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Jonathan Allard wins Winged Wednesday GSC event at Placerville Speedway

By Bill Sullivan

PLACERVILLE, CA – Jonathan Allard continued his winning ways in the Golden State Challenge Series Wednesday night, winning the fourth round of the series in a special weeknight event at John Padjen’s Placerville Speedway. The victory was Allard’s third out of four events to take place so far in this rain shortened racing season and will increase his early season point lead while adding $3,000 to the bank account of his Morrie Williams owned team.

“I’m really happy with the way things have been going for us lately," said Allard. “I really want to thank everyone that gets this car on the track at every race, especially tonight because I’m battling a bit of a cold and my whole team did a great job tonight. But most of all I want to thank all the fans that came out here on a Wednesday night, I know its hard to make it here after work but this is a great crowd here and all of us thank you for coming out to watch.”

Allard earned the second position in qualifying Wednesday night behind Andy Forsberg who earned the Cold Springs Community Church, Placerville Speedway fast time award with a 10:087 second lap. In heat racing action Allard finished in the fourth position which made him eligible for the eight lap dash midway through the program, an event that determines the first four starting rows of the feature event.

After winning the dash, Allard earned the pole position for the feature event with Ronnie Day of Salinas on the outside and the second row of Placerville’s Andy Gregg and Brent Kaeding of Campbell starting in the fourth position.

At the waving of the green flag, Allard wasted no time in pulling ahead of his fellow 21-competitors in the A-feature. While Allard ran undaunted several car lengths ahead for much of the race, the action several positions deep in the field.

Starting in the ninth position, Auburn’s Andy Forsberg had advanced as high as the sixth position early in the race until a roll over in the second turn on lap eight sent him to the rear of the field for the restart. Forsberg rallied back once the event was restarted but a second spin ended the fast qualifier’s night early at the 18-lap mark.

Forsberg’s incidents were just two of many caution periods on Wednesday night. The repeated restarts prevented Allard from reaching lapped traffic for much of the event, something the former Silver Dollar Speedway champion was thankful for.

“The caution flags saved my rear tonight as far as lapped traffic goes,” said Allard. “ We were able to stay out in front and roll around a bit and never really had to worry about getting caught up in traffic with the caution flags.”

In the final laps of the race former King of California champion Brent Kaeding closed in on second place runner Ronnie Day with little success. Day, who has returned to full time racing with the GSC for 2006 maintained the bridesmaid position in his first event at Placerville in more than six years.

“It’s been a long time since I have been up here and it’s nice to be back running the series,” said Day. “Like Jonathan said I think we all need to thank the fans tonight for their support on a weeknight deal like this. We appreciate everyone coming out to watch us do this.”

Kaeding maintained his third place position to the checkered flag, despite challenges late in the race by Allard’s teammate Dennis Moore Jr. of Grinell, Iowa. Kaeding entered the night second in the series point standings behind Allard and credited Allard for his successful season so far.

“Sometimes its great to be good and better to be lucky,” said Kaeding. “Jonathan Allard has had both of those things going on this year. Tonight he got lucky with a good starting position but on other nights he has started behind me and passed me because he’s just having a really good year with a great team. He and Ronnie drove a great race. It’s nice to run during the week again I hope maybe next year we can get some of these promoters to let us have a speed week again. You can talk about Oregon and everywhere else but California is number one when it comes to this sport and I know the fans would support it again.”

Moore finished the event in fourth behind Kaeding. Jason Statler of San Jose rounded out the top five finishers in the feature event ahead of Elk Grove’s Kyle Hirst and Chuck Gurney Jr. of Indianapolis, Indiana. In preliminary competition the B-main event was claimed by Forsberg who finished ahead of Hirst and Calistoga’s Mike Benson. Heat races were won by John Gray of Chico, Statler and Brad Sweet of Indianapolis, Indiana.

The Golden State Challenge Series Sprint cars will return to Placerville Speedway on Saturday, June 3 for their final appearance here. This Saturday the El Dorado County New Car Dealers championship season resumes at Placerville with 360 sprint cars, pro stocks and pure stocks. The three track regulars will compete in their second point race of the season and will be joined by the Hunt Magnetos Wingless Spec Sprints for their first season appearance here.

Action is set to begin with qualifying at 6:30 for the winged sprint cars. The gates to the speedway will open at 5 p.m. Adult tickets will be $11, juniors and seniors will be $9, children $4 and under six will be admitted for free. For further information visit www.johnpadjenmotorsports.com or call the track office at (916) 969-7484.