| Thursday, January 29, 2004 | |
| Indiana's Joey Saldana Takes East Bay's 360 Sprint Opener | HOOSIER JOEY SALDANA FLIES FROM AUSTRALIA TO WIN EAST BAY’S 360 OPENER
by Jean Lynch
Tampa, FL…..1/28/04 - "Thanks to Gary Wright, I had a good start…. and track position was everything tonight,” Joey Saldana told on-track announcer Roby Helm after leading all 25 laps worth $1,500 in the 6th Annual King of 360’s preliminary opener Wednesday night at a chilly East Bay Raceway Park.
Wright had been the fast qualifier and therefore drew the inversion pill for the A-Main. He drew an eight, putting Saldana outside the front row and the Brownsburg, Indiana pilot adapted to a brand new Shaw chassis that responded to his every move as he pulled ahead of the 26-car field at the drop of the green. The Red Stauffer owned machine also sported a new Don Ott engine and was sponsored by Blue Ribbon Farms Tomato Packing Company and Milk Movers, Inc.
Describing his race, Saldana said, “The groove was right on the bottom and it was one of those deals when you had to focus on what you had to do to stay in that bottom groove.” He showed how excited he was to be here when he told the crowd that he flew home from Melbourne, Australia on Monday, then drove to East Bay on Tuesday. “I saw the car for the first time today and everything worked great ‘out of the box’.
“I was a little concerned about the tires. I wanted to go harder, but the only thing they had here was a Hoosier 10, so we made it work,” explained the winner. His tough decisions of handling lapped traffic came about every seven laps when he would catch the back of the field. But he showed a lot of patience and, as luck would have it, the three caution flags for spins occurred at just the right time to give Saldana a clear track.
One caution came on lap seven for a spin by Marshall Skinner. Two times, once on lap 16 and once on lap 23, Kenny Adams spun a 360 right in front of the leader for a very close call. But, in Saldana’s words, “I saw he was in trouble and I had already checked up.” Zach Chappell had started on pole and Chad Kemenah and Roger Rager made up row two. Terry Gray and Danny Lasoski were in row three followed by Lance Dewease and Wright for the eight-car inversion. It was Rager who hounded Saldana every time the leader slowed approaching lapped traffic and he held on for a good showing in second place in the Butch Donahue-Harley Davidson with a Weisman-built Chevrolet power-plant. After taking nine years off, Rager had a good crew helping him, Brad Sparks and Deuce Turrill who made minor changes with tires and shocks.
Third place finisher, Lasoski used his familiar Eagle chassis powered by a Kistler engine to come up from sixth starting spot. Jimmy Carr explained the track conditions as, “It was rubber down from hot lapping to rubber down in the last lap of the race. We put tires on every time we went out.” The number 20 showed local sponsorship from WTS Wetherington Tractor Service and Bud’s Poultry.
Chappell and Wright had top five finishes, while rounding out the top ten it was Greg Leonard, Chad Kemenah, Jeff Shepard in Kasey Kane’s car, Shane Steward and Dewease.
Heats went to Shepard, Terry McCarl, Johnny Anderson, Kelly Kinser, Kenny Adams and Skinner. The B-Main advanced Rager, Terry Gray, Saldana, Terry Pletch, Kemenah, Shane Stewart, Leonard and Sport Allen. The four cars to move up from the C-Main were Shane Stewart, Darren Long, Glenn Styers, Roland Johnson and Tim Hogue. The Goodson Farms Strawberry Dash was won by Derek Drown.
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