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 GRANITE
CITY, IL (May 15) -- Joey Saldana dominated the 25-lap feature
Saturday night at Tri-City Speedway leading every lap en route to
becoming the ninth different winner in the 15 events contested to date
in the World of Outlaws Series. All 15 event winners have ridden to
victory on Hoosier racing tires. In fact, Team Hoosier's record so far
this season is better than last season's best-ever year in the premier
sprint series. To date, teams riding on the Hoosier brand have gone a
combined 21-1 in World of Outlaws sanctioned events. Saldana won $10,000 after starting on the outside pole
in the #2 Volcano Joe's Coffee sprint car. He was followed to the line
by Danny Lasoski and Steve Kinser for the 19th podium sweep of the
season for the Hoosier brand. It has been a difficult season so far
for Saldana who has piloted three different cars in 15 events. But the
1996 Rookie of the Year seems to have found the right combination and
may be on his way to becoming a regular in the winner's circle. It was
Saldana's 13th career main event win in the series.
Thirty-one cars were entered in qualifying on the
Tri-City 1/2-mile track with 28 of them riding on Hoosier tires.
Reigning series champion Steve
Kinser set fast time of the night using a Hoosier D10 right-rear
compound selection. The King of the Outlaws circled the track in
16.497 seconds and was followed on the qualifying leaderboard by Danny
Lasoski, Kraig Kinser, Jonathan Allard and Brandon Wimmer in second
through fifth, respectively. Amazingly the top 19 times in qualifying
were set by drivers on the Hoosier brand.
All three heat races ended with a Hoosier-shod winner
in victory lane including Danny Smith, Donny Schatz and previous race
winner Jason Meyers.
Both Dash winners also used the Hoosier brand. Craig
Dollansky won the first Dash, while ninth fastest qualifier Joey
Saldana captured the second Dash.
In the 25-lap feature, all but one of the 24 starters
rode on Hoosier tires after one of the non-Hoosier-shod qualifiers
switched to the Hoosier brand for the feature. When it was over, Joey
Saldana led flag-to-flag to take the win and pocket the $10,000 prize.
Saldana used a 92"D12/D12 (LR/RR) combination en route to his
first A-main win of the season. Fourth starting Danny Lasoski took
second place and the $5,500 runner-up prize money using a pair of
D10's. Steve Kinser, using the same rear drive combination as the race
winner, took third. It was Team Hoosier's 13th consecutive podium
sweep in the series.
All told, the first 16 drivers to cross the finish
line rode on Hoosiers. Paul McMahan finished fourth followed by Jason
Meyers, Brian Paulus, Brooke Tatnell, Tim Shaffer, Donny Schatz and
Jason Sides in fifth through tenth, respectively.
Danny Lasoski now trails Steve Kinser by 35 points in
the drivers standings with Donny Schatz, Jason Meyers and Paul McMahan
rounding out the top five. Craig Dollansky, Kraig Kinser, Tim Shaffer,
Jason Sides and Daryn Pittman complete the list of top ten drivers in
the rankings. Joey Saldana is currently in 11th place. Currently, the
top 26 drivers in the World of Outlaws Series standings compete on
USA-made Hoosier tires.
The next event on the World of Outlaws schedule is a
two-night program at Princeton Speedway in Minnesota this Friday and
Saturday night (May 21-22).
Special thanks go out to Hoosier World of Outlaws
Track Service Manager Dave Campbell for reporting the details used in
this report.
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