PETERSEN MEDIA
One week after picking up his fifth Dave Bradway, Jr memorial, Jonathan Allard came up just short twice, as he ran second to two of the countries up and coming talents during the fifth and sixth stops of the 2012 King of the West Series in Tulare, CA.
“This team is strong, and we showed how consistent we can be by a couple of top two’s this weekend, and taking the point lead,” said Allard.
Friday night saw Allard pace the field with the fifth quickest lap during time trials, putting him in the second heat where he scored a third place finish.
Scoring a fifth place finish in the Dash, Allard would ultimately line his Williams Motorsports entry up in the third row of the 30-lap feature.
Falling back to sixth early, Allard put his entry up on the fence as he worked passed a slew of stout cars and got into the second spot late as he looked to chase down eventual winner, Kyle Larson.
JA would hang on to second, and following Tim Kaeding’s wreck, Allard took over the point lead.
“We had a great car tonight (Friday),” said JA. “Larson was a little better than us, and he was good in the rubber and I congratulate him on his win.”
The series returned to the Thunderbowl on Saturday night, and with 28 cars in the pit area, JA stopped the clocks with the second fastest lap of the night during time trials.
Allard’s third place finish in his heat put him in the dash where he would end up in the eighth spot, putting him in the fourth row of the main.
“It’s good that we’ve been in the dash a lot this year, but we always seem to end up near the back, but seem to find our way to the front in the feature,” said JA.
As the feature got underway, Allard made a couple of early moves to put himself inside the top five.
As the race went single file again as the rubber began to build up on the track, Allard found himself in the third spot behind Larson and Rico Abreu.
On the 26th lap, Larson went up in smoke and brought out the caution, putting JA next to Abreu with just four laps remaining.
Abreu got the jump, and Allard stayed behind him, but wasn’t able to get around the youngster and grabbed his second consecutive second place finish.
“It’s good to be on the front stretch, and it’s cool to see Rico win his firs one with the 410,” said Allard. “We were a solid top-three car tonight and we’ll take this and move on to Calistoga.”
ON TAP: The KWS will now take a weekend off before another weekend double-header at the scenic Calistoga Speedway on Memorial Day Weekend.
STAY CONNECTED: For more information on Jonathan, including upcoming events, pictures, and news please check out www.allardmotorsports.com, or follow JA on twitter @Allard0.