By Bill W, Jeff Bylsma Photo
September 21, 2011 – Kaley Gharst teamed with Valley Springs, South Dakota owner Jeremy Scadden and his #6 team for a pair of World of Outlaws events last weekend. After qualifying for both features, the team is looking towards Saturday’s 1st Annual Loren Barstad Memorial at the Jackson Speedway in Jackson, Minnesota.
Scadden contacted the Decatur, Illinois driver to run shows with the WoO at the Clay County Fair Speedway in Spencer, Iowa on Friday, and at the Deer Creek Speedway near Spring Valley, Minnesota on Saturday. “We got the call late Wednesday night to go up there last weekend,” says Kaley. “It was good to get to some different tracks and away from the normal ones we run. I’d like to thank Jeremy and Brad Sparks for giving me the opportunity to run the car.”
At Spencer, Kaley qualified 20th and ran sixth in the heat. “I made a couple of mistakes in qualifying that hurt us a bit,” he says. “We had a good run in the heat race. I went to the bottom to try and get by (Mark) Dobmeier, and the motor stumbled a bit. I got freight-trained from there.”
The B main went well before a mechanical problem sidelined Kaley for the feature. “The motor had been a little rich and we fixed that for the B,” he says. “We were able to get the transfer out of that. We went into the A, and we had a problem with the fuel line. We had to sit it out after we took the green there.”
At Deer Creek, Kaley qualified 22nd and was fighting with Davey Heskin for the sixth and final transfer in the heat after starting eighth. “We had a good race there with Davey for the last transfer spot,” he says. “He ended up getting me up top with a lap and a half to go. That put us in the B main again.”
Kaley qualified easily through the B, and lined up in row eleven for the main event. “We were making some decent progress in the feature,” he says. “We got together with (Dustin) Selvage there and we both spun out. We were able to come back and get 19th or whatever we got. It’s too bad, because we had the car going pretty good up to the point where we spun.”
The driver and owner will team up again for Saturday’s Loren Barstad Memorial at Jackson. “Saturday, we really started going, and getting things figured out,” says Kaley. “We were definitely a lot better than Friday. Hopefully, we can carry that over into Jackson this Saturday night.”
Keep an eye on Kaley’s progress this week and beyond at www.KaleyGharst.com!
If you would like to receive Kaley’s weekly releases, send an e-mail with the subject line “Kaley” to sprntcar@iowatelecom.net.
Kaley and car owners Randy and Lori Plath would like to thank Sebastian Powder Coating and Sandblasting, Holtkamp Truck and Trailer Repair, Nelson’s Catering, Pieper Inc., Lange Chiropractic, Rockstar Graphics, Scott Performance, Midland Performance, Winters Performance Products and GPC Race Products.