From Susan Arnold
LAWRENCEBURG, Ind. (May 27, 2013) – Friends, family and freedom: three great ingredients of Memorial Day. Today we pause to salute those who gave their lives so that we can enjoy life and liberty in this great United States.
Some of the crown jewels of auto racing are contested this weekend including the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte.
The World of Outlaws competed Friday night, May 24 at Charlotte, and tonight
Joey Saldana and the Motter Equipment Fatheadz Eyewear 71M team joined the fast company of 35 other World of Outlaws teams at Lawrenceburg Speedway to test their hammer down, elbows up driving skills for the 27th time this season. Saldana was a 2009 winner at Lawrenceburg.
In preliminary qualifying action, Saldana lapped the 3/8-mile high banked clay oval
in 12.831 seconds placing him 20th in the field.
“The front nose piece on our hood came loose and blew up under the nose wing not allowing the nose wing to do its job to create down force,” said Saldana. “That made the front end light and the car pushed up the track on each corner, killing our time and speed and unfortunately put us behind from the get-go.”
His qualifying time placed the Brownsburg Bullet in the fifth starting position in heat four.
It was an action-packed 10 laps, with Saldana challenging Tim Kaeding for the fourth position early on. A slide job won the fourth spot for Saldana and he began his assault on Sam Hafertepe, Jr. and Kraig Kinser for a three-way battle for third. With two laps to go, Saldana found speed working the bottom of the track, while Kinser was better on the top. At the checkered flag, it was Saldana bringing home the third place finish.
“The team did a great job on the set-up for the heat,” declared Saldana. “We were able to make some aggressive moves on the track and gain two positions. We will be toward the back of the field for the start of the A-main so I hope we will be able to maintain the same maneuverability in the A-Main because we have a lot of traffic to tackle.”
Saldana lined up in the 20th starting berth for the A-Main. The front-runners during the feature were Chad Kemenah, Donny Schatz, Daryn Pittman and Sammy Swindell with a late-race charge by Shane Stewart. With some position swapping and four yellow flags to slow the action, the final laps were exciting as Schatz passed Kemenah to take the lead with eight laps to go. The second place finish was a race coming off turn four on the last lap between Shane Stewart who had worked his way to the front, and Kemenah. The final order at the stripe was Schatz with the win, Stewart in second place and Kemenah in third.
Saldana finished 20th.
“The track changed dramatically between the heat we ran and the A-Main,” said team owner Dan Motter. “The bottom line is we loosened the car just a little bit but it was the wrong direction. We just had no forward drive. We will rebound. Our team has a lot of determination.”
The Outlaws head to Attica Raceway Park in Ohio Friday, May 31.