By Gary Thomas
Chico, CA – June 6, 2014…Chico, CA resident Kyle Hirst put on a thrilling charge from the 16th starting spot Friday night at the 2nd annual David Tarter Memorial to claim his second straight King of the West 410 Sprint Car Series victory. The current KWS point leader and defending series champ earned some sweet redemption at the event after issues knocked him out of the lead during it last season.
“This is so awesome I don’t know what to say, but this is just great to come back this year and win the Tarter,” said a pumped up Hirst in victory lane. “I wanted to win this race so bad last year for the Tarter family and to get it done this season is pretty special. We really do miss David a lot and I hope he enjoyed that show tonight. I have a great team behind me and I can’t thank them enough.”
The extremely racy track on Friday night at Silver Dollar Speedway produced some fantastic racing in the main event and when things went green, it was row two starter Willie Croft jumping into the lead with a wild move on the opening lap. The Sacramento driver looked just as stout as he has all season long, but soon had company in the form of Bud Kaeding. The pair would dice it up for the lead, before Kaeding assumed the top spot on lap-seven.
Croft would stay glued to Kaeding’s back bumper as side by side racing was seen all throughout the field. On lap 15 Croft would get a great run off turn two and looked to have snagged the lead back, but a yellow flag at that same time ultimately kept Kaeding as your leader. The action was hot and heated at this point with Kaeding, Croft, Tim Kaeding and Jonathan Allard all battling it out at the front of the field.
The restart then saw Allard carve his way up to second and T. Kaeding up to third, as Croft dropped to fourth. On lap 19 Croft then had a resurgence and got back by TK for second, before driving passed Allard for second on lap 21, until back stretch contact resulted in Croft sliding around to a stop. Tim Kaeding’s night then came to an end at this point as he exited the speedway with issues.
All eyes were on Hirst at this point as he drove through the field from 16th starting, while making some brilliant moves on the tricky quarter-mile. With 22-laps in the books he found himself in second and then began to track down leader Bud Kaeding.
With Kaeding in search of his first victory of 2014 he had to deal with heavy duty lapped traffic just ahead. Hirst slowly but surely reeled him in and on lap 31 pulled off a text book slide job to grab the top-spot with the crowd on their feet. Bud didn’t let him get away however, and hounded the rear bumper of the 83jr over the remaining four-laps.
Hirst hit his marks though and crossed the checkered flag by 0.872 seconds for his ninth career Golden State/ King of the West win, which places him in a tie for 10th on the all-time list with Bud Kaeding, Ronnie Day and Sean Becker.
Bud Kaeding’s strong night resulted in a second place finish, with Jonathan Allard, Visalia’s Cory Eliason and Fremont’s Shane Golobic rounding out the top-five. Completing the top-10 were Sean Becker, Bobby McMahan, 21st starter Jason Statler, DJ Netto and Craig Stidham.
Hirst earned the hard charger award and went home with an extra $200 courtesy of D&D Roofing. The win was also worth $3500 for Hirst, who is in search of his second straight KWS title. McMahan set fast time to begin the night and took home the extra $500 courtesy of Kyle Larson.
The King of the West 410 Sprint Car Series will now venture to the Marysville Raceway Park this evening. Front gate opens at 5pm with racing at 7pm.
David Tarter Memorial Results – King of the West 410 Sprint Car Series Silver Dollar Speedway
33-cars
Fast time: Bobby McMahan
Heat one: 1. 22 Mason Moore, 2. 53 Andy Gregg, 3. 3 Craig Stidham, 4. 25 Bobby McMahan, 5. 00 Jason Statler, 6. 22t Michael Tarter, 7. 49 Mike Monahan, 8. 69 Brent Kaeding, 9. 12x Jarrett Soares
Heat two: 1. 27 Cory Eliason, 2. 57 Tim Kaeding, 3. 29 Willie Croft, 4. 83jr Kyle Hirst, 5. 5v Colby Copeland, 6. 2x BJ Martin, 7. 21j Richard Brace, 8. 19 Keith Bloom
Heat three: 1. 121 Shane Golobic, 2. 88n DJ Netto, 3. 3c Jonathan Allard, 4. 33e Evan Suggs, 5. 41 Dominic Scelzi, 6. 69c Chad Compton, 7. 7k Kenny Allen, 8. 15 Pat Harvey
Heat four: 1. 92 Andy Forsberg, 2. 0 Bud Kaeding, 3. 35m Sean Becker, 4. 3f Geoff Ensign, 5. 88 Brad Bumgarner, 6. 89 Brandon Mansfield, 7. 21m Michael Ing, 8. 94 Gordon Rodgers
Dash: 1. Mason Moore, 2. Shane Golobic, 3. Bud Kaeding, 4. Willie Croft, 5. Evan Suggs, 6. Cory Eliason, 7. Bobby McMahan, 8. 92 Andy Forsberg
LCQ: 1. Kenny Allen, 2. Dominic Scelzi, 3. Jason Statler, 4. BJ Martin, 5. Brent Kaeding, 6. Colby Copeland, 7. Keith Bloom, 8. Michael Tarter, 9. Mike Monahan, 10. Pat Harvey, 11. Jarrett Soares, 12. Chad Compton, 13. Gordon Rodgers, 14. Richard Brace, 15. Brandon Mansfield, 16. Brad Bumgarner, 17. Michael Ing
A-main: 1. Kyle Hirst, 2. Bud Kaeding, 3. Jonathan Allard, 4. Cory Eliason, 5. Shane Golobic, 6. Sean Becker, 7. Bobby McMahan, 8. Jason Statler, 9. DJ Netto, 10. Craig Stidham, 11. Dominic Scelzi, 12. Mason Moore, 13. Evan Suggs, 14. Willie Croft, 15. Brent Kaeding, 16. Colby Copeland, 17. Geoff Ensign, 18. Kenny Allen, 19. BJ Martin, 20. Andy Gregg, 21. Tim Kaeding, 22. Andy Forsberg