Joey Saldana continued a strong streak that has now seen him finish on the podium in five consecutive events as he came home third in the Budweiser Maxim and also brought him to within 38 points of Donny Schatz in the series standings. He ran second for a large part of the race after moving up to that spot on the ninth lap. He then held off Jason Sides for a number of laps as the latter challenged him for the position.
“It was a good solid night for our entire Budweiser team,” Saldana stated. “We had about a third-place car tonight, and didn’t really have anything to race Jason (Sides) there. He was rolling really good on the bottom and actually got beside me once and was good the whole race. I knew he was coming in lapped traffic and I left the bottom open that one time and he just ate me up.”
The final caution of the night flew on the 28th lap, setting up a three lap shootout between Sides, Shaffer and Saldana. On the restart, Shaffer looked high in turns one and two for the lead and again in turns three and four, but could not get enough momentum to make a pass.
“You just try to attack on those,” said Shaffer who hails from Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. “He stumbled on the start and I kind of got on top of him and then he got away. It just didn’t work out. It wasn’t meant to be.”
Saldana gained a lot of ground on Shaffer in the middle of the race when the leaders got into heavy lapped traffic. Three cautions and a red flag led to four restarts, which Saldana did not really want to see.
“We’ve been fighting the motor taking off for some reason and having heat in it for some reason,” admitted the native of Brownsburg, Indiana. “On every restart, I was getting killed. I didn’t need the restarts. I needed to keep racing and get into lapped traffic. That was the only shot I had. Those guys would get all over me on the starts. It’s just something you have to go home and look at and see what you did wrong and get a little better.”
Jason Meyers had another solid night coming home fourth in the GLR Investments KPC. He began the night by setting fast time to earn five bonus points in the World of Outlaws championship standings and was able to cut another nine points off Donny Schatz’s lead, after the latter finished sixth. The margin between the two is now just nine points with eight events remaining this season.
“We unfortunately pulled the 10 for the dash and didn’t really make up a lot of ground in the dash which we needed to do,” commented Meyers. “The track was tough tonight, but low and behold it still put on a great race, especially when we got to lapped traffic. It was really getting interesting there and we’ve seen that a lot this year. It was another good run for us. We just keep charging and keep trying to put the good numbers on the board.”
Cale Conley finished fifth in the Health Bridge Imaging Maxim to earn his best career finish with the World of Outlaws.
Schatz was sixth in the Armor All J&J, with David Gravel scoring his best World of Outlaws finish with a seventh-place effort in the DDR Motorsports J&J after turning in the fourth quickest lap in time trials. Jac Haudenschild was eighth in the Owens-Corning Fiberglass Maxim, with Steve Kinser ninth aboard the Quaker State Maxim. Sam Hafertepe Jr. rounded out the Top-10 in the G.H. Plumbing Maxim.
The World of Outlaws return to action on Saturday, September 26 at Lernerville Speedway in Pennsylvania with the Commonwealth Clash.
| 
|