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Photo by http://www.JohnsRacingPhotos.com
Walker holds off Allard for entertaining Petaluma Golden State Challenge 410 Series victory
By Gary Thomas
Petaluma, CA – April 18, 2009…An exciting conclusion to the main event on Saturday night at the Petaluma Speedway saw Los Angeles, CA's Tyler Walker narrowly beat out Chico's Jonathan Allard at the line to score his second victory of the young Golden State Challenge Sprint Car Series season.
The win for Walker marked the seventh triumph of his GSC career and moved him into the ninth spot on the all-time win list, joining Jimmy Sills, Greg Decaires and Randy Hannagan. Walker's fastest lap in the feature of 12.111 aboard his Lee Lindgren tuned machine was also the quickest lap ever turned at the Petaluma Speedway. Interestingly the ultra talented driver was just over a tenth of a second off the all-time track record at the Tulare Thunderbowl Raceway in his heat race last week as well.
Walker started from the pole in the 30 lap feature after winning the dash for the first time this season, but early on had his hands full with fellow front row starter and young upstart Brandon Carey. Following a pair of jam-ups on the first pair of starts that led to cautions, the front row starters drag raced down the front stretch on the third start and put on a thrilling first lap show that saw Carey out-wheel Walker into turn three to claim the lead.
Carey was doing a tremendous job out front as Walker stalked him every step of the way through the early stages. Cautions on lap three and lap nine though kept drivers out of traffic, but following this some green flag laps were able to click off and the racing heated up on the tacky 3/8 mile clay oval. When the green flag flew again traffic came into play after just a few laps and it allowed Walker and Allard the chance to close in.
With Carey in his sights Walker put his SC Motorsports, NMI Industrial Contractors No. 24 on the outer regions of the Petaluma Speedway and got side by side with Carey in turn two on lap 14, but couldn't make the pass. He stayed with it however, and used the same move the following lap to gain enough momentum entering turn three to rocket around the outside of Carey and make the exciting move to claim the top spot.
At that same instance Allard followed right along and slipped underneath Carey to slice into second and begin to set his sights on Walker. With heavy duty traffic ahead of the leaders it allowed the top four cars to bunch up and become nose to tail, but unfortunately a caution on lap 17 slowed the extremely intense action.
On the restart Allard biked in turns one and two, which allowed Walker to zoom away in the open track. Once traffic came back into play however, Walker began to fight a tight condition like most everyone did in turn two as the exit of the corner had gotten choppy. A number of times it looked like cars might bounce around enough to tip over, but all of the drivers did a tremendous job to wrestle their 850 hp sprinters back down to the ground.
With Walker trapped in traffic Allard closed back in once again and made it a battle for the lead, but just as soon as it looked like it might be a shootout in the closing laps, the caution lights came back on for a spun car on lap 25 in turn four. When the green flag came back out for the final time Walker scooted away in the open track and looked to be on way to an easy victory, but traffic with just a couple laps left, coupled with Allard making a great charge, made for an exciting finish right down to the wire.
With the white flag out Walker played it safe getting into traffic, but at the same time Allard drove his Williams Motorsports, K&N Filters No. 0 extremely hard into turns one and two. It gave him a lot of momentum and he closed right up on Walker's bumper entering turn three. With heavy lapped traffic in front of them Allard went high off the final corner and got to the outside of Walker, but the Los Angeles driver was able to beat him out by about a foot at the line to pick up the victory as both drivers dealt with slower cars in their fight to the stripe.
The exciting victory was redemption for Walker and his SC Motorsports team after tough luck in lapped traffic last season took them out of contention while leading both main events in Petaluma. "I just have to thank Scott and Kathy Chastain, Lee Lindgren and this whole team for giving me a great car tonight," Walker said. "This track was hooked up tonight and it was pretty thrilling when traffic came into play cause it's really tough to get by the slower cars at this place."
For Allard it was his second runner-up of the season and the third time in four starts that he was in position to bring home a victory, yet came up just shy at the finish. It kept up the strong recent trend of success for Allard at Petaluma however; as the two-time King of California has finished either first or second in half of the Golden State Challenge Series events at the track since 2005.
Coming home in third was 13-time King of California Brent Kaeding who made a nice late race move to earn his second podium finish of the season. The driver of the Al's Roofing Supply, Kaeding Performance No. 69 spent much of the race locked in some entertaining battles among the top five and showed strength running with a fresher power-plant under the hood during the night. "BK" was also the fastest qualifier in the field to start the evening.
Elk Grove's Kyle Larson made a nice charge in the feature to come home in fourth and earn his second straight top five finish aboard the Vertullo Racing, G&N Construction No. 83v. The 16 year-old was running in eighth with nine laps down and fought his way forward as he diced it up with a number of drivers, including Kaeding during the later stages of the feature. The youngster continues to impress in his first full year of 410 sprint car racing.
Carey, another impressive youngster, crossed the stripe in fifth after leading the first half of the feature. It marked the first career top five finish for the driver of the Carey Racing No. 55, who was very impressive in limited starts last season and has come back this year showing a lot of speed once again. The Ripon racer has shown the ability to gas-it-up with the best of them and has displayed a thrilling no-fear driving style in his limited starts with the Golden State Challenge Series.
Rounding out the top 10 in the feature were Grass Valley's Jason Statler, Chico's Jason York, 18th starter Bud Kaeding of Campbell, Scotts Valley's Evan Suggs and row 10 starter Bradley Terrell of Sebastopol.
The Golden State Challenge Sprint Car Series will be back in action next Saturday night at the Ocean Speedway in Watsonville.
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Results Petaluma Speedway April 18
Fast time- Brent Kaeding 12.493
Heat 1- Colby Copeland
Heat 2- Tyler Walker
Heat 3- Bud Kaeding
Dash- Tyler Walker
A-main- Tyler Walker, Jonathan Allard, Brent Kaeding, Kyle Larson, Brandon Carey, Jason Statler, Jason York, Bud Kaeding, Evan Suggs, Bradley Terrell, Mike Benson, Colby Copeland, Brent Bjork, Luke Dollansky, Ricky Wright, Ken Fredenburg, Pat Harvey, Mike Stallings, Shawn Arriaga, Jeff Griffin, Stephen Allard, Alissa Geving
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