By Bill W
July 15, 2013 – It wasn’t the big show, but it was the next big thing, as driver Kerry Madsen and the Keneric Racing #29 team took the “Knight Before the King’s Royal” Friday at Eldora Speedway near Rossburg, Ohio. The win was sandwiched by an eighth place showing at the Brad Doty Classic in Lima, Ohio on Thursday, and a sixth place finish at the King’s Royal on Saturday to conclude a solid weekend.
The win on Friday night was well earned. With some of the best drivers in the world in the house, Kerry set quick time, ran second in his heat and fourth in the Dash. “It was an exciting night,” he says. “We were quick time, and the car was good in the heat and the Dash.”
Kerry would start outside row two of the main event. “I got an excellent start in the feature race,” he says. “I was up to third, and I kept trying Joey (Saldana). I got by him, and got to Brad Sweet. I slid him four times, and finally in traffic I had a move that stuck.”
The St. Mary’s, New South Wales driver would never look back from there. “It was thirty laps non-stop, and I pushed as hard as I could every single lap,” says Kerry. “It was a pretty intense race. I didn’t back off, because I thought they were probably close.”
On Thursday at the Brad Doty Classic at Limaland Motorsports Park, Kerry drew a late time that ended in 22nd quick. “We went out late, on a track that was losing time,” he says. “Actually, it was not a bad time for when we came out. We were able to transfer out of the heat (fourth) from there.”
After starting 21st, Kerry put on a charge to finish ninth. “We weren’t very good to be honest, but we got some breaks,” he says. “We were able to get up in the top ten. It was a wild race, like Lima usually is. I think we were sixth or seventh at one stage…we just couldn’t hang on, and ended up ninth.”
Saturday night’s King’s Royal started well enough. “We were able to qualify well (3rd quick),” says Kerry. “We had a good heat race. The problem was, (Donny) Schatz started on the front row, so we were second.”
The format saw Kerry start ninth in the feature. “We had a really good racecar,” he says. “I raced (Jac) Haud(enschild) hard for ten laps. I slid him about four times and just couldn’t make a move. I was a lot quicker; I just couldn’t get up to play with those guys. Maybe if we had some things go differently, we would have had a car that could have won.”
In the end, he would checker seventh. “You know how things go,” says Kerry. “You need the breaks to go your way. They just didn’t that night. Chad Kemenah blew a tire in front of us and we were involved. Fortunately, there was an open red and we were able to put new wings on. We had to drop a couple of spots because of the Outlaws wing rule, but we ran seventh. That’s the way it was.”
It’s another busy week for the World of Outlaws. Tuesday night will be the annual trip to the Lernerville Speedway near Sarver, Pennsylvania for the Don Martin Memorial Silver Cup Twins. The Williams Grove Summer Nationals will be in central Pennsylvania on Friday and Saturday, before the series heads to Lebanon Valley Speedway in New York on Sunday and Rolling Wheels Raceway Park next Tuesday. “There’s a lot of racing coming up this month,” says Kerry. “It’s a good time to be running well. Our confidence is up right now. That being said, Williams Grove is Williams Grove. You could win or not make the show.”
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