Jason Meyers felt like a few wins slipped away from him last year and one of those was at Cottage Grove Speedway in Oregon. His goal coming into this season was to make up for as many of those near misses as possible and he did exactly that on Tuesday night at the high-banked ¼-mile winning a duel over fellow California native Tim Kaeding.
Meyers took the lead on the 17th lap following a lap-16 restart where he nearly took the lead a couple of times en route to his second consecutive World of Outlaws win and his seventh of the season. It was his first career win at Cottage Grove Speedway in his ninth start at the track.
“It’s great to be here in Victory Lane with family and friend and close to home,” said Meyers. “I have raced here a long time and it feels good to win here. My crew did a heck of a job. I think we had a right rear tire going down there the last 10 or 15 laps. It was really getting tight on me and I was just trying to hang on. I can’t say enough about this entire team. I was talking to our motor builder Charlie Garrett earlier today and he said he was not against winning two in a row and I told him that it appears that I am, but neither am I. To get two in a row here tonight is great.”
The 40-lap contest began with Kaeding who started on the outside of the front row using a strong run on the high side of the track in turns one and two to take the early lead. With just one lap down the red flag waved for a Jac Haudenschild and Jonathan Allard. At the same time, Kraig Kinser who was running third came to the work area relinquishing that spot.
On the restart, Kaeding again shot out to a comfortable lead as Jason Sides moved into third and set his sights on Meyers. Just before Kaeding was about to get in lapped traffic on the fifth lap the caution flew. Kaeding would continue to lead as Sides was all over Meyers battling for the second spot in lapped traffic. Following a caution on the 16th lap, Meyers used a strong restart and looked low in turns one and two for the lead nearly taking it and again diving under Kaeding in turns three and four. On the 17th lap he made the pass stick going into turn three and would pace the field for the remainder of the 40-laps aboard the GLR Investments KPC.
“We kind of knew that when we won the dash, that the outside would be the better spot to start,” explained the winner. “I tried to get a better start than he did and I kind of did, but he ran through (turns) one and two real good. I have raced with Tim (Kaeding) for a lot of years and he is real good on the top and I knew he would be good there. We just had to work our car and stay up there. The bottom stayed good and it played into our favor.”
Couple with the win, Meyers was third fastest in time trials to gain three bonus points and was able to cut another nine points off of Donny Schatz’s lead in the series championship standings as he chases his first title. Meyers now trails the three-time and defending series champion by just 29 markers and leads the series with 45 Top-10 finishes.
“These guys are doing everything they need to do to put us up front and go for this championship,” noted Meyers. “We have about 10 or 11 races to go and we have to give it all we got. “It looks like Donny (Schatz) came from 20th to third tonight and that is what is going to make him so tough to beat for the championship.”
After leading the first 16 laps of the race, Kaeding fell back to fourth on the 26th lap before charging back around Lucas Wolfe and Jason Sides to move back into second. He tried all he could late in the race to track down Meyers in traffic en route to his fifth Top-Five finish of the season with the World of Outlaws in the DTR Transport KPC.
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