(Podium finishers left to right include runner up Craig Stidham, winner Kyle Hirst and third place Andy Gregg. Photo by Paul Gould)
Kyle Hirst makes first start for Roth Motorsports pay off with Cancen Oil King of the West Series presented by Goodyear win at Antioch Speedway Saturday night
By Gary Thomas
Antioch, CA – June 23, 2012…Taking advantage of an early race collision between the leaders on Saturday night Sacramento, California’s Kyle Hirst took full control and raced to a big victory at the Antioch Speedway with the Cancen Oil KWS Series presented by Goodyear.
The win came during Hirst’s first ever start in the potent Roth Motorsports, HR Cattle No. 83 machine and also saw him open the night by setting a new Antioch Speedway KWS track record. For the 24-year-old it marked his fourth career Golden State/KWS victory and first since 2009.
“This is awesome to come out here and win with the King of the West Series and I can’t thank the whole Roth Motorsports team enough for giving me the opportunity,” said a pumped up Hirst in victory lane. “We got a little lucky with the leaders wrecking, but that’s part of racing. The guys gave me a great car tonight and we’ll go on to Placerville to try and get this Roth Motorsports car another win.”
A rough and tumble 30-lapper was featured and started out with KSE Dash winner Shane Golobic and Campbell’s Brent Kaeding on the front row. At the waving of the green flag Golobic and Kaeding went wheel to wheel and off turn two it was “BK” scooping up the lead. The Hall of Famer was in search of his first 410 win since 2009, but early on reds and yellows slowed things down to a crawl.
When a few green flag laps were finally put together Kaeding felt pressure from Golobic, who looked to take advantage when traffic came into play. It looked to set up a tremendous battle for the top-spot, but on lap nine a spun car in turn three forced the leaders to take evasive action. It resulted in Kaeding, Golobic and third running Jason Statler all coming together in dramatic fashion and stopping to bring out a yellow flag.
The melee ultimately handed the lead to Kyle Hirst, who had been running in the fourth position prior to the incident. After going back green more of the same occurred as the slick surface proved challenging and a number of yellows and a couple more reds slowed Hirst’s bid. Through it all the talented throttle-masher never got fazed and hit his marks each and every lap. Although getting into traffic late in the race, Hirst was smooth as glass and crossed the line by 1.443 seconds for victory.
Coming home in second and scoring his best Cancen Oil KWS Series presented by Goodyear finish of the season was Fresno’s Craig Stidham in the Brad Johnson Trucking, KRC Safety Equipment No. 3 mount. The former Trophy Cup champion has made a return to 410 Sprint Car racing this season and it was great to have him on the podium for the first time this year.
“This is a big confidence booster for us no doubt and it’s nice to get our best finish of the season,” commented Stidham. “I’ve always been told it’s better to be lucky than good sometimes and that deal with the leaders definitely helped, but we did have a really good car all night. I want to thank my whole team and all our sponsors and hopefully this will be the start of the some more good finishes for us.”
Crossing the stripe in third and earning his second podium finish of the year was Placerville’s Andy Gregg in the Guts Racing, 7-Industries.com No. 53 sprinter. It was a very nice rebound for the former motocross rider, who was coming off a tough weekend at the “Road to Dirt Cup” two weeks back.
“Man it’s great to be up here on the podium tonight because whenever you do that it’s an accomplishment with these guys in KWS,” said a very happy Gregg. “We had a great run tonight and it was nice that everyone came home safe. We had a few hard crashes there, but I want to thank all my guys and all you fans for coming out and supporting us.”
Rounding out the top-five and putting together solid efforts were Elk Grove’s Bobby McMahan in the American Tool & MFG No. 25 and Redding’s Tyler Wolf aboard the Chuck Wolf Sand & Gravel No. 19 mount. For McMahan it was his third top-five finish of the season and for Wolf it marked his first career top-five with the Cancen Oil KWS Series presented by Goodyear.
Completing the top-10 were Scotts Valley’s Evan Suggs, Clovis’ Peter Murphy, Pit Stop USA hard charger Jimmy Sills of Elverta, Shane Golobic and Brent Kaeding. KWS point leader Jonathan Allard had a tough main event and finished 17th in the run down.
The 12-lap Last Chance Qualifier was captured by Jimmy Sills and the KSE Dash was picked off by Shane Golobic. Kaeding Performance Heat Race wins went to Brent Kaeding, Willie Croft and Shane Golobic. The BR Motorsports Fast Time went to Kyle Hirst, who toured the one-third mile oval in 11.705 seconds to set a new track record.
The Cancen Oil KWS Series presented by Goodyear will be right back in action next Saturday night June 30 at the Placerville Speedway. The event originally scheduled for Friday at Merced has been postponed so we’ll have just one night of racing next weekend.
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- Gary Thomas on Jun 24, 2012
- Article Date: 6/24/2012 by Gary Thomas