From Tony Veneziano
LaSalle, IL-July 9, 2010- Jason Meyers has received some unique trophies over the years for winning races and added another one to that collection on Thursday night, as he claimed the title in the Showdown for the Bud Crown, picking up a large shiny silver metal crown, filled with bottles of Budweiser. In addition to the crown, he pocketed $9,000 from the $15,000 bonus that the Top-Three in the mini-series standings split with Paul McMahan second and 20-time series champion Steve Kinser third.
The difference between Meyers and McMahan after the four races wound up being just four points, which was one single position on the race track, though Meyers held the tiebreaker if it would have come down to that, having won Round 2 of the Showdown for the Bud Crown at Volunteer Speedway in Tennessee back in March.
“It’s really a neat deal for companies like Budweiser and someone like Kasey Kahne to get behind our sport and to come out here and put some races on for us with this mini-series,” shared Meyers after Kahne presented him the title on Thursday night. “It was really great that they did this and we are very thankful to them. We’ve been working really hard this season and had a very good start to the year and hopefully this is a sign of things to come.”
Meyers was the most consistent driver that competed during the four Showdown for the Bud Crown events, in all aspects of the night, as drivers earned event points not only for the feature event, but also for time trials and heat races.
The native of Clovis, California finished first, sixth, seventh and eighth aboard the GLR Investments KPC in the four A-Feature events, as well as was being quickest in time trials in two Bud Crown races and was among the Top-Two in qualifying in three of the races and seventh in the other, which set him apart from McMahan and Kinser. Meyers finished in the Top-Three in three of the heats races he took part in during the Showdown for the Bud Crown and was among the Top-Five in all four heat races during the mini-series.
“It was very important each time we hit the track with the event points that were earned,” he noted. “I wasn’t exactly sure where we stood in this thing until about a week ago. Right now we are just worried about winning the World of Outlaws championship and this is just a bonus on top of it.”
Kasey’s King of LaSalle on Thursday night brought the World of Outlaws back to LaSalle Speedway for the first time since 2004, before one of the largest crowds in track history on what turned out to be a very nice night weather-wise. Meyers entered the race at LaSalle with just one career start at the high-banked ¼-mile bullring, with that coming in 2004, when he finished fifth. He quickly got up to speed in his return to the track and raced his way into the dash to earn a Top-10 starting spot in the main event, eventually finishing eighth.
“It was completely different than the last time we were here,” he explained of the track surface on Thursday night. “It was a very racy track here tonight. My hat is off to the guys at SLS (Promotions) for giving us a great surface to race on. We didn’t exactly have the race car we wanted tonight, and definitely did not the finish quite where we wanted, but we’ll work on that for the next race.”
The Showdown for the Bud Crown tested drivers on three very different types of race tracks. The first two rounds were at the ultra high-banked Volunteer Speedway in Bulls Gap, Tennessee and Round 3 was at the big half-mile of Missouri State Fair Speedway in Sedalia. The finale at LaSalle was held on a high-banked ¼-mile bullring.
“That’s what the World of Outlaws is all about, going to different tracks,” Meyers stated. “Versatility is what it takes to adapt and to adapt quickly. You have a lot of teams out here that do a great job at what they do and some of the toughest competition in the world is out here. You have to adapt and this mini-series showed exactly how that worked.”
Final Showdown for the Bud Crown Standings
1. Jason Meyers [$9,000] 2090
2. Paul McMahan [$4,000] 2086
3. Steve Kinser [$2,000] 2043
4. Donny Schatz 2034
5. Danny Lasoski 1967
6. Jason Sides 1932
7. Kraig Kinser 1925
8. Joey Saldana 1920
9. Chad Kemenah 1875
10. Sam Hafertepe Jr. 1848