For the second consecutive season, Jason Meyers found himself leading the finale of the annual two-day World of Outlaws event at Skagit Speedway in Washington on a lap-32 restart with Joey Saldana lining up behind him. The end result was the opposite of one year ago, as Meyers would keep the top spot and claim the $20,000 triumph with Saldana finishing behind him.
Meyers got around early leader Jayme Barnes in heavy lapped traffic on the ninth lap and endured four cautions over the remainder of the 40-lapper to earn his sixth win of the 2009 campaign aboard the GLR Investments KPC. He also was able to gain 14 points on Donny Schatz in the series standings and now is just 38 points out of the top spot as he chases his first career title.
“For us it wasn’t about the money tonight, but that sure will be nice,” said Meyers. “I’ve worked real hard here for a lot of years to win a race. I’d been close a few times and had just come up short. To get this one tonight feels real good. We haven’t won for a while and were struggling a little bit. We won the race and got a lot of points in the championship. All in all it was a magnificent night for this team.”
After finishing on the podium in both races at Skagit Speedway last season as well as in the opener on Friday night, Meyers was able to win for the first time in his career at the high-banked bullring, where he competed for the first time back in 1998. He used strong restarts three times down the stretch with Saldana right behind him.
“I had him (Saldana) behind me last year and after about six or seven restarts, I gave him the race,” stated Meyers. “I was just trying real hard to get off turn four well. That’s where I made a mistake last year. I actually got off (turn) four bad on that last restart, but I was able to carry my speed through (turns) one and two pretty good. It was just a great race car tonight and that makes your job easier. I have a team that works hard each and every day to give me that and today they did an exceptional job.”
The race began with Jayme Barnes, who started on the outside of the front row, taking the lead from Jason Sides in turns one and two, though third-starting Travis Jacobson got upside leading to a red flag and a complete restart. On the second start, Barnes again got the jump on Sides and paced the field.
Meyers took the second position on the second lap from Sides, though the yellow came out negating that pass. On the ensuing restart, Meyers blasted his way around Sides on the high side of turn two and began to set his sights on Barnes.
The leaders found themselves in lapped traffic on the fifth lap, with Meyers closing right up on Barnes. While in heavy lapped traffic on the ninth lap, Barnes was held up coming off the fourth turn by a couple of slower machines causing him to nearly spin, and giving Meyers the opening he needed to dive under him and take the top spot, which he would not relinquish the rest of the 40-lapper.
“40 laps is a long time here and there is a lot of time for people to make mistakes,” Meyers noted. “With the way the cars are and the wing package is you have to get to the front as soon as you can. The clean air is very important. We went hard right out of the gate trying to get to the front. I had a great car all race long. It was great with the fuel load and it was great without. It was probably the best car I have had here in a long time.”
After winning the opener at Skagit Speedway on Friday night, Saldana settled for a runner-up performance in the Budweiser Maxim in the finale. He battled Jason Sides early in the race for the runner-up spot and took that position on the 11th circuit.
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