By Troy Hennig
CHICO, CA – September 26, 2011…The top seven drivers in the traveling Golden State King of the West 410 winged sprint car division are all entered into this weekends 19th Annual Pacific Sprint Fall Nationals at the Silver Dollar Speedway. The first year traveling series features the best 410 sprint car drivers in the State of California. Current point leader, Tim Kaeding, is coming off his big win last weekend at Placerville Speedway and could be considered the odds on favorite to win it all. Kaeding clean swept last year’s event and is currently second on the all-time wins list at Chico. Scotts Valley’s Evan Suggs, Campbell’s Brent Kaeding, Chico’s Jonathan Allard, Grass Valley’s Jason Statler, Sacramento’s Willie Croft and Placerville’s Andy Gregg are all prepared to try and show the rest of the field that they are the top sprint car drivers on the West Coast.
“We have had a successful first year,” said Director of Communications Gary Thomas. “Sixteen full-time drivers have followed our schedule in 2011 and it has been the best level of competition that the 410’s have had in years.” He continued by saying, “With this tough of a field for the Fall Nationals anything is possible; however, I have to give the slight edge to one of our guys winning it all.”
Thomas is also adding Kyle Larson as one of his. The 2010 reigning King of California comes into the Fall Nationals as the hottest driver in the country. Fresh off his sweep of the Four Crown USAC event at Eldora, Larson will be piloting the same Stadelhoffer Construction / Kaeding Performance #99 that he just recently won the Gold Cup with. Larson has been the crown jewel on Speed TV recently getting quite the publicity on SPEED CENTER and Wind Tunnel. Most in the media are calling him the next can’t miss driver to make the jump into NASCAR or Indy Car Racing.
Tim Kaeding is the man in charge when it comes to this year’s version of the King of the West Series. Six wins this year and he has a big enough point lead to all but wrap up the title once he qualifies at the Cotton Classic in October. The last three King of the West events have been won by Kaeding and as we noted earlier, Kaeding won the Al Hinds Civil War tribute race at Placerville on this past Saturday night.
The weekend’s races will pay tribute to Mike “carwash” Avilla. Mike passed earlier this week and our whole community has been saddened by his loss. While Mike loved all forms of sprint car racing, he had a close relationship with many of the King of the West drivers. Avilla’s love for the sport and the many friends he made were not just confined to Northern California. His Iowa Racing Family has come together and raised a substantial amount of money to present to each night’s Hard Luck Award. Chad Adams and his group from Iowa knew that Mike liked to give money to the guys that were not always the winners. “Mike enjoyed handing out money to help a racer get to the next race,” said Adams. “In honor of Mike, we wanted to be involved with the tribute race for him and contribute something from his Iowa Racing Family.” Each night the award will be given to the driver with the worst luck or hardest crash. On Friday night the award will pay $200 and Saturday night will pay $285. We here at Silver Dollar Speedway want to extend our thanks to the Iowa fans and their thoughtfulness about Mike Avilla.
For race drivers and teams interested in registering for the Fall National you can download the flier at www.silverdollarspeedway.com. More information about this weekend of racing please contact the office at 530-350-7275.