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Photo by Johns Racing Photos
Brent Kaeding wins Pombo/Sargent Classic for 10th time
By Gary Thomas
Tulare, CA – June 28, 2008…When it comes to the Pombo/Sargent Classic no driver has been more dominant than Campbell’s Brent Kaeding and he showed that once again this past Saturday night at the Tulare Thunderbowl Raceway by dominating the 30 lap feature, en route to his third straight win at the event and 10th overall. It also marked his very first Golden State Challenge Series win of the season and first since June 11 of last year.
During the main event no driver was even close to the 13-time King of California as he was able to stretch his lead out during the entire contest. “It feels good to be able to come out here and get our first Golden State win of the year,” Kaeding said as he held baby granddaughter Mackenzie. “We’ve won a lot of these Pomob/Sargent Classic’s and it’s nice to be able to continue this event because they were two hard nose guys who would beat and bang on each other and put on a show.”
The 16th main event of the Golden State Challenge Series season started out with Kaeding blazing out into the lead aboard his Al’s Roofing Supply, Kaeding Performance No. 69. Early on it was apparent that the rest of the field would be racing for second as his Billy Albini tuned machine was on a rail and he looked like the “BK” that won eight times with the series last season. Unlike in past weeks however, a long green flag run was able to be had and it made for some great racing between the drivers battling for second through sixth.
A caution appeared on lap four and after that the green lights stayed on for awhile and allowed the racers an opportunity to battle it out through traffic on the 1/3 mile clay oval. Fresno’s Craig Stidham started from the outside of the front row and held his own while driving the KRC Safety Equipment No. 3 and tried his best to run down Kaeding through traffic, but the Campbell veteran was just to good through the slower cars. The drivers behind Stidham proceeded to put on a show as they tussled for the third position during much of the long green flag run.
Los Angeles’ Tyler Walker had started from the fourth position, but early on in the race tried to run a little different line than most and had fallen back to sixth at one point. The exciting driver kept his SC Motorsports No. 24 right on the edge though and was able to drive around Jason Statler, Mike Henry and Bud Kaeding to put himself into third by the 20th lap. After the large amount of successive laps run a caution then came out on lap 23 when Henry got sideways and was hit by Statler who came to a stop. Henry was able to straighten his car back out and continue on to maintain the sixth position.
At this point Kaeding had an amazing seven lapped car cushion between himself and second place. When the green lights came back on however, heartbreak city occurred as Stidham slowed on the front stretch while running in the second position. He remained on the track however, and Statler had nowhere to go and got jammed up, which resulted in him coming to a stop in turn one. This moved Walker up to second for the restart and Bud Kaeding up to third.
When flagman Willie Williams waved his green flag for the final time with just a handful of laps remaining, current GSC point leader Jonathan Allard of Chico was able to find good bite off the bottom in turn four to make the pass of Bud and very nearly get under Walker as well. Allard settled into third after this and the final couple laps were clicked off trouble free as Brent Kaeding had now worries out front and crossed under the flag stand to easily win his first GSC main event of the season.
Just a couple years ago “BK” had gone winless on the GSC season until coming into the Pombo/Sargent Classic where he swept both nights of the event and in a bit of irony the living legend did it once it again in 2008. “I want to thank this whole team for working their tails off and I also want to thank all you fans for coming out and supporting us tonight,” Kaeding concluded.
Walker’s exciting charge ended with a second place finish and continued his great season at the Thunderbowl Raceway. He made several hair raising moves in turn four just when it looked like he might make contact with the wall, but each time he would catch the car and continue motoring on. “The track was a little bit different tonight because the top didn’t really stay like it usually does here and it made it a bit tough. We’ll take a second place finish though and move on to Chico and try to get another win,” Walker said.
Golden State Challenge point leader Allard did a great job in the main event to rebound from a heat race flip and record his series leading 13th top five finish of the season. The Chico driver started ninth of the grid and put on a methodical charge aboard Morrie Williams’ No. 0 sprinter to bring home a third place finish at the line and maintain his series point lead. “I just want to thank Ashley Smith and this whole team for working hard after the heat race and getting us back out here for the main event. I’m pretty sore right now and am going to go the doctor next week, but we did what we needed to do tonight to keep our point lead and I’m pretty happy about that,” Allard said.
Rounding out the top 10 in the GSC main event were Bud Kaeding, Mike Henry, Brandon Carey, Evan Suggs, Charlie Louden, Matt Sargent and Brent Bjork.
The Western States Modifieds main event saw some fantastic racing once again and it ended with Bobby Hogge IV picking up his first Thunderbowl Raceway win of the season. Hogge started from the fifth position and moved forward quickly to battle it out with leader Alex Stanford. After a number of intense laps of battling for the top spot Hogge got the bite he needed on the 20th lap to put his No. 2h machine out front.
After that Hogge never looked back and crossed the stripe for the exciting victory. “It feels great to be able to come out here tonight and I want to thank the Western States Modifieds and Thunderbowl Raceway for hosting us here. We love this track and just wish it was a little closer so we could come here more often,” he said following the race. Finishing second in the WSM main event was defending champ Tim Balding who was followed across the line by Mike Villanueva and Richard Papenhousen. After the race Brian Cass was crowned as the second WSM champion, even despite having a tough night and failing finish the main event. Results and the points can be found at http://www.westernracer.com
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Thunderbowl Raceway GSC Results- Pombo/Sargent Classic
20 cars
Fast time- Jonathan Allard 13.198
Heat 1: Charlie Louden, Brandon Carey, Mark Workentine, Craig Stidham, Brent Bjork, Mike Stallings, Jonathan Allard
Heat 2: Evan Suggs, Matt Sargent, Jason Statler, Brent Kaeding, Ken Fredenburg, Anthony Simone, Blake Robertson
Heat 3: Tyler Walker, Mike Henry, Bud Kaeding, Dan Simpson, Jerry Wise Jr, Stephen Allard
Dash: Brent Kaeding, Stidham, Bud Kaeding, Walker, Henry, Statler, Workentine, Bjork
A-main: Brent Kaeding, Tyler Walker, Jonathan Allard, Bud Kaeding, Mike Henry, Brandon Carey, Evan Suggs, Charlie Louden, Matt Sargent, Brent Bjork, Ken Fredenburg, Mike Stallings, Anthony Simone, Dan Simpson, Craig Stidham, Jason Statler, Mark Workentine, Jerry Wise Jr. (Blake Robertson & Stephen Allard, dns)
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