PETERSEN MEDIA
The Trophy Cup is a rare occasion where the winner of the race often gets overshadowed, but Saturday night, Kyle Hirst made sure that wasn’t the case as the Sacramento, CA driver earned his ninth win of 2012 by charging from the 17th starting spot.
Sitting eight in Trophy Cup points heading into the 50-lap finale, Hirst’s sole focus was to win the race, and see how the cars fell points wise, when the dust settled.
Starting in the ninth row, Hirst put it all on the line as he took to the mighty Thunderbowl aboard his Roth Motorsports No.83jr entry.
When the race went green, KH quickly made his presence known as he was in the top-10 by just the eight circuit, doing it very quietly as all eyes were on the back of the field for the points battle.
A yellow flew on the 17th lap, then turned to the scheduled open red for fuel, and Hirst sat in the ninth spot.
Hirst’s pace slowed down, as he crept up to the seventh spot as the drivers saw the cross flags from the flagman.
As his teammate, Jac Haudenschild flipped on the 36th lap Hirst continued his slow charge to the front, as he sat in the fourth spot behind Jason Meyers.
With second running Jayme Barnes getting into the wall on the 37th lap, KH took over the third spot, as he then got around Meyers on the restart, to take over the second spot.
The 42nd lap saw race long leader, Dominic Scelzi get into the fence, and Hirst was able to capitalize and grab the point with just eight laps to go.
Over the final eight laps, Hirst continued to be flawless as he picked up the very impressive win, and ended his weekend fourth in points.
“I can’t say enough about this team,” Hirst said. “Dennis and Theresa Roth gave me a great opportunity towards the end of the year, and Todd Ventura and all my guys worked their tails off all weekend with three cars here, and it’s just awesome to win this race.”
Hirst kicked the weekend off on Friday night by timing in 19th fastest, scoring a fifth place finish in his heat, and scoring a fourth place finish in the feature event.
Kyle and his Roth Motorsports team would like to thank HR Cattle, and HR Livestock Transportation for their support in 2012.
ON TAP: Hirst is now hoping to solidify a ride for this weekends race in Calistoga, CA.