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Broken tie rod slows Stephen Allard in Chico

By Gary Thomas

Chico, CA - August 15, 2007...Chico’s Stephen Allard suffered through misfortune for the second Friday in a row at Silver Dollar Speedway as a broken tie rod took him out of contention while running in the second position in the feature event.

After qualifying 10^th fastest in the field of 27 cars during the third to final point race of the season at Silver Dollar Speedway, the 34 year-old driver lined up in the fifth row of the 25 lap feature. A sticky and hooked up surface was seen all night, but it had developed some rough spots which caught a lot teams off guard judging by the extreme amount cautions and reds.

Stephen avoided all the carnage early on and took over the second position after a handful of laps were completed, but a caution less than a lap after forced him to go back to the third spot. When the leader spun off the track on lap 11, it bumped Stephen up to second. That’s as high as he could get up however, as a broken tie rod forced him to pull to a stop and it put him out of the race.

It was the second straight week that Stephen and 1m Racing suffered a dnf but Sean Becker, the driver that sits second in points, also suffered through misfortune as engine problems put him out of the race. The result is that Stephen actually gained points on Becker with just two point races left before the Silver Dollar Speedway track champion is crowned during Coke night on August 24.

With just two point races left Stephen will go into the penultimate event this Friday with a 45 point lead over Becker and a 57 point cushion over third place Andy Gregg. SA has never won a solo track championship at Silver Dollar, but he was a co-track champ in 1996 with Chico legend Shane Scott.

1M Racing would like to thank all of our sponsors and people who have supported us this season. Hopefully all the hard work will be payed off with a championship in two weeks. We’ll look to get back on track this Friday and try to start building some momentum for the Gold Cup which is coming up less than one month.

For all the latest news and info on Stephen Allard and 1m Racing log onto http://www.stephenallard.com

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