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Brent Kaeding Wins Night One of Fall Nationals
by: Troy Hennig
(Chico, CA 10-2-08)...Brent Kaeding won his 87th career main event Thursday night at the Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico. Kaeding inherited the lead on lap four when Myles Bishop had a mishap and spun off the racing surface. Kaeding led the final 26 laps with heavy pressure from Herman Klein. In the closing laps 12th place starting Tim Kaeding also became a threat to Brent for the lead. Yet, Brent muscled his way through thick lapped traffic and secured the popular win. “The track was a little heavy and not very wide tonight,” said Kaeding in victory lane. “I kept seeing that 35 car (Tim) creeping up the scoreboard and knew he was coming but it looks like his front nose wing got clipped off.” A total of 43 entered the pit area on night number one, however, after hot laps only 41 were able to race. Chad Riolo and Scott Russell each had mechanical problems and had to scratch from that nights racing action.
In qualifying it was Bud Kaeding timing in the quickest out of the 41 car field. Kaeding turned a 11.890 and received a $200 gift certificate from MotoWear International.
Grass Valley's Billy Wallace led all ten laps to win heat one. Placerville's Andy Gregg led all the laps in heat two to get the win. Sacramento's Herman Klein won the third heat race. Grass Valley's Mark Hall won the fourth heat. By winning their heats all the drivers secured a spot in the dash. Joining them were the second place finishers and the two fastest qualifiers unable to finish in the top two. The dash consisted of 10 drivers and how they finished the dash determined the first five rows of the main event. Myles Bishop won the seven lap race and he earned the right to start on the pole of the main event.
Hawaii driver Dean Freitas won the 12-lap B feature. Freitas is always competitive when he races at Chico. Freitas races about three times a year at the track. Oregon driver Chad Groves finished in the second spot. Rookie Trent Canales of Roseville nailed down the third spot. The pass of the night went to another rookie high flier John Michael Bunch. Bunch used the top side to perfection and passed Jeremy Burt on the high scary side on the final lap to get the transfer. Definitely one of the best passes of the night.
Bishop grabbed the early lead over Brent Kaeding. However, just three laps into the race Bishop slide off the track in turn one. The yellow came out and the field was bunched up nose to tail for the restart. Brent Kaeding led the field down to the green flag restart. Tim Kaeding had already made some amazing moves. Kaeding on lap four had already moved to seventh spot and one lap later he was into the top five. While Brent and Herman Klein were way out in front the real battle was for third. Dan Menne was holding down the spot while Bud and Tim Kaeding were trying to find away around Menne for the third spot. A yellow was needed when Chad Groves slid off the track. When the yellow came out Bud slowed down while Tim didn't. Tim made contact and broke a front mount on his nose wing. For the rest of the race he continued with an askew front nose wing.
Up front it was all about Brent and Klein. To Klein's credit, there was on moment in the race where Klein set up Kaeding and looked to the inside coming out of turn two. Klein might have had the lead going into turn three but a yellow came out and neglected the chance for Klein to take the lead. After that one brief moment of hope for Klein, never again did he get that close to take the lead. The final restart occurred on lap 19 with Tim Kaeding in the third spot. Brent had a great restart and was never challenged by Klein for the win. Tim seemed to struggle just a bit also and he too was not able to pressure Klein. The top three came across the finish line a few car length's apart from each other. Menne hung on to finish fourth and Bud Kaeding was fifth. Mark Hall, Kyle Larson, Kyle Hirst, Shane Stewart and Willie Croft rounded out the top ten finish.
Weather permitting we are scheduled to race night number two on Friday night with a new group of top racers including Iowa's Wayne Johnson, the Allard brothers from Chico and Oroville's Sean Becker along with Auburn's Andy Forsberg.
Get live updates at www.johnpadjenmotorsports.com
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