Chico, CA - October 1 & 2, 2010. Elk Grove, California’s Kyle Larson raced to a
third place finish in the 19th annual edition of the Pacific Sprint Fall Nationals for 360
sprint cars Saturday at Silver Dollar Speedway. The season ending event at the Chico
speedplant saw both ends of the two night affair going to Tim Kaeding, with Larson
garnering fourth in the opener.
Friday’s preliminary night had 54
cars take time trials and Larson stopped the clocks with 14th fast time. From his starting
spot outside the first row of heat number four Larson drove away to a convincing win over
Mike Henry and 2010 Civil War champion Andy Forsberg.
The invert four take four heat race format rewarded the top two finishers in each heat
with placement into each nights dash. The two fastest qualifiers who finished in third or
fourth in their heat were added to the top pair from each of the five heats to make up a
twelve car dash that determined the first six rows of the feature.
An eight inversion was drawn the first
night with Larson just missing a pole starting assignment. On a very tacky and narrow
track Larson started ninth and finished there as Kaeding sped to the win in the eight
lapper from outside the front row.
Kaeding powered ahead of Jimmy Trulli as the 30 lap headliner got underway while Larson
held onto ninth on the still hard to pass surface. The first move forward for the
Stadelhofer Construction/Peppermill Casino/Kaeding Performance machine finally happened on
lap five as Larson got by both Henry and Willie Croft.
On lap seven Larson made his way past Herman Klein to take over sixth and two laps later
got the best of Andy Gregg to advance to fifth. Larson held steady in fifth until fourth
running Trulli dropped from the race on lap 18.
At that point Larson trailed Kaeding, Steven Tiner and Jonathan
Allard with heavy lapped traffic looming ahead. As Kaeding found it nearly impossible to
overtake the lappers the top four gradually gathered together for an exciting finish.
With two laps to go Allard made his way past Tiner and closed the gap on Kaeding as Larson
looked for a way onto the podium. In a very close finish Kaeding held on to win by just
over a tenth of a second as Allard, Tiner and Larson crossed the stripe just behind.
On Saturday the same format was utilized and this
time Larson stopped the clocks at 10th quick in qualifying. Heat five saw Larson trail
Tiner all the way to the checkered flag while also fending off repeated challenges from
Kaeding in an exciting late race battle.
When the 10 inversion pill was drawn for the dash Larson’s prospects looked much
brighter than the night before as he lined up fourth. In a dominating display Larson
quickly drove to the front and pulled away to a comfortable advantage at the finish.
At the outset of the 40 lap feature Larson gained the top spot from fellow front row
starter Robbie Whitchurch, with fifth starter Kaeding jumping up to third by the end of
the first lap. By lap two Kaeding entered the fray for the lead as he got by Whitchurch,
while defending Fall Nationals champ Sean Becker did the same a lap later to move into
third.
Over the course of several early yellow flag periods Larson was able to hold the advantage
over Kaeding although
turns one and two were becoming very treacherous with large holes developing on the low
side of the track. With the topside not conducive for passing everyone found themselves
tip-toeing through the bottom hoping to not upset their cars.
Finally, on lap 14 Larson’s mount bounded through one of the holes in the south turn
and before he could recover Kaeding slipped by to take over the lead. Just a lap earlier
Jonathan Allard made his prescence known as a contender when he got by Becker.
As the last half of the race went non stop the trio at the front encountered heavy lapped
traffic, which Kaeding used to his advantage to open a gap over Larson and Allard. On lap
31 Allard powered past the black number 99 of Larson and began to reel in Kaeding as
traffic began to work in Allard’s favor.
But time ran out for Allard and Kaeding was able to score a narrow half second win and
take his third Fall Nationals trophy. Larson held on for his second consecutive third
place finish in the event, and his third top five in the last three years.
Summing up the race Larson said, “ I’m kind of disappointed right now. Starting
on the pole I had high hopes of beating Tim because it seems like he’s just been
killing all of us winning everything. My car began to get tight as the race went on and it
became a handful trying to hold Tim off. But congratulations to him and his crew. I also
want to congratulate Jonathan because I feel kind of bad for him. I probably held him up
for a while when he could have been chasing down Tim for the win.”
Larson’s racing efforts are sponsored by Stadelhofer Construction, The Peppermill ~
Resort ~ Spa ~ Casino ~ Reno, Kaeding Performance, Safety Solutions, Simpson Race
Products, JW Web Design, Abreu Vineyards and All Star Performance.
