Kaeding wins second qualifying night of 49th Annual Knoxville Nationals
Thursday, August 13, 2009
By Stacy Ervin
Tim Kaeding proved that the number 83 and the name Tim are lucky this week.
The California driver won the second qualifying night of the 49th Annual Super Clean Knoxville Nationals presented by Lucas Oil on Thursday, August 13, at the Knoxville Raceway in Knoxville Iowa. The win was worth $12,000 for his Roth racing team.
The Wednesday night qualifier was won by Tim Shaffer driving an 83X. But Kaeding’s win in his 83 came at 11 p.m. on Thursday, while Shaffer and the other competitors on his night had not even begun qualifying by 11 p.m. on Wednesday due to rain.
Dry conditions blessed the racing surface on Thursday night and Kaeding started third in the 25-lap main event. He chased polesitter Dusty Zomer early in the race and held off a late-race charge by Kraig Kinser.
Before the race got started, Billy Alley came to the work area with motor issues and was relegated to start in the back. When the race went green, Zomer got out to the lead. But the yellow flag came out after the original start when Jac Haudenschild spun out on the frontstretch after making contact with other cars. Alley returned again to the work area at this time.
That set up a complete restart, but Zomer got out to the lead for a second time and the race went green to checkered from there. By lap four, Zomer, Kaeding and Kinser broke away from the rest. Kaeding made a move for the lead on lap six with Kinser hovering just behind. But Zomer held the point as they entered lapped traffic at lap eight.
By lap 10, the leaders were in heavy traffic and Kaeding was extremely close to Zomer. As they came out of turn four to lap 11, they went three wide with a lapped car and Kaeding came out with the lead under the flagstand.
Shortly after, Kinser got around Zomer for second, but by that time Kaeding had distanced himself by using traffic to his advantage. Kinser worked his own way through traffic and closed on Kaeding with two to go, but just ran out of time in his quest to chase down the leader.
Joey Saldana was third, Stevie Smith fourth, Tyler Walker fifth and Terry McCarl sixth. Zomer slipped back to seventh.
Dale Blaney was the fastest of the night’s 57 competitors in time trials, turning a lap of 15.056. Heat races were won by Brian Brown, Ricky Logan, Chad Meyer, Stevie Smith and Lynton Jeffrey. Tony Bruce Jr. won the C-Main. Steve Kinser won the B-Main.
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