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KYLE LARSON CLAIMS FIFTH GOLDEN
STATE CHALLENGE WIN OF 2010
7/26/2010 - Series press release
 With
the summer in full-gear and temperatures hovering
around triple-digits the hottest thing in Northern
California sprint car racing recently has been
young Kyle Larson and the talented 17-year-old
from Elk Grove continued his blistering pace on
Saturday night at the Marysville Raceway Park by
charging to his third Golden State Challenge 410
Sprint Car Series victory in the past four events.
The triumph was good enough to move Larson into
the Golden State Challenge point lead for the
first time in his young career and also tied him
with Chico’s Jonathan Allard and San Jose’s Tim
Kaeding for the most series wins this season, with
each of them now having five victories apiece.
“It feels great to get another win tonight and I
really have to thank Rich Stadelhofer of
Stadelhofer Construction, my whole crew and
everyone that helps us out,” said Larson, who is
less than one week away from his 18th
birthday. “The track was tricky tonight with the
rough spots, but we’ve been on a pretty good roll
lately and hopefully we can keep this lead the
last two races and bring home the title.”
The night of racing was the first time 410 sprint
cars had been in action at the Marysville Raceway
Park since 1999 and when the green lights came on
in the feature it was new daddy Jason Statler of
Grass Valley jumping into the lead. During
Statler’s most recent start with the Golden State
Challenge Series on July 4 in Chico he had scored
a season-best third place finish and on Saturday
looked to bring home his first win of the year.
With extremely thick traffic looming ahead on the
tight bullring however, Larson closed in quickly
and made it a battle for the lead with a handful
of laps completed. As the leaders clicked off
lap-seven Larson looked to the inside of Statler
off turn four, before making a beautiful move to
change lanes and shoot to the outside in the first
and second corners to take the lead heading down
the backstretch. Once in front the defending GSC
Rookie of the Year picked his spots wisely as
drivers bounced around lap-after-lap on the rough
and tumble quarter-mile.
While navigating through traffic with the race
winding down Statler closed the gap between
himself and Larson and tried to make it a race for
the lead, but things came to a stop on lap 26 when
the lapped car Korey Lovell came in contact with
the left side of Larson’s machine, which resulted
in Lovell getting upside down to bring out a red
flag.
When going back green Larson checked out from the
field and appeared to be headed for victory, but
just as he was accepting the white flag the red
lights came on once again for a multiple car
pileup in turn two. After getting everything
cleaned up the final restart of the night went
green and this time Statler stayed close to
Larson’s bumper and tried desperately to make
something happen with the leader.
“The Big Guy” gave it a hard run on last corner,
but came up just shy and Larson crossed under the
checkered for his sixth career Golden State
Challenge 410 Sprint Car Series victory, tying him
with Randy Tiner, Paul McMahan and Bobby McMahan
on the all-time win list. Dating back to his win
at the Southern Oregon Speedway in June, Larson
has now claimed victories in four of the last
seven events with GSC at the helm of his
Stadelhofer Construction, Peppermill
Resort-Spa-Casino-Reno No. 99 mount.
With two events remaining in the season the
17-year-old now holds an unofficial six-point lead
at the top of the Golden State Challenge
standings, with next weekend being an off week for
the series. Larson however, will celebrate his
birthday next Saturday night July 31 by going back
to his roots and competing at the Cycleland
Speedway in an outlaw kart.
Statler capped off a strong night by claiming the
runner up spot to tally his best finish of the
Golden State Challenge 410 Sprint Car Series year
aboard the DF Rios Construction, D&D Roofing No.
00 machine. The former King of California also won
the dash during the evening and looked solid all
night, just a handful of days after he and wife
Stephanie became parents for the second time when
baby Cody entered the world on Tuesday.
“We had a good car tonight so I have to think all
my guys for working their tails off and helping to
get us up here on the front stretch again,”
commented Statler after the race. “We caught up to
Kyle there on the last lap and it was one of those
things where I wish we could have had one more
lap, but he did a heckuva job so we have to
congratulate him and his team. Those guys are
really tough right now and have been the class of
the field out here over the last month.”
Crossing the stripe in third and having a good run
for the second straight week was Scotts Valley’s
Evan Suggs behind the wheel of the Suggs Racing,
Lucas Oil Products No. 33e sprinter. The
23-year-old had an entertaining race long fight
for position having moved to third on lap-nine
getting around Campbell’s Brent Kaeding, before
dropping a spot to Elk Grove’s Bobby McMahan on
lap-14. Suggs then charged to the high-side in
turns three and four making an impressive move to
re-take third from McMahan with just 10-laps to
go.
“We had a little bit of a tough time in traffic
during the race, but we were really fast and made
the most out of the night so we’re happy to get on
the podium again,” said Suggs. “Kyle and Jason
were really quick in the feature, but I think we
could have run with them if we would have gotten
close enough in traffic. I don’t know if we would
have been able to get by them, but it would have
been interesting, because Richard Brown and my
guys had our car working really well.”
After losing a spot to Suggs on lap-20 McMahan
hung on to finish the race in fourth and pick up
his fifth top-five effort of the Golden State
Challenge Series season aboard the World
Environmental, C&H Veteran Enterprises No. 26b.
Rounding out the top-five was Brent Kaeding in the
Al’s Roofing Supply, High Five Pizza No. 69, who
now finds himself second in the GSC standings
going into his home track of Ocean Speedway on
August 7.
Having a fine run during the night and finishing
sixth in the main event was the Chicko Motorsports,
Pit Stop USA No. 3x of Penngrove’s Alissa Geving.
The 18-year-old began the night by tallying her
first ever fast-time award with the Golden State
Challenge Series and also scored a runner up
finish in her heat race. After having some tough
luck recently it was very nice to see Geving have
a solid night on Saturday in Marysville and the
sixth place finish in the feature tied her career
best result with the series.
Completing the top-10 in the main event were
Fremont’s Brent Bjork, Sacramento’s Billy Strange
Jr., Reno, Nevada’s Mark Tabor Sr. and Grass
Valley’s Pat Harvey. The night’s b-main was
captured by Reno, Nevada’s Mark Tabor Jr. with
Jason Statler winning the dash and the three
ten-lap heat races being picked off by Kyle
Larson, Bobby McMahan and Santa Rosa’s Brett
Rollag. Alissa Geving carved her way around the
Marysville Raceway Park quarter-mile in a time of
12.455 to record fast-time.
Full results can be found at
http://www.mylaps.com/results/showevent.jsp?id=568806
A-main finish: Kyle Larson, Jason Statler, Evan
Suggs, Bobby McMahan, Brent Kaeding, Alissa Geving,
Brent Bjork, Billy Strange Jr., Mark Tabor Sr.,
Pat Harvey, Matthew Davis, John Michael Bunch,
Mike Monahan, Brent Dothage, Mark Tabor Jr., Korey
Lovell, Danielle Simpson, Andy Gregg, Matt
Sherman, Brett Rollag, Colby Wiesz, Jim Richardson
With no race this coming weekend the Golden State
Challenge 410 Sprint Car Series will head next for
the Ocean Speedway in Watsonville, California on
Saturday night August 7. Following the event in
Watsonville another week off will be seen, before
drivers and teams get set for championship night
at the Placerville Speedway on Saturday
August 21. For more information on these final two
upcoming events stay glued to
http://www.goldenstatechallengeseries.com
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