|
| |
Chico's
Jonathan Allard races to victory at Golden State Challenge Series season-opener
in Placerville
By Gary Thomas
Placerville, CA – March 28, 2010…Rebounding from a hard crash in Tulare earlier
this month two-time King of California Jonathan Allard came back this past
Saturday showing no ill effects and charged to a convincing victory, leading all
30-laps of the Golden State Challenge 410 Sprint Car Series season-opener at the
Placerville Speedway.
For Allard it was his 20th career GSC triumph and makes him the fourth driver to
reach the 20-win plateau in series history, joining only Brent Kaeding, Tim
Kaeding and Steve Kent in that category. "It was a total team effort tonight and
I have to thank all my guys for giving me such a great car," Allard commented.
"Winning races with GSC is always special because there have always been some
tough competitors out here so it feels great to get another win and hopefully
this won't be the last one this year."
To begin the evening Allard set the third fastest lap in qualifying and scored a
second place finish in his heat race, before drawing the pole for the dash and
dominating the five-lap race to also earn the pole for the feature in the
Williams Motorsports, K&N Filters, Butler Built Performance No. 0 sprinter.
"We've always done well here at Placerville and we love coming here because it's
a fun place to race and has some of the best fans around," Allard said after the
dash on the front stretch. "A few weeks ago we were involved in a pretty bad
crash and Ashley Smith and my team put a different car together and it's been
really fast all night."
When the green flag waved in the 30-lap Golden State Challenge Series main event
Allard jumped into the lead and began to show his muscle by immediately pulling
away from the field on the hooked-up quarter-mile. A handful of cautions during
the first half of the race slowed the flow, but through it all the 33-year-old
stayed on his game and got tremendous restarts each time as he had 13-time King
of California Brent Kaeding breathing down his neck. The final 14-laps of the
main event were then run caution free and Allard once again checked out, never
hesitating when dealing with lapped cars to drive off and cross under the
checkered with more than a straightaway margin over second place Brent Kaeding
and third place finisher Bobby McMahan.
The victory also marked Allard's ninth finish of second or better in the past 12
Golden State Challenge Series events at the Placerville Speedway as he continues
his strong consistency at the El Dorado County Fairgrounds track. "I have to
thank my car owners Morrie & Katie Williams, my whole crew and all you fans for
coming out and supporting us tonight because we all appreciate it," said Allard.
"I definitely want to congratulate Brent on getting second and Bobby for
finishing third tonight, because they've been a couple of the top drivers out
here for a long time and it's cool to be able to race with them."
Allard and Williams Motorsports will now head for two-nights of racing this
coming weekend beginning with the opening Feather Falls Casino 410 point race at
Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico on Friday. Then on Saturday "JA" and the team
will travel to the Antioch Speedway for the second round of the Golden State
Challenge season.
Last year saw Allard lead the first 26-laps of the feature during the April GSC
event in Antioch, until Tyler Walker got by in traffic to grab the win away late
in the race. In July at Antioch he then started from sixth and took the lead by
lap 17 in the main event, however, while navigating through traffic on the slick
surface he would get into a spin with seven laps remaining in the race. The
two-time King of California was able to restart at the rear and charged back to
eighth by the conclusion. This Saturday Allard will look to seal the deal as he
searches for his first career 410 victory at the Antioch Speedway and will bring
the GSC point lead into the track by way of his Placerville win.
For more news on Chico, California's Jonathan Allard visit
http://www.allardmotorsports.com
Copyright © 2010. All rights reserved. Dirt Solution
|
"Designed
for dirt track racers, by dirt track racers" Thomas Arbogast