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Photo by http://www.johnsracingphotos.com
Tyler Walker ties single-season GSC win record with victory #8 at Petaluma Speedway Saturday night
By Gary Thomas
Petaluma, CA – August 1, 2009…Taking advantage of traffic halfway through the main event on Saturday night at the Petaluma Speedway Los Angeles, CA's Tyler Walker was able to get by 13-time King of California Brent Kaeding and drive off for his eighth victory of the Golden State Challenge Series season, tying Tim Kaeding's single-season win record set in 2004.
The win for Walker also gave him and his SC Motorsports, NMI Industrial Contractors No. 24 team a sweep of the Petaluma Speedway GSC events in the 2009 season and allowed him to extend his current series point lead with just two events remaining. The 30 year-old charger also began the night by setting a new track record and becoming the first driver to ever break into the 11-second bracket in Petaluma Speedway history, with a blistering lap of 11.990 aboard his Lee Lindgren tuned mount.
The 30 lap feature started out with a trio of red flags after getting one lap completed as Australia's Nick Speed, Napa's Jeff Griffin and Oregon's Zach Zimmerly were all flip victims early on in separate incidents. With one lap down Campbell's Brent Kaeding sat out front with Walker in second and when the green lights came back on the pair were visibly the fastest cars in the field, pulling away from the rest of the competitors on the extremely tacky and hooked-up speedway.
Over the early circuits Walker shadowed Kaeding as green flag laps were clicked off with ease on the lightning fast 3/8 mile clay oval and as the halfway mark approached the two appeared to be matched fairly evenly, with traffic looking to decide the outcome. As Kaeding entered the first and second corners on lap 15 a pair of lap cars were fighting it out in front of him and when "BK" was forced to get out of the throttle slightly, he moved up the track just enough to give Walker the opening he needed to take command heading down the back-stretch.
After this Kaeding stayed within striking distance, but with "T-dub" working the traffic to perfection it never gave him another shot and the Los Angeles driver would scoot off and take yet another checkered flag on the season. Walker will now take a double-digit lead into the Ocean Speedway this coming Saturday night with just two events remaining in the quest at his first career King of California title and he will also be looking for his ninth win of the GSC season to set a new all-time record. Earlier this year he picked up a victory at the Ocean Speedway and has been very strong at the quarter-mile bullring over the past two seasons.
A night after finishing runner-up in the GLR Investments 360 event at the Ocean Speedway Kaeding backed it up with another second place finish on Saturday at the helm of his Al's Roofing Supply, High Five Pizza No. 69 machine. It was the second runner-up finish in the past three GSC visits to the Petaluma Speedway as "BK" still looks for his first win at the track since the series returned in 2005. Kaeding now heads to his home track next week looking to break back into victory lane with just two nights left in the season.
Elk Grove's Kyle Larson had a solid run in the main event to come from seventh starting to finish third at the stripe aboard his Vertullo Racing, Stadelhofer Construction No. 83v. Larson, who turned 17 years-old on Friday, ran much of the main event in fifth before making passes of Jonathan Allard on lap 21 and Evan Suggs on lap 27 to score a strong podium finish in just his second career 410 start at Petaluma. The youngster was one of the few who appeared to be able to run a little higher line and it paid off as he did a great job to maneuver his way forward late in the main event.
At the checkered flag Suggs finished in the fourth spot to score his third finish of fourth or better in the past handful of weeks. The driver of the Suggs Racing, Lucas Oil Products No. 33e also won the dash during the night, but was forced to change motors following the win as oil issues left the team scrambling even prior to the dash. Although not counting as an official record the 22 year-old also turned the fastest lap in Petaluma Speedway history with a blazing fast clocking of 11.902 during his heat race number two victory.
Rounding out the top five in the feature was the Williams Motorsports, K&N Filters No. 0 of Allard. The Chico driver spent the majority of the feature locked in a battle with Suggs and Larson as the trio ran nose-to-tail for most of the distance. The result marked Allard's series leading 15th top-five finish of the GSC season. Completing the top 10 in the main event were Grass Valley's Jason Statler, Calistoga's Mike Benson, Fremont's Brent Bjork, Sebastopol's Bradley Terrell and Vacaville's Joey Magaruh.
Full results will be available at http://www.goldenstatechallengeseries.com
Next Saturday night the Golden State Challenge King of California 410 Sprint Car Series will head for its final season appearance at Watsonville's Ocean Speedway. It will be the penultimate event of the season for the touring series and will also have an earlier start time as the drivers meeting will be held at 3:45 pm.
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