The early season West Coast swing continued with another weekend in California for the Big Game Treestands #7 team as Craig Dollansky and the rest of the World of Outlaws prepared to battle Thunderbowl Raceway and Mother Nature.
Signing in for his 14th appearance at the 1/3-mile track, ‘The Crowd Pleaser’ began the night by motoring to the 3rd fastest lap in qualifying upon the 25 cars. With twelve cars inverted into three heats the MobileStar sponsored #7 started fourth in heat #3 and gained one position to earn a spot in the dash. An inversion of eight for the 6-lap dash pitted Dollansky outside of row three where he finished 6th.
In the 35-lap A-Main the Aggressive Hydraulics Maxim started outside of row three and used an excellent start to take fifth exiting turn two and then fourth on the next go-around. After a caution on lap 10 and a red flag two laps later, the ensuing restart saw Terry McCarl battled Dollansky for 3rd but the #7 maintaining the spot. ‘The Crowd Pleaser’ then closed in on runner-up Jason Sides and assuming the position but a caution before lap 25 was complete negated the move. Following another red and yellow, Mother Nature decided to join in on the action as the feature went into a rain delay.
“The first half of the race I was trying to conserve tearoffs,” commented the Elk River, Minnesota native. “In the latter part the brakes went away but we got into 3rd and it seemed like every time we got to lapped traffic the yellow or red flag came out.”
Once the rain dissipated and racing continued Dollansky held third when the caution flag flew with five laps remaining. A great restart saw the Eaton’s Aeroquip Performance Products Maxim rocket past Sides and race to a runner-up finish behind Tim Kaeding when the checkered flag flew.
“Tim had a good car and knows his way around Tulare,” said Dollansky who recorded his 3rd top-five in just the sixth event of the World of Outlaws season. “Once we got into 2nd we could run with him and I was hoping we would get into lapped traffic again but ran out of laps. All in all it was a solid run from 6th for everyone from Big Game Treestands, Aggressive Hydraulics, MobileStar, and Aeroquip on a track that was hard to pass. There were twenty people from a MobileStar customer at the race so we had a chance to meet them and glad they were able to make the event.”
Action was supposed to continue tonight at Thunderbowl Raceway but with heavy rain already in the area tonight’s program has been cancelled. World of Outlaws officials are working on a makeup date.
- Craig Dollansky Racing on Mar 17, 2012
- Article Date: 3/17/2012 by Reid VanEck