By Gary Thomas
Chico, CA – July 7, 2010…Traveling to the Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico, California over the 4th of July weekend Campbell’s Bud Kaeding continued his very strong season thus far in Northern California and drove to a pair of runner up finishes to highlight the two-night show held during the holiday weekend.
Kaeding went into the weekend as the defending winner of the July 4 event at the Silver Dollar bullring and looked to back that up as he gets set to travel back to Indiana this coming week for the start of Indiana Sprint Week.
The 30-year-old wheel-man opened up the double-header of competition this past Saturday night by going out last in the qualifying order, but was still able to rip off the third fastest lap of the session behind Chico drivers’ Jonathan Allard and Ryan Kaplan. Kaeding then started sixth in his heat race and charged forward on the wide surface to score a second place finish and transfer into the main event at the helm of the Alviso Rock, K&N Filters, MPD Racing Products No. 29 Maxim.
With the number zero being drawn for the A-main inversion it put Kaeding on the inside of the second row, but things got off to an extremely slow start as stoppages were seen multiple times prior to the first lap being completed. Following that race officials lined drivers up single file and once racing finally got underway Kaeding carved his way into second behind early leader Jonathan Allard. Using his vast experience on slick and hard-packed surfaces the three-time Silver Crown champ closed in on Allard and shot by in impressive fashion for the lead on lap-four.
Once in front Kaeding tried to extend his advantage over the rest of the field, but a yellow flag with seven-laps down brought things to a halt once again and on the restart he went to the bottom portions of the speedway, which opened the top for Allard to get back by and reclaim the lead. The Campbell driver closed back in a couple of different times in traffic as the race played on, but couldn’t get back by and settled for second at the conclusion of the 25-lapper.
“It was a good run for us tonight, but I just made a little mistake on that restart and let Jonathan get back by me for the lead,” said Kaeding. “Once the rubber came down it made it pretty hard to do anything late in the race, but Jonathan did a good job and never let us have another chance to get by for the lead again. I have to thank all my guys and all our sponsors for continuing to support this 29 team.”
With Saturday complete the BK Motorsports team turned its attention to Sunday nights 4th of July spectacular, which also marked the 19th round of the Golden State Challenge 410 Series season. Coming into the event Kaeding had tallied nine top-five finishes in his 13 series starts and hoped to continue his torrid pace that he has been on for much of the season. After going out last in the qualifying order the first night he went out first on Sunday, but didn’t quite get the kind of laps he was hoping for as his best one of 12.397 placed the Swift Metal Finishing, Factory Kahne, Kaeding Performance sprinter 10th fastest out of 22-cars.
Kaeding then started from the front row in his heat race and led the initial three-laps, before Jonathan Allard was able to get by for the lead. He then dropped one more spot to Alissa Geving a couple of laps later and crossed the stripe in third to put him in the A-main, where he lined up from the outside of row five. When the green lights came on the track surface was similar to the previous night, which forced drivers to be very easy on the throttle and use much finesse on the quarter-mile bullring.
After a handful of laps were complete Kaeding fought his way to seventh and then battled into the top-five just prior to the halfway point in the 30-lap contest. As Kaeding maintained the fifth spot with the race winding down things got hectic when a spinning lapped car forced everyone to make evasive moves and resulted in two cars ahead of him dropping out of the order, which bumped the black No. 29 up to third. When the green lights came on for the final time he went to work on father Brent Kaeding for the runner up spot and was able to slip by with just a lap left as the 13-time King of California had a tire going down quickly.
With the checkered flag waving Bud motored on and crossed under it in second for the second consecutive night to cap a consistent weekend of racing. “The start of the night didn’t go how we wanted it to, but we were able to rebound in the feature so that made it nice and we’re happy to be up here on the podium again,” commented Kaeding, who has finished on the podium in three of his four Silver Dollar Speedway starts in 2010. “We’ve had a great year overall and it’s been a lot of fun out here and I want to thank all the fans that came out to support us all during the weekend.”
Kaeding will now get ready to head back to Indiana and take the wing off for the 23rd annual USAC National Sprint Car Indiana Sprint Week. The big week of racing kicks off this weekend starting Friday night at the Lawrenceburg Speedway, which will be followed by an event at the Gas City I-69 Speedway on Saturday and then the Kokomo Speedway on Sunday. Indiana Sprint Week then takes a couple days off before returning to action for four more nights starting on Wednesday July 14 at the Terra Haute Action Track.
For more information and a selection of merchandise for current USAC Silver Crown Series point leader Bud Kaeding log onto http://www.budkaedingracing.com