T.J. Buffenbarger:
Joey Saldana scored the biggest win of his career on Saturday at the 19th annual Kings Royal at the Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio. Joey is now the ninth different driver to wear the crown. Saldana’s previous best finish was a fourth place during his previous eight starts.
After the feature I sat down with Joey Saldana to talk about becoming “King Joey the XIX Saldana”. Joey is pretty mellow, but very candid and to the point. The staff of TJ Slideways.com has seen Saldana since his days of blasting around Indiana with his first yellow and orange #88 car around places as Avilla and Warsaw, Indiana during the start of his career.
TJ: Obviously this has to be the biggest win of your career, tell us about the start of the feature and running down Danny Lasoski?
Joey: “I got a real good start and I just didn’t do anything real stupid, and my guys told me I was pinching the corner off a little too much so I needed to let the car do its thing. So I was just letting the car roll back up the cushion and I could slide guys pretty easy. Then when I got to Danny, I actually ran him down pretty easily and I thought ‘this is going to be nice’ and I think I started trying too hard and cost myself a lot. When we had that red my guys told me to just settle down, be patent, and if I could and try to go around one and two above him. I tried it for a while and I was scared, but after it got cleaned off there I could pretty much around there wide open and it paid off. I don’t think I’d do that for about a $2,000 to win race, it needed to be $50,000!”
TJ: Was running the top very tricky tonight?
Joey: “Very tricky! I had that one long run there where I was running 10-12 laps and got to where I couldn’t hold on there. I just about took myself out hitting the wall a couple of times so I moved back down. I definitely needed that yellow just to get my strength back and to be able to focus on hitting my lines and winning the race.
TJ: Is it anything like you thought it would be, dreaming about this moment?
Joey: “Well, actually (pauses with a big smile), I was just trying to race as if this was just another race. I’m sure on the way home my wife’s going crazy she’ll make me realize that this isn’t just any race. It’s just awesome. I mean, one of my goals was to win the Knoxville Nationals and be the first father and son to win it. I know my Dad tried to win this race a couple times and didn’t get it done. So now I can say I won a big race, he won a big race, and it’s pretty neat.”
Other Notes and Quotes from the Royal
- Saldana’s winner power plant was not the engine with the oversized cylinder heads the team was experimenting with during the season and took delivery of at Eldora in the Spring. “Every time we ran (the motor) it blew up”.
- Drivers making their first Kings Royal start included Chad Kemenah, Kraig Kinser, and surprisingly Brian Paulus (we’re still checking on Brian’s past status). Of this trio of first time starters Kemenah had the best result finishing in ninth.
- Brandon Wimmer also made his first attempt at the Kings Royal during his freshman sprint car campaign. Wimmer missed the feature by two positions.
“It was just really tough to pass in the open track. The good thing though is we didn’t go backwards, and even passed a couple of guys”.
Wimmer’s grandfather Tom Wimmer, long time sprint car owner, was beaming all evening at his Grandson’s progress.
- Butch Schroeder’s Kings Royal came to an abrupt end after exploding a rear tire and “screwing up a lot of stuff” according to Butch.
- After wrenching Boston Reid’s sprinter at the Indiana Sprintweek event at Gas City I-69 Speedway, hired mechanic mercenary Scott Benic was turning wrenches for Craig Dollansky. Joe Gaerte also was sporting a She-Don motorsports team shirt and helping driver Daryn Pittman.
- Gumout Series driver Kurt Winker was spotted amongst the pit spectators on Saturday. Winker was hoping to race at Eldora, but two vicious crashes at Williams Grove and Charlotte have forces Winker to park his team for the time being. Other drivers seen mingling around the crowd were Bud Kaeding and Brad Fox.
- P.J. Chesson just loves coming to Eldora, and makes it clear to anyone who asks just how much.
“Since the first time I came here I just love this place. I love the speed, I love the bank, just everything about it!” said Chesson with his normal enthusiastic personality (Which by the way everyone comes off just the same as it does on television).
Surely picking up a $100,000 payday last August did not hurt his opinion of Eldora. Chesson had a rough night though not making the transfer through his heat and having to run the B-Feature. After making the transfer Chesson worked up to 11th after starting in 18th.
- The box score will show Steve Kinser finishing exactly where he started, in seventh position. Saturday may have been one of the King’s more inspired drives at Eldora. Kinser flipped several times after contact with Jac Haudenschild and was piled into by Paul McMahan after the fact. Kinser stepped out of the car to survey the damage, jumped back into the car, had it pushed to the work area, and returned for the restart. From there Kinser worked his was from the back of the field driving like “the King” passing cars high, low, and through the middle to work back into seventh position.
Kinser is the only driver to have started all 19 Kings Royal feature events. In those 19 starts Kinser has won four times, finished second five times, and third on four separate occasions. Steve’s seventh place run was his first finish outside the top five yet inside the top ten. The most dismal efforts have seen finishes of lucky 13th on two occasions, a pair of 20th place finishes, and one finish in 22nd.
- During the down time between the NRA Ohio Lottery Sprint Invaders feature and the Kings Royal the fans killed the down time by doing the wave. After spectators in turn three felt their fellow race fans in turn one were not quite in the spirit of the moment, a rousing cheer of “Turn one sucks” could be heard clear as day from the northwest end of the speedway. It was not long until turn one got fired up enough to return with a blast of “turn three sucks”. The chanting brought all the teams working hard preparing their cars for the 40-lap royal to a halt, and drivers that were 10 minuets away from racing one of the biggest sprint car races in the world were laughing at the antics. One of the drivers humored by the situation was Danny Lasoski, who appeared pensive before the chanting began. Could it have loosened the Dude up to have a career best run at Eldora? Could have…