By T.J. Buffenbarger
Rossburg, OH – (July 13, 2013) – Brad Sweet overcame early advercity to win the 30th Annual Kings Royal sprint car feature Saturday night at Eldora Speedway. After a poor qualifying effort and changing engines Sweet won his heat race and went on to lead all 40 laps holding off repeated challenges from Donny Schatz.
“Those were the longest 15 laps. I knew it was 15, and that’s a long heat race and I was just counting them down,” said Sweet. “I knew when I would get out in clear air I would pull away because my car was really good so as long as I didn’t mess up I wasn’t going to get passed. I just wanted to time getting by those lapped cars at the end. I thought someone might be closing in.”
Brandon Wimmer and Brad Sweet started on the front row for the 40-lap Kings Royal feature event. Sweet took the lead with Wimmer and Schatz taking chase. Sweet opened up a sizeable lead until encountering slower traffic. This allowed Wimmer, Schatz, and Tim Keading to close in. By lap eight Wimmer caught Sweet in the traffic and threw a slide job to take the lead down the backstretch. Sweet countered and crossed over and threw his own slide job, retaking the lead in turns three and four. Schatz joined in the fun on lap 11 as the trio raced three wide on both ends of the race track for the lead with Sweet holding the top spot.
While working lap 17 Steve Kinser and Tony Stewart made contact with Stewart flipping in turn four. Stewart emerged from his car uninjured and agitated with his teammate.
Schatz challenged Sweet for the lead racing side by side for half a lap before Schatz tried to pull the slide job on Sweet, but could not make the pass. This allowed Sweet to open up a five car length lead over Schatz. Meanwhile Wimmer had his hands racing Kaeding for the third spot.
Just after Chad Kemenah moved into the fifth position he flipped between turns one and two and collected Paul McMahan. Kerry Madsen also suffered top wing damage in the incident. Kemenah emerged from his car uninjured.
After the open red flag for crews to refuel and work on the cars Sweet chose the inside lane for the double file restart after using the outside late successfully under the previous restart. Before a lap was complete Brian Brown and Rico Abreu made contact during the restart with Abreu sliding to a stop with front end damage to bring out the caution flag.
Because a lap was not complete and the caution was for contact between cars a single file restart was executed and allowed Sweet to motor away. While Sweet pulled away Kaeding started to run down Schatz. As Sweet approached slower traffic with five laps to go Kaeding and Schatz started to race for second and allowed him to pull away to the victory. Kaeding took second from Schatz at the finish line while Wimmer and Jac Haudenschild rounded out the top five.
McMahan was the fastest qualifier over the 42 car field with a lap of 13.132 second with an average speed of 137.070 miles per hour. Dale Blaney, Joey Saldana, Schatz, Kaeding, Sweet, and Wimmer won heat race events. Sammy Swindell won the B-Main.
30th Annual Kings Royal
STP World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series
Eldora Speedway – New Weston, OH
Saturday July 13, 2013
Qualifications:
1. 51 – Paul McMahan, 13.132;
2. 71m – Joey Saldana, 13.210;
3. 29 – Kerry Madsen, 13.279;
4. 59 – Jac Haudenschild, 13.332;
5. 6 – David Gravel, 13.399;
6. 21 – Brian Brown, 13.408;
7. 7 – Craig Dollansky, 13.411;
8. 1 – Sammy Swindell, 13.425;
9. 15K – Sam Hafertepe, Jr. , 13.435;
10. 9 – Daryn Pittman, 13.436;
11. 11K – Kraig Kinser, 13.440;
12. 14 – Tony Stewart, 13.448;
13. 63 – Chad Kemenah, 13.464;
14. 24 – Rico Abreu, 13.467;
15. 15 – Donny Schatz, 13.484;
16. 11N – Randy Hannagan, 13.499;
17. 4 – Cody Darrah, 13.524;
18. 9W – Brandon Wimmer, 13.534;
19. 2 – Dale Blaney, 13.563;
20. 83 – Tim Shaffer, 13.586;
21. 1S – Logan Schuchart, 13.606;
22. 83 – Tim Kaeding, 13.615;
23. 2L – Ed Lynch, Jr. , 13.621;
24. 97 – Dean Jacobs, 13.629;
25. 3G – Shane Stewart, 13.632;
26. 7s – Jason Sides, 13.633;
27. 11 – Steve Kinser, 13.638;
28. 45 – Danny Holtgraver, 13.639;
29. 24H – Bryan Sebetto, 13.657;
30. 82 – Jason Solwold, 13.675;
31. W20 – Greg Wilson, 13.676;
32. 55x – James McFadden, 13.693;
33. 6R – Bill Rose, 13.699;
34. 4S – Danny Smith, 13.717;
35. 49 – Brad Sweet, 13.744;
36. 40 – Caleb Helms, 13.776;
37. 33m – Sheldon Haudenschild, 13.859;
38. 1A – Jacob Allen, 13.964;
39. OO – Jim Nier, 14.029;
40. 2M – Dallas Hewitt, 14.221;
41. 60 – Kory Crabtree, 14.228;
42. 96AU – Bruce White, 14.905;
Heat Race #1 (8 Laps): 1. Dale Blaney, 2. Chad Kemenah, 3. Paul McMahan, 4. Craig Dollansky, 5. Greg Wilson, 6. Shane Stewart, 7. Sheldon Haudenschild. (First three finishers transferred to the A-Main)
Heat Race #2 (8 Laps): 1. Joey Saldana, 2. Tim Shaffer, 3. Rico Abreu, 4. Sammy Swindell, 5. James McFadden, 6. Jason Sides, 7. Jacob Allen.
Heat Race #3 (8 laps): 1. Donny Schatz, 2. Kerry Madsen, 3. Steve Kinser, 4. Sam Hafertepe, Jr., 5. Logan Schuchart, 6. Bill Rose, 7. Jim Neir.
Heat Race #4 (8 Laps): 1. Tim Kaeding, 2. Jac Haudenschild, 3. Daryn Pittman, 4. Danny Holtgraver, 5. Randy Hannagan, 6. Dallas Hewitt, 7. Danny Smith.
Heat Race #5 (8 Laps): 1. Brad Sweet, 2. Kraig Kinser, 3. Cody Darrah, 4. David Gravel, 5. Brian Sebetto, 6. Ed Lynch, Jr., 7. Kory Crabtree.
Heat Race #6 (8 Laps): 1. Brandon Wimmer, 2. Tony Stewart, 3. Brian Brown, 4. Dean Jacobs, 5. Jason Solwold, 6. Caleb Helms. DNS: Bruce White.
Fastest qualifiers that did not transfer through the heats: David Gravel, Craig Dollansky (Earned the 17th and 18th starting positions in the feature)
B-Main (12 Laps): 1. Sammy Swindell, 2. Danny Holtgraver, 3. Shane Stewart, 4. Greg Wilson, 5. Randy Hannagan, 6. James McFadden, 7. Sam Hafertepe, Jr., 8. Brian Sebetto, 9. Jason Solwold, 10. Dean Jacobs, 11. Ed Lynch, Jr., 12. Jason Sides, 13. Logan Schuchart, 14. Caleb Helms, 15. Dallas Hewitt, 16. Jacob Allen, 17. Bill Rose, 18. Kory Crabtree, 19. Danny Smith, 20. Jim Nier. DNS: Bruce White, Sheldon Haudenschild. (First four finishers transferred to the A-Main)
A-Main (40 Laps): 1. Brad Sweet, 2. Tim Kaeding, 3. Donny Schatz, 4. Brandon Wimmer, 5. Jac Haudenschild, 6. Kraig Kinser, 7. Kerry Madsen, 8. Steve Kinser, 9. David Gravel, 10. Dale Blaney, 11. Tim Shaffer, 12. Craig Dollansky, 13. Daryn Pittman, 14. Shane Stewart, 15. Sammy Swindell, 16. Greg Wilson, 17. Brian Brown, 18. Paul McMahan, 19. Chad Kemenah, 20. Rico Abreu, 21. Danny Holtgraver, 22. Joey Saldana, 23. Cody Darrah, 24. Tony Stewart.
Lap Leaders: Sweet 1-40