Pit Crew Challenge news 2006-07-29

Kasey Kahne Racing Captures First Leg of Snap-on® Pit Crew Challenge

Princeton, MN -- July 29, 2006 -- The temperature kept rising on Saturday afternoon at Princeton Speedway but the Kasey Kahne Racing team was cool under pressure in the first leg of the Snap-on® Pit Crew Challenge.

The team of Willie Kahne, Justin Adams and Kevin Cardoza was in the final group competing to change a front end faster than any of the other World of Outlaws Sprint Series teams. They completed the task in 2 minutes, 4.924 seconds to edge out the Dan Oswalt Racing team that set the standard of 2 minutes, 6.205 seconds in the first group of teams to compete.

The Jeremy Campbell Motorsports team overcame a 2-second penalty to finish third with a time of 2 minutes, 21.349 seconds, including the penalty for a loose shock.

"It was good for us as a team just to get in there," said Willie Kahne, who along with Adams and Cardoza gave driver Joey Saldana the winning car in the $50,000 Kings Royal earlier this month at Eldora Speedway. "Any time you can win anything it's awesome. We get pumped up to do that. A win's a win."

The victory also is reassuring to Saldana, who knows he can depend on his team in the event he has to bring his car to the work area during a feature.

"It was good to know that if I get in that type of situation, my guys are prepared to get the car back out on the racetrack," said Saldana, who has the car second in the World of Outlaws Sprint Series championship standings. "Hopefully we don't have to use that experience, but it's good to know they can get it done."

The Dan Oswalt Racing team of Justin Henderson, Rod Henderson and Greg McCormick watched intently with a large gathering of fans to see if anybody would top its early quick time. Team after team took their shots, but nobody could knock them from the top spot until the final round.

"It was a lot of fun," said Henderson, who said his team developed a strategy after preparing for the competition by practicing front-end changes in the pits. "Snap-on® put on a great competition and provided us with the wrenches to use. Our crew was second quick. We only missed out by 1.4 seconds over Kasey Kahne's crew, but I'm real proud of Snap-on® for putting on such a great event. It's nice to have sponsors like that."

Jeremy Campbell and his crew of Brodie Tulloch and Sam Walsh, which went head-to-head with the Kasey Kahne Racing crew, also tried to prepare for the competition by developing a game-plan long before rolling the cars into the staging area.

"We were talking about it for about two hours before the competition to get things ready," Campbell said. "It worked pretty good, but once they blew the starting horn we were kind of stressing. All the pressure was on. I was trying to get it going and I missed a little bit on a shock. We were real close. At least we got third. It was a blast. The rear end is up next and that's going to be tough."

With the highly skilled crews, which were limited to three members for the competition, showing off their talents for the crowd, one of the highlights of the event was the cheering section for the SC Motorsports team. While Brian Carlson and Sarah Carlson worked away, the third member of their crew, young son A.J., rocked a tire back and forth leading the cheers for Mom and Dad.

The Terry Hannagan Racing team was fourth, followed by championship- leading team Schatz Motorsports; PolyDome Princeton Nationals event winner Titan Racing USA; TMAC Motorsports, Inc.; Bill Rose Racing; the Karavan/Dollansky Racing team; Martin Motorsports; and SC Motorsports.

The Snap-on® Pit Crew Challenge is a three-event tournament for World of Outlaws Sprint Series teams. The second stage, a rear-end change, will be on Aug. 26 at Skagit Speedway with the final stage featuring a motor change at the season finale in Las Vegas.

Snap-on®, which provided impact wrenches for all the teams to use, is rewarding the top three teams at each stage with $600 to the winning team, $200 to the second-place team and $120 to third place. The top three teams with the lowest overall accumulated time also will receive honors and rewards. The champion will pocket $3,000 with second place picking up $1,500 and third place collecting $600.

-woo-