Series Edmonton Friday event report 2010-08-27

Back on Top: Jason Meyers Wins Opener of the Oil City Cup at Castrol Raceway in Canada

Edmonton, AB-August 27, 2010- Jason Meyers has always done very well during the annual Gold Rush Tour. Last season he was able to gain nearly 100 points during the swing through the Pacific Northwest and the West Coast to put himself in the thick of the closest ever three-way battle for the World of Outlaws title. He is in a prime position to do the same thing this year and was able to gain a significant amount of points on Joey Saldana and Steve Kinser on Friday night, by winning the opener of the Oil City Cup at Castrol Raceway to earn his ninth A-Feature win of the season and the second of his career at the Canadian track. The trio is separated by just 28 markers with 18 events remaining on the 2010 calendar.

Meyers took the lead on Friday night on the 16th lap with a slide job on Steve Kinser in turn four and would lead the remainder of the distance to score his 44th career World of Outlaws A-Feature win, which was worth $10,000. He started sixth and was up to third just a handful of laps into the 35-lap contest, before getting around Kerry Madsen and setting his sights on Kinser.

"These guys did a heck of a job tonight," said Meyers. "We had a great race car. We got the lead early and the yellow came out and they put me back behind him. You don't get too many chances with 'The King' (Steve Kinser). This is incredible. This is a great race track and they had a great crowd. That was good racing right there. This was a complete team effort and that's a good team does, it wins races."

Meyers was out front on the final restart of the night, which was a single file restart due to there being a crash on a double file restart before a complete lap was in the books. He shot to a quick lead on the restart just before the halfway point and found himself in open race track for most of the remainder of the 35-lapper. Meyers initially took the lead from Kinser on the 12th lap coming off turn two, though the caution flag came out before that lap was complete, putting him back in second.

"I had a good race car and was ready for the double file (restart)," shared the winner. "Of course I liked the single file one we had. When you are leading, you never want to see a double file restart. I just had a good race car tonight and could put it anywhere, high or low and really get aggressive with it."

Meyers, who is a native of Clovis, California, opened the night by setting fast time aboard the GLR Investments KPC to earn five bonus points in the standings and wound up gaining a total of 43 points on current point leader Joey Saldana. Kinser spun in turn four on the 16th lap after Meyers passed him, collecting Saldana, who had nowhere to go. After a stop in the work area Kinser returned to the track and ended up 11th, while Saldana's crew was not able to complete repairs on his machine in the allotted two minutes, relegating him to a 19th-place finish.

"This is good old fashion short track racing and that's what I grew up on in California," Meyers said. "You can get aggressive and you can get it done on the short tracks, but you can get in trouble as well. It's real important to stay out of trouble and keep the car up front. We made up a lot of points last year and we are right in the hunt for this thing and closer than we have ever been. We want it bad and are going to go after it, but we are racing some good competition, so we have our work cut out for us. We'll keep digging each and every night and keep putting on great races in front of great sprint car fans and hopefully get this thing done."

Kerry Madsen started on the front row Friday night and ended up second in the Halls Haulage KPC to match his best finish of the year with the World of Outlaws. Madsen kept pace with early leader Steve Kinser, who started on the pole and was right on his rear bumper in traffic about seven laps in. He kept pace with Meyers in lapped traffic in the middle stages of the race.

"Second is great for us tonight," stated Madsen. "Congratulations to Jason (Meyers) and his team. They were quicker than us tonight and deserved it. We're happy for our team, especially our car owner Brian Hall. He went back down to Western Australia last week. Everyone here is doing a fantastic job."

Donny Schatz came all the way from the 14th starting spot to finish third in the Armor All/STP J&J to earn the KSE Racing Products Hard Charger Award. He lined up eighth on the final restart of the night on the 16th lap and quickly made his charge to the front, with the final 20 laps of the contest going non-stop.

"My guys did a great job," said Schatz. "We played a little tonight and learned some things. My race car was only good around the bottom. I tried to go up top and just couldn't do it. I could see Jason (Meyers) leading and I thought we'd get a chance at the end with a yellow and be right in the mix. You can't ask for much better than that starting 14th and we won't put ourselves in that hole tomorrow night. We'll come back and try to get these guys a win."

Jason Sides finished fourth for the second consecutive race at Castrol Raceway in the Wetherington Tractor Service Maxim. Paul McMahan was fifth in the Great Clips Maxim, with Jac Haudenschild sixth aboard the Owens-Corning Fiberglass XXX. Sam Hafertepe Jr. finished seventh in the Lone Star Speedway Maxim, with Danny Lasoski eighth in the Casey's General Stores JEI. Craig Dollansky was ninth in the Big Game Treestands Maxim. Chad Kemenah picked up his third straight Top-10 finish coming home 10th in the Golden Flavor Sesame Sticks Maxim.

The World of Outlaws wrap up the 2010 Oil City Cup at Castrol on Saturday, August 28 with another full night of racing with $10,000 awaiting the winner.

OIL CITY CUP NIGHT #1 NOTES

* FAST QUALIFIER: Jason Meyers paced the 29 cars that took time with an AMB i.t. timed lap around the semi-banked 3/8-mile oval at 12.793 seconds. For his qualifying effort, Meyers earned five bonus points. The next four fastest qualifiers also earned bonus points, including: Kraig Kinser (4), Jason Sides (3), Sam Hafertepe Jr. (2) and Steve Kinser (1).

* CASTROL RACEWAY QUALIFYING WINNERS: Craig Dollansky, Ben Gregg and Lucas Wolfe won heat races. Steve Kinser won the dash. Chad Kemenah won the Last Chance Showdown.

* FEATURE WINNERS: There have been 52 World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series A-Feature events held in 2010. The winners include: Joey Saldana (Thunderbowl Raceway, Volunteer Speedway, I-55 Raceway, Eldora Speedway-twice, Dodge City Raceway Park, River Cities Speedway, LaSalle Speedway, Beaver Dam Raceway, Lernerville Speedway and Nodak Speedway), Jason Meyers (The Dirt Track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Thunderbowl Raceway, Volunteer Speedway, Tri-State (Okla.) Speedway, Virginia Motor Speedway, I-96 Speedway, North Central Speedway, I-55 Raceway and Castrol Raceway), Steve Kinser (Volusia Speedway Park, Jackson Speedway, River Cities Speedway, Lakeside Speedway, Eldora Speedway, Autodrome Drummond and Fulton Speedway), Jason Sides (Houston Raceway Park , Tri-City Speedway, Missouri State Fair Speedway and Ohsweken Speedway), Craig Dollansky (Lone Star Speedway, Cedar Lake Speedway and Nodak Speedway), Donny Schatz (Volusia Speedway Park, The Dirt Track at Charlotte and Ohsweken Speedway), Lance Dewease (Lernerville Speedway and Williams Grove Speedway), Jac Haudenschild (Paducah International Raceway and Knoxville Raceway), Sammy Swindell (Dodge City Raceway and Huset's Speedway), Brooke Tatnell (Knoxville Raceway and Junction Motor Speedway), Dale Blaney (Limaland Motorsports Park), Doug Esh (Lebanon Valley Speedway), Greg Hodnett (Williams Grove Speedway), Chad Layton (Williams Grove Speedway), Paul McMahan (Eldora Speedway), Fred Rahmer (Williams Grove Speedway) and Tim Shaffer (I-55 Raceway).

* 3/8-MILE-WINNERS: Castrol Raceway is a semi-banked 3/8-mile oval. The World of Outlaws have raced 13 times on a track that size this season. The winners include: Craig Dollansky (Cedar Lake Speedway and Nodak Speedway), Jason Meyers (Tri-State-Okla. Speedway and Castrol Raceway), Joey Saldana (Dodge City Raceway Park and Nodak Speedway), Sammy Swindell (Dodge City Raceway Park and Huset's Speedway), Jac Haudenschild (Paducah International Raceway), Steve Kinser (Fulton Speedway), Donny Schatz (Ohsweken Speedway), Jason Sides (Ohsweken Speedway) and Brooke Tatnell (Junction Motor Speedway).

-source: WoO