith 3) Roger Crockett 4) Jason Statler 5) Greg DeCaires 6) Steven Tiner 7) Jon Lovell 8) Andy Greg 9) Mark Tabor, Jr. 10) Steve Osbourne 11) Eric Hopkins 12) Tim Sherman 13) Marv Magouirk 14) Jim Marsh 15) Jon Maiwald 16) Kevin Sharrah 17) Chuck Gurney, Jr. 18) Ryan Flynn
A-main (30 laps)--1) Tim Kaeding 2) Sammy Swindell 3) Daryn Pittman 4) Craig Dollansky 5) P.J. Chesson 6) Jac Haudenschild 7) Brent Kaeding 8) Danny Lasoski 9) Johnny Gray 10) Jason Statler 11) Joey Saldana 12) Tommy Tarlton 13) Jim Skinner 14) Jonathan Allard 15) Andy Forsberg 16) Kevin Lovell 17) Johnny Rodriguez 18) Roger Crockett 19) Billy Wallace 20) Destiny Hays 21) Chris Scott 22) Mike Henry 23) Nick Rescino, Jr. 24) Stevie Smith Lap leaders: Sammy Swindell 1-3, 25; Tim Kaeding 4-24, 26-30
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