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How Sweet It Is
by: Troy Hennig
(Chico, CA 7-5-08)...Brad Sweet was coming back home to Northern California for a quick weekend get-away from his Indiana residence and to recharge his batteries for the upcoming USAC non-wing sprint week. He was also scheduled to drive the Rod Tiner #83 Shark Racing Engines winged sprint car for two nights of racing at Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico. Sweet entered the weekend with two career sprint car wins at Chico. Both of them came in a 360 sprint car when he won both nights of a two day show. History repeated itself on Saturday night, when Sweet led the final 23 laps to win the Golden State Challenge King of California Series main event. Sweet, who won the previous night on July 4th, picked up the clean sweep for the weekend. It was also his second career King of California victory, his first being at Kings Speedway. “This is unbelievable,” said Sweet in victory lane. “It is so great to come back here and win both nights at Chico. I was hoping for a good weekend but this was great.” He later added, “I just have to thank Rod Tiner and this team, they put this brand new car together and it really ran flawless all weekend.” With the two wins for the weekend, Sweet and his Tiner racing team earned $5,000. Second place went to current point leader Jonathan Allard of Chico. He passed Brent Kaeding on the final lap to secure the spot. Kaeding finished in the third spot. A total of 37 King of California sprint cars entered the nights racing action.
Tyler Walker started the main event from the pole position. Walker had won the six lap dash earlier in the night that allowed him to start from the pole. Walker took the lead from fellow front row starter Jonathan Allard. On lap one the first of numerous cautions slowed the beginning of the race to a crawl. At one point there were more cautions, six, than laps complete, five. Yet the battle for the lead was still a good one. Sweet moved around Allard for the second spot. Walker was committed to the top while Sweet was rolling around the bottom. A few times Sweet would pass Walker but a yellow came out to neglect the pass. However, on lap seven Walker slid high and Sweet found traction on the bottom to take the lead for good.
Sweet built up a little lead while Walker now was racing with Brent and Bud Kaeding. Brent found the low line to his liking and passed Walker for second. Now he set his sights on Sweet. Bud Kaeding also moved around Walker. Allard worked his way back into contention on lap 20 and passed Bud for third. Sweet was now entering slower traffic. This allowed Brent to close in during the final few laps. On lap 28 Sweet moved around a lapped car and it was enough distance to separate himself from Kaeding. Kaeding got bottled up a bit and this allowed Allard to close in. Coming off the final turn Allard beat Brent to the line for second. Up front it was all Sweet. He had come back to California and won both nights of winged 410 main events at Chico. Bud Kaeding finished in the fourth spot. Kyle Hirst battled all night riding along the cushion and would up finishing fifth. Evan Suggs stayed consistent all night and came home in sixth. Walker fell back to the seventh spot at the finish line. Chico's Brett Miller had one of his best runs to date by finishing eighth. Ninth spot went to Jason Statler and rounding out the top ten was Brad Bumgarner.
Shane Golobic won the abbreviated B-main event. Numerous yellows also slowed this event and time became the factor in the finish. Bumgarner, Jason York and Mason Moore finished in the next three spots behind Golobic. Colby Copeland and Ken Fredenburg earned the final two transfer. Willie Croft was set to start in the main event but scratched from the event. That allowed seventh place finisher Dan Simpson to make the main event also. He was the first alternate.
Kevin Sharrah won the first heat race of the night. Stephen Allard led all ten laps to get the win in heat two. Mark Workentine got the win during heat three. Heat four was a photo finish between Brett Miller and Brad Sweet. Miller had led the entire race but coming out of four, Sweet squeezed by on the outside to get the win at the line.
Tyler Walker scored another fast time award by turning an 11.623. Qualifying was fierce tonight at the top eleven were all in the eleven second bracket.
The King of California Series returns again next week to Silver Dollar Speedway on July 12th. For updated points please visit www.johnpadjenmotorsports.com
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