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Kaley Gharst – Driveline Doom!

(Bill W) – October 9, 2008 – In 2007, Kaley Gharst was the Sprint Invaders Association champion. A plan to concentrate on the 410s this season, took him away from the 360 series based in Southeast Iowa and Illinois. Last Saturday, he had an opportunity to race in the series' finale at the 34 Raceway near West Burlington, Iowa in his first 2008 appearance with the series. Driving the Randy Plath #14P, unfortunately, the night went like a lot of the season had already gone.

With 39 of the stoutest 360 drivers in the Midwest assembled, the draw was important. The Decatur, Illinois driver did his part by drawing outside row one in his heat and running away with the win. "We were fortunate to draw a good number," says Kaley. "That gave us clear sailing in the heat. The car was pretty decent."

A top two finish in the heat, qualified Kaley for the Shake-up dash, and he finished where he started (fifth). "We didn't change much all night long, really," says the 20 year old. "We maintained in the dash. We had problems with the brakes all night. We kept throwing out brake pads."

Kaley posted outside row two for the $1500 to win 25-lap main event. There was no need to spend a lot of time on setup. "We took a bit of stagger out for the feature, but otherwise, went with what we had," he relates. "We put on a different brake caliper too, and that helped our brake situation."

Track conditions changed, especially on one end. Kaley quickly moved into second behind Jack Dover. "The track was heavy all night long, except for turns one and two in the feature," he says. "We were right there hanging out behind Dover."

A series of cautions and a red flag period marred the first several laps. Kaley continued to tail Dover. "I think we had a shot at him," he says. "I was taking my time and planned on waiting for lapped traffic and not do anything stupid to force something. We took a couple of shots on him on restarts, but nothing serious and the motor was stumbling a bit on the starts."

Following the red flag period, Kaley shelled the driveline in Plath's machine ending his night. "We lost the driveline heading into turn three there," he explains. "The driveline clipped me a bit when I came off the throttle, but I'm fine. People saw me limping, but I had a little limp before that anyway."

After winning 12 races and a championship in 2007, this year has been tough in comparison. "Unfortunately, I think we had a shot at winning the thing, or at least a top three," he laments. "It was looking good until that mechanical failure. I'd like to thank Randy Plath for giving me the opportunity to race his car last weekend, and the motor belongs to Dale Oaks, who we teamed up with at Donnellson to win earlier this year."

Keep an eye on Kaley's progress this week and beyond at www.KaleyGharst.com!

If you would like to receive Kaley's weekly releases, send an e-mail with the subject line "Kaley" to [email protected].

Kaley at driver introductions at the 34 Raceway (Dessa Rodeffer Photo)

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