PETERSEN MEDIA
The Petaluma Speedway wasn’t very kind to Kyle Hirst, as he scratched and clawed his way to a ninth place finish on Saturday night with the King of the West Series.
“You will have these kind of nights with a series like the King of the West, but we will go to work, and hopefully get back up front this weekend,” Hirst said.
The night got off to a rough start for Hirst, as he was off in qualifying, and timed the Roth Enterprises/HR Livestock Transportation/3H Cattle machine in 12th quick, just making the heat race inversion.
“We timed in horribly, but we were fortunate enough to make the inversion,” he said.
Starting on the front row of his heat, the Sacramento, CA driver, got the jump, and picked up the heat win, and transferred into the dash, but the car still didn’t feel right to him.
As luck would have it, Hirst ended up with the 8 pill for the dash, and he continued to struggle, as he fought a very tight racecar, and ended up scoring an eight place finish on the hooked up track.
Going to work on his machine before the feature, the Roth Motorsports team threw wholesale changes to their car hoping to get a piece that Hirst could navigate his way to the front in.
Starting in the fourth row, Hirst slowly worked his way inside the top five, as passing was tough on the 3/8 mile track.
Running fifth on a lap 26 restart, Hirst bicycled in turns one and two when they got back underway, and saw a flock of cars get passed, and slipped back to the ninth spot, where he finished.
“We just really struggled with the track being so heavy,” Hirst said. “Sunny and Kyle were busy all night, and we were hoping to escape with a top five, but we bicycled at the end of the night, and slipped back to the ninth spot.”
Kyle and his Roth Motorsports team would like to thank Roth Enterprises, HR Livestock Transportation, 3H Cattle, Mobil1, FK Rod Ends, Weld Wheels, Brown and Miller Racing Solutions, Kent Performance Center, Kaeding Performance, and Astro Titanium for their support.
2013 ROTH MOTORSPORTS BY THE NUMBERS: Starts-18, Wins-1, Top 5’s-6, Top-10’s-10
2013 BY THE NUMBERS: Starts-30, Wins-1, Top 5’s-9, Top 10’s-18
ON TAP: Hirst and his Roth Motorsports team will now head to the Reno Tahoe Fernley Speedway in Fernley, NV for two KWS shows this weekend.
STAY CONNECTED: Stay connected with the Roth Motorsports team by visiting www.rothmotorsports83.com. You can also follow Kyle on Twitter @KyleHirstRacing.