Joey Saldana let out a big breath before crawling out of his Kasey Kahne Racing #9 Red Bull Maxim in the Beaver Dam Raceway victory lane on Saturday night. He had just held off Craig Dollansky to win the Jim Boyd Memorial for his fourth victory of the season, but his first win since early May.
Saldana withstood struggles in June to stay in the hunt for the championship, and now after winning at 1/3-mile Beaver Dam for the second consecutive season, finds himself only 6 points behind championship leader Jason Meyers heading into the Month of Money events.
“It feels great to be back in victory lane after the past month,” said Saldana, of Brownsburg, Ind. “A good start has kept us in this points battle and if you’re going to beat guys like Donny Schatz and Jason Meyers, you have to be spot on, night after night. We haven’t been doing that lately. It’s been a struggle. It’s easy to lose your confidence out here but this win helps. The high line was good for us and I knew Craig was closing in but I was just patient and held on.”
On a night that saw the top three in the points standings (Meyers, Schatz and Saldana) separated by only 11 points, stakes were high as the series completed its Wisconsin weekend. Fresh off of his victory Friday night at Cedar Lake Speedway, Meyers continued to be the model for consistency with another strong showing. He timed in quickest on the night to pad his overall championship lead and started the feature from the outside of the front row. Pole-sitter Brooke Tatnell tried to hold on to the lead but saw Paul McMahan rocket by out of turn four to lead lap one. McMahan opened up considerable advantages as the race wore on but was caught in lapped traffic as the low line bottled up and allowed his teammate, Saldana, to slide past on the outside.
As Saldana charged to the point, ninth-starting Dollansky surged through the field as the laps clicked off. The Elk River, Minn., native weaved through the field and raced alongside Saldana as the final laps ticked off. In the end, Saldana’s momentum on the high side was too much for Dollansky to overcome.
“We dug ourselves into a little bit of a whole in qualfiying,” Dollansky said. “But as the night went on, D.J. (Lindsey) and this team did a great job of getting the car where I needed it to be. We fought hard and really wanted to pull one off since we are in Karavan (Trailers) country.”
For his efforts, McMahan wound up with a third-place finish but felt he could’ve done better.
“We tried a softer tire for the feature and that probably hurt us as the night wore on,” said McMahan, of Nashville, Tenn. “Hats off to the crew, though. They had me up front and this thing was incredibly fast all night long.”
Meyers settled for a fourth-place showing and, combined with the 5 points he earned for setting quick time, extended his points lead to six markers over Saldana. Donny Schatz wound up eighth and dropped to third in the points, 14 behind Meyers. Kasey Kahne Racing’s Brad Sweet rounded out the top-5.
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