By Lee Elder
BARBERVILLE, Fla. (Feb. 7, 2010) – No driver has been more consistent during the sprint car portion of the annual DIRTcar Nationals at Volusia Raceway Park this week than Joey Saldana, the Brownsburg, Ind., racer who drives for NASCAR star Kasey Kahne.
Saldana has won once and finished second twice in three races. He took second in Saturday’s season opener for the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series, narrowly losing to Donny Schatz. The first two sprint car outings of the DIRTcar Nationals were O’Reilly All Star Circuit of Champions races.
Goodyear is the exclusive tire provider for the rear tires for both the Outlaws and All Stars programs.
“The tires have been really good,” Saldana said. “I think they’ve been better than what people have given them credit for. They’ve done a great job, right out of the box.”
Saldana started near the front Saturday but had to work through traffic before he could chase Schatz for the top spot.
“I started seventh (tonight) and finished second, started eighth the other night and ran second, I started fifth and won,” Saldana said. “My tires have been very consistent. I feel really good with them.”
Saturday, Steve Kinser finished third, Jason Meyers was fourth and Tim Shaffer came home fifth. The season opener drew 37 cars to the Outlaws pits and a large crowd to the grandstands.
“After three nights of racing here at Volusia, our Goodyear Eagles have shown a wide range of race ability,” said Justin Fantozzi, Goodyear’s marketing manager for global race tires. “The tires have allowed the cars to race both high and low on the track. As exciting as the racing was tonight, I can’t wait to see how well they’ll race in 30 days’ time, when the teams will have had time to fine-tune their chassis to our Eagles.”
The sprint car portion of the DIRTcar Nationals concludes Sunday.
More information about Goodyear Racing is available at www.racegoodyear.com. More information about the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series is available at www.worldofoutlaws.com.