One of the toughest things to achieve on the World of Outlaws circuit is to sweep an entire racing program. For the third consecutive season, Joey Saldana accomplished this feat as he set fast time on Friday night in the opener at Skagit Speedway, won the first heat race, was victorious in the Crane Cams Dash and took the checkered flag in the 30-lap A-Feature event at the high-banked bullring.
Saldana took the lead from Jason Sides on the fourth lap of the 30-lap event and would lead the remainder of the race to push his season total of laps led to over 400. The native of Brownsburg, Indiana endured four red flags and three yellows over the course of the race en route to the win.
“It’s a great accomplishment,” said Saldana of his clean sweep. “It’s so tough to do that out. Last year it was the first time that Donny Schatz had ever done it (in his career). That’s how tough the competition is here. Like I’ve said, on any given night we are as good as anybody, it’s just putting the whole thing together through the whole season. We’ve show that we are good enough to accomplish that feat. We have about 16 more races and I don’t wish any bad luck on anyone. We just have to keep doing what we are doing and hopefully we are right there at the end.”
For Saldana it was his third career win at Skagit Speedway, which is one of the home tracks of his car owner Kasey Kahne, who grew up cutting his teeth on the high-banked bullring. The victory was Saldana’s 16th of the season aboard the Budweiser Maxim and the 55th of his World of Outlaws career.
“Kasey gives me a bonus when we win up here,” quipped Saldana. “It’s great to win here in Washington. The whole West Coast swing has always been pretty cool. My wife (Shannon) has always enjoyed coming out here. Growing up in Indiana, you don’t get states and environments like this out here. I know that if I wasn’t racing, I would never get to see places like this. It’s cool coming out here.”
The race began on Friday night with Jason Sides getting the jump on Saldana who started on the pole and led the field into turns one and two, only to have the first red flag of the night fly. On the complete restart, Sides again led the field on the low side of the track with Saldana moving up top. For the next three laps, Saldana was all over Sides and dove under him in turns one and two to take the lead on the fourth lap. The very next lap he hit traffic for the first time on the night and was working his way through the slower machines when a caution flew on the seventh lap.
The remainder of the race was interrupted by a number of cautions and red flags, though Saldana used strong restarts each time to quickly open a lead on Sides. With two laps to go, the final caution of the night flew and Saldana used another strong restart to pull over the final two laps and took the checkered flag by over a second on Jason Sides.
“Actually my car was better in lapped traffic, as crazy as it sounds,” noted the winner. “We freed our car up quite a bit, because here in the past you get into lapped traffic and your car gets real tight. I think that why at the start Sammy (Swindell) almost got me and Jason (Sides) did get me, because I knew my car was pretty free. Once we got racing, I was really good and once we got to lapped traffic I could maneuver pretty good. On that last red we moved our wheel in and tightened our car back up because we didn’t think we would get back to lapped traffic. We knew we had to have a good restart and run the top as hard as we could. We had a good car and it worked well in traffic. Hopefully we can continue this tomorrow night.”
Coupled with a 20th-place finish for current series point leader Donny Schatz, Saldana moved to within 67 points of the three-time and defending series champion in the series standings after his win, with Jason Meyers who finished third on Friday night second in points, just 52 markers out of the lead.
Sides led on each of the first two starts and would pace the field for the first three laps of the 30-lapper en route to a runner-up finish in the Wetherington Tractor Service Maxim. Sides gained some ground on Saldana a couple of times in lapped traffic only to have the caution flag fly.
“We were second quick to Joey (Saldana) in qualifying and then second in the race,” explained Sides. “We can’t be too sad about that. It was a good race for us top and bottom all around the track. We’ll take it as it comes and second place is a good run for us.”
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