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Brent Kaeding holds off field, tire wear for Pombo Sargent Classic win
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In the pits at Tulare Thunderbowl on Saturday night after his second-place finish in the Golden State Challenge Pombo Sargent Classic, Tommy Tarlton sipped on a beer and contemplated race winner Brent Kaeding.
“We have to let the old man win every once in a while,” said Tarlton. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t come out here and race.”
Kaeding has made a habit of winning the Pombo Sargent Classic, taking his fourth straight victory and 11th of his Hall of Fame career. It’s a race that’s close to his heart – his father Howard raced against both Al Pombo and Marshall Sargent at tracks around California.
On a hot, dry night in the Central Valley the drivers were forced to deal with a slick track that took a lot of rubber and was in danger of eating up tires. Kaeding took the lead with a high side pass on Tarlton on lap 6 and didn’t look back, although he downplayed the notion that he was able to conserve his tires with the lead.
“It really doesn’t make a difference if you’re in the lead or not, it’s just a matter of being smart about your tires,” said Kaeding. “I still had a few laps left on the tires if we needed it.”
Not everyone was so lucky. Jason Statler was knocked out of a top five finish when he blew out his right rear tire late in the race. Even those who finished didn’t have much room to spare, especially second-place Tarlton.
“Our right rear was gone, our motor was shot and we had about a gallon of fuel left,” said Tarlton, who had won the 360 feature at Ocean Speedway the night before. “All in all, second place worked out just fine.”
Hot on Tarlton’s heels in the closing laps was Jonathan Allard, who held the GSC points lead coming into the race. Conserving tires wasn’t a choice for Allard, as a lap 3 spin had dropped him to the back of the 23-car field. But he was able to quickly pick his way through traffic, moving to ninth by the fifth lap before eventually finishing third.
“The problem with being that far back is that you have to move back and forth in the turns to make passes,” Allard said. “You wind up using up your tires that way."
The only major incident came on lap three, when Kyle Larson made contact with Tyler Walker while battling for position in turn one and flipping violently into the catch fence, knocking down a section while virtually destroying his car. After several minutes, Larson exited the car under his own power and woozily went into the ambulance, where he was later reported to have received a clean bill of health.
Walker suffered a flat tire in the incident, and was not able to work through traffic the way that Allard did, eventually finishing ninth. The results pushed Kaeding ahead of Walker in the series standings, eight points behind Allard. But despite the results, the 13-time King of California said that the points title was secondary to having fun.
“That stuff doesn’t really mean too much,” he said. “We’re just out here to have a good time and see what happens.”
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