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Photo courtesy Joe Martinez
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Jonathan Allard heads for Midwest after new GSC track record & top-five at Ocean Speedway
By Gary Thomas
Watsonville, CA – August 10, 2009…Making his last California start prior to the annual trek to the Midwest Chico's Jonathan Allard raced to a fifth place finish for the second weekend in a row with the Golden State Challenge Series and also managed to brake a GSC track record at the Ocean Speedway that had been held for 10 years.
Going into the Ocean Speedway this past Saturday night Allard hoped to try and chip away at Tyler Walker's 16-point advantage in the GSC standings, during what was the penultimate event of the season for the traveling 410 sprint car series.
The two-time King of California began the evening in strong fashion by blistering the quarter-mile bullring in 11.496 seconds to set his series leading ninth fast-time of the season at the helm of the Williams Motorsports, Butler Built Performance No. 0 machine. The extremely quick lap also set a new Golden State Challenge Series track record at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds facility that had been held by good friend Peter Murphy since 1999.
Allard then brought home a third in his heat race and a seventh in the dash to put him in the fourth row for the 30 lap GSC main event. During the first handful of laps he would run in seventh, before making passes of Brad Furr and Andy Gregg to move into the top-five. The well prepared surface saw multiple racing lines and Allard spent the majority of the feature locked in a battle with Tommy Tarlton and Jason Statler as the long green flag run allowed for traffic to make things interesting.
The last caution of the main event came out on lap 25 and Allard spent the final laps holding off a strong challenge from youngster Kyle Larson to cross under the checkered in fifth to score his GSC leading 16th top-five finish in 20 starts. "We would have definitely wanted to finish a little higher in the order, but the guys up front did a great job through traffic and it was fun to be able to move around on the track tonight," Allard said.
Osky & Knoxville on tap this week:
Following the races the Williams Motorsports hauler headed out east hoping to be in Oskaloosa, Iowa in time for tonight's Front Row Challenge at the Southern Iowa Speedway. The 14th annual event has become one of the biggest and more fun races in all of 410 winged sprint car racing as it kicks off "Nationals Week" each season. A couple years ago Allard set fast-time at the Front Row Challenge and had charged up to third in the main event, until a flat tire caused problems that sidelined him for the remaining laps.
After the Front Row Challenge Allard and the Williams Motorsports crew will focus attention to the "Grand Daddy" of sprint car racing as the 49th annual Knoxville Nationals kicks off on Wednesday night at the Knoxville Raceway. Last season Allard finished 11th in the b-main and he will go into this year's running of the $150,000 to win event looking to break his way into the A-main on Saturday for the first time. "Our goal is definitely to try and get into that A-main on Saturday night," the 32 year-old said. "We'd be feeling pretty good if we could accomplish that."
Allard goes into this week with just a pair of starts on a half-mile track all season, with those coming at the Calistoga Speedway over Memorial Day weekend where he brought home finishes of second and third in the two main events. "We're going to go into the Nationals with a mindset of having fun and trying to be as relaxed as possible," Allard said. "Knoxville is a tough place with how big it is and it really makes set-up and getting the engine tuned-up a critical part of the outcome. We don't have the laps on the big tracks like many of the drivers back there, so we're going to try to learn as much as possible at Oskaloosa on Monday and then give it our best shot at Knoxville."
The two-time King of California is scheduled to qualify during opening night at the Knoxville Nationals on Wednesday and will look to gain as many points as possible towards Saturday's starting line-ups. "The biggest part of the Nationals starts with the qualifying pill draw, because you never know what the track is going to do and those qualifying laps are the two most important of the week," the Chico driver commented. "We're going to go into it with a good attitude though and just hope some luck will come our way and we should be alright."
To keep up with Allard's progress this week log onto http://www.allardmotorsports.com and http://www.knoxvilleraceway.com
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After setting a track record and finishing fifth in the main event at the Ocean Speedway on Saturday night Chico's Jonathan Allard will look for a solid week of racing starting tonight at the Front Row Challenge in Oskaloosa, Iowa. Allard will then get set for the 49th annual Knoxville Nationals, where he'll qualify on Wednesday and look for as many points as possible to get into the A-main on Saturday night for the first time. Photo by http://www.graphxdesigns.com
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