Saldana takes opening night victory in ‘Kasey’s King of Bulls Gap presented by Budweiser’ at Volunteer Speedway; NASCAR superstar Kahne shatters track qualifying record with 140 mph run

BULLS GAP, Tenn. (March 19) — Joey Saldana isn’t quite sure what it is about Volunteer Speedway, but every time he has raced at the blazing fast, ultra high-banked 4/10-mile East Tennessee track he has been in contention for a win. He extended that streak on Friday as he opened “Kasey’s King of Bulls Gap presented by Budweiser” on Friday night with a victory.

Kasey Kahne opened the night by setting a new track record in qualifying at Volunteer Speedway, running a fast-lap of 10.258-seconds (140.378 mph) to obliterate the old mark of 11.672 seconds (held by Terry Gray) by well over a full second in his first 410-sprint car start of 2010. Thirty-four of the 38 cars to time trial ran laps in the 10-second bracket around “The Gap.”

Saldana picked up his second consecutive win with the World of Outlaws at Volunteer Speedway and the third victory of his career at the track in the event which was co-sanctioned with the All Star Circuit of Champions. Saldana was challenged throughout the race by 20-time World of Outlaws champion Steve Kinser, and used a strong restart with five laps remaining to seal the win.

“It feels good to win again,” said Saldana. “Track position was key for me tonight. I felt like we had a really good car on the long runs, but not on the restarts. I definitely have to figure out these double file restarts, because they haven’t helped me yet. I almost gave the race away on that one with Steve (Kinser), but I’ll take it and we’ll come back tomorrow.”

For Saldana the win was his second of 2010 aboard the Budweiser Maxim and he did it with car owner and NASCAR superstar Kasey Kahne in attendance. In addition to promoting Kasey’s King of Bulls Gap presented by Budweiser, which was the first race of the Showdown for the Bud Crown four-race mini-series, Kahne also competed on Friday night, fielding a total of four cars from Kasey Kahne Racing.

“It’s special anytime for a driver when an owner can see what you accomplish on the race track,” noted Saldana. “It’s so hard for him with his schedule to be able to make it to our races and see what we do week in and week out, but he understands it. It’s nice when he is around to see it and appreciate it to run well. He knows what he is doing for us is paying off. He does a lot behind the scenes to make this deal happen. It’s gratifying to run well when he is here.”

Saldana led from the pole and jumped out to an early lead, hitting traffic just five laps into the 35-lapper. He withstood five yellow flags and a red flag, leading each time on the restart. Each time there was a double file restart, he chose the low line and had Steve Kinser try a couple of slide jobs heading into turns one and two in a bid for the lead.

“It would have been a shame if we had lost the race, because I felt like we were getting through lapped traffic really good and were moving around good,” shared Saldana. “Our car was really good. In sprint car racing anything can happen and we almost gave it away tonight.”

Steve Kinser got a strong run on Saldana on a lap-30 double file restart, taking the lead in turns one and two, only to have a red flag fly before the lap was complete, thus leading to a single file restart by way of World of Outlaws rules, because there was two consecutive caution flags before another lap is completed. Following the final single file restart of the night with five laps to go, Kinser was able to close back in on Saldana with two laps to go, but could not quite get a run on him on the final lap, coming home second in the Bass Pro Shops Maxim.

“We had a good run and we have been fast all year, so I can’t complain,” said Kinser. “To come here and not get my blood pressure up is good. I have a bad habit of doing that. I thought I got cheated a little bit on that one restart when they put Danny (Lasoski) back ahead of me, but I was able to get a better run on Joey (Saldana) and caught him asleep and got the lead, but they had a wreck on that lap. I knew the next time Joey wasn’t going to give me that opportunity.”

Danny Lasoski ran up front all night and wound up third in the Casey’s General Stores JEI. He was running fourth on the final restart and was able to get around Brad Sweet to pick up his best career finish at Volunteer Speedway and also matched his best finish of 2010 with the World of Outlaws.

“It was a great run,” Lasoski said. “I can’t thank Lonnie Parsons enough for letting me run this car. We were pretty good there in the feature and were able to hang up there with those guys. We are looking forward to tomorrow night and seeing if we can get a few more spots.”

Brad Sweet finished a very strong fourth in the Auto Value Bumper to Bumper Maxim in his debut at Volunteer Speedway after starting seventh.

Paul McMahan rounded out the Top-Five in the Great Clips Maxim, putting three of the four Kasey Kahne Racing machines entered in the race in the Top-Five.

Donny Schatz came from 14th to finish sixth in the Armor All/STP J&J to earn the KSE Race Products Hard Charger Award. Jason Meyers was seventh aboard the GLR Investments KPC to extend his string of Top-10 finishes to eight on the season. Daryn Pittman was eighth in the Hunter Truck Sales Maxim. Dale Blaney was ninth in the Ti-22 Performance Maxim, with Kraig Kinser rounding out the Top-10 in the Quaker State Maxim.

The World of Outlaws wrap up Kasey’s King of Bulls Gap presented by Budweiser on Saturday, March 20 at Volunteer Speedway with Night 2.

KASEY’S KING OF BULLS GAP NIGHT #1 NOTES

• FAST QUALIFIER: Kasey Kahne paced the 38 cars that took time with a record setting AMB i.t. timed lap around the high-banked four-tenths-mile oval at 10.258 seconds at 140.378 mph. For his qualifying effort, Kahne earned five bonus points. The next four fastest qualifiers also earned bonus points, including: Jason Meyers (4), Kraig Kinser (3), Steve Kinser (2) and Tim Shaffer (1).

• VOLUNTEER SPEEDWAY QUALIFYING WINNERS: Danny Lasoski, Ben Gregg, Brad Sweet and Steve Kinser won heat races. Joey Saldana won the dash. Jason Sides won the B-main.
WORLD OF OUTLAWS SPRINT CAR SERIES – VOLUNTEER SPEEDWAY – BULLS GAP, TN – MARCH 19, 2010

Qualifying

1) 4-Kasey Kahne 10.258
2) 14-Jason Meyers 10.278
3) 11K-Kraig Kinser 10.316
4) 11-Steve Kinser 10.318
5) 83X-Tim Shaffer 10.340
6) 91-Paul McMahan 10.342
7) R19-Jac Haudenschild 10.367
8) 9-Joey Saldana 10.383
9) 6-Danny Lasoski 10.413
10) 15-Donny Schatz 10.433
11) 49-Brad Sweet 10.441
12) 63-Chad Kemenah 10.477
13) 17-Daryn Pittman 10.487
14) 2B-Ben Gregg 10.494
15) 2-Dale Blaney 10.509
16) 3C-Cale Conley 10.509
17) 7S-Jason Sides 10.523
18) 7-Craig Dollansky 10.655
19) 1X-Randy Hannagan 10.659
20) 1-Bronson Maeschen 10.667
21) 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr. 10.672
22) O4-Cap Henry III 10.692
23) 6R-Bill Rose 10.698
24) W20-Greg Wilson 10.702
25) 4K-Kody Kinser 10.710
26) 30C-Lance Dewease 10.717
27) 83-Tim Kaeding 10.746
28) 22-Brian Ellenberger 10.748
29) 45-Rob Chaney 10.778
30) 4X-Toni Lutar 10.820
31) 89G-David Gravel 10.822
32) 5W-Lucas Wolfe 10.830
33) 24-Terry McCarl 10.835
34) 97-Dean Jacobs 10.857
35) 12X-Jared Ridge 11.014
36) 12-Lynton Jeffrey 11.520
37) 312-Mike Linder 11.591
38) 6W-Brad Wickham 12.019

Heat 1 (8 Laps, top 5 finishers transferred to A-feature) - Starting Position [#]

1) 6-Danny Lasoski [2]
2) 17-Daryn Pittman [1]
3) 4-Kasey Kahne [4]
4) 83X-Tim Shaffer [3]
5) 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr. [6]
6) 7S-Jason Sides [5]
7) 45-Rob Chaney [8]
8) 4K-Kody Kinser [7]
9) 312-Mike Linder [10]
10) 24-Terry McCarl [9]

Heat 2 (8 Laps, top 5 finishers transferred to A-feature) - Starting Position [#]

1) 2B-Ben Gregg [1]
2) 91-Paul McMahan [3]
3) 15-Donny Schatz [2]
4) 7-Craig Dollansky [5]
5) 14-Jason Meyers [4]
6) 97-Dean Jacobs [9]
7) 30C-Lance Dewease [7]
8) 4X-Toni Lutar [8]
9) 6W-Brad Wickham [10]
10) O4-Cap Henry III [6]

Heat 3 (8 Laps, top 5 finishers transferred to A-feature) - Starting Position [#]

1) 49-Brad Sweet [2]
2) 2-Dale Blaney [1]
3) 11K-Kraig Kinser [4]
4) R19-Jac Haudenschild [3]
5) 6R-Bill Rose [6]
6) 1X-Randy Hannagan [5]
7) 83-Tim Kaeding [7]
8) 89G-David Gravel [8]
9) 12X-Jared Ridge [9]

Heat 4 (8 Laps, top 5 finishers transferred to A-feature) - Starting Position [#]

1) 11-Steve Kinser [4]
2) 9-Joey Saldana [3]
3) 3C-Cale Conley [1]
4) 63-Chad Kemenah [2]
5) W20-Greg Wilson [6]
6) 5W-Lucas Wolfe [8]
7) 12-Lynton Jeffrey [9]
8) 22-Brian Ellenberger [7]
9) 1-Bronson Maeschen [5]

Dash (6 laps, finishing order determined first 10 starting positions of A-feature) - Starting Position [#]

1) 9-Joey Saldana [2] 
2) 6-Danny Lasoski [1]
3) 11-Steve Kinser [4]
4) 91-Paul McMahan [3]
5) 14-Jason Meyers [5]
6) 4-Kasey Kahne [6]
7) 49-Brad Sweet [7]
8) 17-Daryn Pittman [8]
9) 2B-Ben Gregg [9]
10) 2-Dale Blaney [10]

B-main (12 laps, top 4 finishers transferred to A-feature) - Starting Position [#]

1) 7S-Jason Sides [1]  
2) 1X-Randy Hannagan [2]  
3) 45-Rob Chaney [9] 
4) 24-Terry McCarl [13]  
5) 89G-David Gravel [11]  [$200]
6) 4K-Kody Kinser [5]  [$180]
7) 22-Brian Ellenberger [8]  [$175]
8) 97-Dean Jacobs [14]  [$160]
9) 5W-Lucas Wolfe [12]  [$150]
10) 4X-Toni Lutar [ 10]  [$150]
11) 312-Mike Linder [17]  [$150]
12) 12-Lynton Jeffrey [16]  [$150]
13) 1-Bronson Maeschen [3]  [$150]
14) O4-Cap Henry III [4]  [$150]
15) 30C-Lance Dewease [6]  [$150]
16) 83-Tim Kaeding [7]  [$150]
17) 6W-Brad Wickham [18]  [$150]
18) 12X-Jared Ridge [15]  [$150]

A-main (35 laps) - Starting Position [#]

1) 9-Joey Saldana [1] [$10,000]
2) 11-Steve Kinser [3] [$5,000]
3) 6-Danny Lasoski [2] [$3,000]
4) 49-Brad Sweet [7] [$2,700]
5) 91-Paul McMahan [4] [$2,500]
6) 15-Donny Schatz [14] [$2,200]
7) 14-Jason Meyers [5] [$2,000]
8) 17-Daryn Pittman [8] [$1,800]
9) 2-Dale Blaney [10] [$1,600]
10) 11K-Kraig Kinser [11] [$1,450]
11) 2B-Ben Gregg [9] [$1,300]
12) 7S-Jason Sides [17] [$1,200]
13) 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr. [20] [$1,100]
14) 7-Craig Dollansky [18] [$1,000]
15) 63-Chad Kemenah [15] [$950]
16) 24-Terry McCarl [24] [$900]
17) W20-Greg Wilson [22] [$850]
18) 6R-Bill Rose [21] [$750]
19) 4-Kasey Kahne [6] [$725]
20) 3C-Cale Conley [16] [$700]
21) R19-Jac Haudenschild [13] [$700]
22) 83X-Tim Shaffer [12] [$700]
23) 5W-Lucas Wolfe [26] [$0]
24) 1X-Randy Hannagan [19] [$700]
25) 45-Rob Chaney[23] [$700]
26) 83-Tim Kaeding[25] [$0]

Lap Leaders: Joey Saldana 1-35
KSE Hard Charger Award: Donny Schatz
Penske Power Position Award: Daryn Pittman

Note: Tim Kaeding and Lucas Wolfe used World of Outlaws Provisionals to start the A-Feature.

Shanon Buckingham of Morristown, defending Fastrak Racing Series national champion, cruised to his second consecutive Pro (Crate) Late Model feature win by leading the 25 lap main flag-to-flag. Chasing Buckingham to the checkers were Jerry Broyles, Tim Byrd, Chris Chandler and Todd Brooks

PRO (CRATE) LATE MODEL (25 laps)

1) Shanon Buckingham #50; 2) Jerry Broyles #72; 3) Tim Byrd #24; 4) Chris Chandler #8; 5) Todd Brooks #T1; (Remainder of full-field results following Saturday night’s racing)

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