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Photo by Paul Trevino Racing Photos
Stephen Allard sets fast time & finishes 5th in GSC feature at Ocean Speedway
By Gary Thomas
Watsonville, CA – May 31, 2008…Chico’s Stephen Allard got back behind the wheel of the David Key Trucking No. 86 sprinter and drove the car to a quick time effort and a top five finish in the main event this past Friday night at Watsonville’s Ocean Speedway. The Golden State Challenge King of California Series sanctioned event was Allard’s sixth start of the season with the traveling 410 tour.
The defending Silver Dollar Speedway track champion went into this past Friday night’s event fresh off a fourth place finish during the Golden State Challenge Series’ previous event a couple weekend’s ago at the Dave Bradway Jr. Memorial. Allard has also run strong in a couple of starts at the Ocean Speedway with the Wright One Construction 360 Series, including a runner-up finish at the track on April 18.
The Ocean Speedway saw a well prepared track put together on Friday and made for some good racing during the night. Allard came out 12th in the qualifying order and ripped off an 11.586 second lap, giving him his first fast time effort of the season. The 35 year-old then transferred through his heat race and scored fifth in the dash to put the Wayne Cox Gunite, Surfside Pools No. 86 in the third row for the main event.
The initial start of the 30 lap feature saw a couple cars get together towards the front, but luckily Allard was able to avoid them and maintain his third row starting position for the complete restart. As Willie Williams waved the green flag on the next start Allard immediately got his elbows up and charged into the third position on the opening lap. A total of eight laps were then completed before another caution came out, which started a flood of yellows and reds.
Allard remained composed and continued to sit solidly in third before taking advantage of a lap 13 restart to blast around brother Jonathan and move into second. He would try his best to run down leader Tyler Walker, but couldn’t get close enough to make anything happen as traffic never came into play. Allard would then lose the runner-up spot to Bud Kaeding on lap 23 and then surrender third to Tim Kaeding a few laps later.
The Chico racer took the white flag in fourth, but would get a little high in turn four coming to the checkered and lost the spot to his brother Jonathan, putting him back to fifth at the finish. Despite losing a few spots during the final 10 laps it was still a good night for Allard and the David Key Trucking team as the No. 86 machine ran competitively up front against some of the top GSC travelers in California. The finish marked Allard’s second straight top five with the series and gives him some momentum as we get into the summer months.
Stay tuned to http://www.stephenallard.com for updates on future races for defending Silver Dollar Speedway track champion Stephen Allard.
www.sprintcarchallengetour.com
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