Saldana Wins at Dodge City after Three Hour Rain Delay

Dodge City, KS – Mother Nature tried her best to slow down Joey Saldana after his win on Friday night, as heavy rain led to a three delay on Saturday night after the first seven laps of the A-Feature were in the books for the World of Outlaws at Dodge City Raceway Park. Saldana was out front when the rains hit and he and his team overcame a blown engine during hot laps leading up to the resumption of the race, to lead the remaining laps to sweep the Boot Hill Showdown with the cameras from SPEED capturing all the action.

Saldana has four career wins at Dodge City to lead all drivers and also leads the series this season with 10 A-Feature wins in 2009. He used the victory in the finale of the Boot Hill Showdown to move into the second spot in the World of Outlaws championship standings as he chases his first career title aboard the Budweiser Maxim.

“My guys did an awesome job,” said Saldana. “We blew up in hot laps and made a pretty quick motor change. We didn’t get to work on our car and definitely didn’t have the best car. I guess we led the lap that mattered most. My guys did a tremendous job tonight. I don’t know too many teams that could have pulled that off. This all goes out to them.”

Saldana started second and charged to the lead with Donny Schatz chasing him in the early going. The first stoppage of the night occurred on the fifth lap when the red flag flew for a Ben Gregg flip and was followed a lap later with another red for a hard accident involving Jason Meyers, who was running fourth and had something break on the car sending him into the turn four wall. Just one lap later, the red flag flew again, this time for rain.

“I watched a little TV and was hoping we would get it in,” said the winner of what he did during the delay. “This is a great facility and it would have been a shame to have lost it to rain, so I am glad we got it in.”

When the race resumed, some three hours and 22 minutes later, Saldana quickly pulled out to a sizeable lead over Schatz. The pair got to lapped traffic late in the race, with Schatz gaining ground over the last few laps. With just two laps to go, Schatz ran side-by-side with Saldana through turns one and two, with the latter pulling away on the back straightaway. On the final lap, Schatz went high off turn four and came up just 18-thousandths of a second short at the line.

“That was the only chance I really had, when we got to a little traffic,” said Schatz. “It was just one of those nights.”

Schatz wound up second in the Armor All J&J and retained the lead in the World of Outlaws championship standings.

A standing room only crowd was on hand for the event, with a hearty bunch waiting out the rain delay to see Saldana pick up the 49th win of his World of Outlaws career. He is now just two behind Jac Haudenschild for eighth on the all-time list.

“Thank you guys for staying,” said the second generation driver to the diehard fans that stuck out the delay. “It sure was some crazy weather tonight. This is a great facility and you are lucky to have it, so support it every week. Hopefully we’ll get to come back next year.”

Sam Hafertepe Jr. battled Schatz for second early in the race taking the spot on the opening lap in turn two, with the latter retaking the position down the back straightaway. For Hafertepe, it was his third Top-Five finish of the season in the Fusion Energy Boost machine.

“Everyone stuck it out tonight and they did a heck of a job getting the track back in shape,” said Hafertepe. “I wish we could have gotten it in before the rain. I appreciate all the fans for sticking around. It’s great to come to a facility like this and hopefully we’ll come back next year.”

After a hard flip on Friday night, Hafertepe and his crew worked hard all day to rebuild their car and were fast right out of the box on Saturday, setting fast time in qualifying for the first time in 2009. He came from fourth to finish second in the first heat race to earn a spot in the Crane Cams Dash, where he ran third to earn a second row starting spot in the 30-lap contest.

“We thought we lost this car last night and it’s a blessing that this car is so fast,” said the native of Sunnyvale, Texas. “We’ve been so good with this thing and everything is going right for us right now. We’re just happy to be going to some tracks we know and hopefully we can put together some more strong runs.”

Tim Kaeding finished fourth in the DTR Transport KPC, with Kansas native Tony Bruce Jr. in fifth. Jason Sides was sixth in the Wetherington Tractor Service Maxim. Danny Lasoski was seventh aboard the Casey’s General Store Maxim, with Sammy Swindell eighth piloting the Tom Rolfe Trucking Maxim. Kraig Kinser was ninth in the Bass Pro Shops Maxim with Craig Dollansky rounding out the Top-10 in the DirecTV Maxim.

The World of Outlaws return to action on Friday, June 19 at River Cities Speedway in Grand Forks, North Dakota in the opener of the annual Duel in the Dakotas.

Heat 1 (8 Laps, top 5 finishers transferred to A-feature)
1) 10-Sammy Swindell 2) 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr. 3) 7S-Jason Sides 4) 22B-Ben Gregg 5) 36-Jason Martin 6) 97X-Tommy Worley 7) 15K-Kerry McAlister 8) 33W-Travis Wieden

Heat 2 (8 Laps, top 5 finishers transferred to A-feature)
1) 1X-Gary Lee Maier 2) 6-Danny Lasoski 3) 19-Craig Dollansky 4) 15-Donny Schatz 5) 5W-Lucas Wolfe 6) 50Z-Zack Chappell 7) 1-Dennis Park 8) 33-Kris Miller

Heat 3 (8 Laps, top 5 finishers transferred to A-feature)
1) 83-Tim Kaeding 2) 20-Kraig Kinser 3) R19-Jac Haudenschild 4) 21AU-Brooke Tatnell 5) 45K-Kolt Walker 6) 11K-Tyler Knight 7) 72-Steven Richardson 8) 22-Brian Ellenberger

Heat 4 (8 Laps, top 5 finishers transferred to A-feature)
1) 9-Joey Saldana 2) 18-Tony Bruce Jr 3) 14-Jason Meyers 4) 11-Steve Kinser 5) 97-Brian Herbert 6) D12-Doc Sloan 7) 30-Brant O’Banion

Crane Cams Dash (6 laps, finishing order determined first 10 starting positions of A-feature)
1) 15-Donny Schatz 2) 9-Joey Saldana 3) 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr. 4) 14-Jason Meyers 5) 83-Tim Kaeding 6) 18-Tony Bruce Jr. 7) 10-Sammy Swindell 8) 1X-Gary Lee Maier 9) 6-Danny Lasoski 10) 20-Kraig Kinser

B-main (10 laps, top 4 finishers transferred to A-feature)
1) 97X-Tommy Worley 2) 50Z-Zack Chappell 3) 30-Brant O’Banion 4) 15K-Kerry McAlister 5) 1-Dennis Park [$200] 6) 72-Steven Richardson [$180] 7) 33-Kris Miller [$175] 8) D12-Doc Sloan [$160] 9) 22-Brian Ellenberger [$150] 10) 11K-Tyler Knight [$150] 11) 33W-Travis Wieden [$150]

A-main (30 laps) – Starting Position [#]
1) 9-Joey Saldana[2] [$10,000] 2) 15-Donny Schatz[1] [$5,000] 3) 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr.[3] [$3,000] 4) 83-Tim Kaeding[5] [$2,700] 5) 18-Tony Bruce Jr[6] [$2,500] 6) 7S-Jason Sides[11] [$2,200] 7) 6-Danny Lasoski[9] [$2,000] 8) 10-Sammy Swindell[7] [$1,800] 9) 20-Kraig Kinser[10] [$1,600] 10) 19-Craig Dollansky[12] [$1,450]  11) R19-Jac Haudenschild[13] [$1,300] 12) 11-Steve Kinser[14] [$1,200] 13) 21AU-Brooke Tatnell[24] [$1,100] 14) 36-Jason Martin[15] [$1,000] 15) 1X-Gary Lee Maier[8] [$950] 16) 45K-Kolt Walker[21] [$900] 17) 5W-Lucas Wolfe[17] [$850] 18) 30-Brant O”Banion[18] [$750] 19) 50Z-Zack Chappell[20] [$725] 20) 97X-Tommy Worley[19] [$700] 21) 15K-Kerry McAlister[23] [$700] 22) 14-Jason Meyers[4] [$700] 23) 22B-Ben Gregg[16] [$700] 24) 97-Brian Herbert[22] [$700]

Lap Leaders: Joey Saldana 1-30

SuperClean Start of the Night Award: Sam Hafertepe Jr.
Penske Power Position Award: Sam Hafertepe Jr.
KSE Hard Charger Award: Brooke Tatnell