ROSSBURG, Ohio — Driving a non-wing sprint car for the first time this year Campbell, CA's Bud Kaeding tallied a seventh place finish in the main event during the annual Don Branson/Jud Larson Classic at the Eldora Speedway on Saturday night.
Kaeding hadn't run a wingless sprinter since last November's sixth place finish in the Oval Nationals at Perris and a 13th place run in the Western World Championships at Manzanita. Those two events saw him run pretty strong considering the fact that they were his only two non-wing sprint car starts last season.
Following a rain out on Friday at Eldora the skies cooperated on Saturday and the USAC National Sprint Car Series drivers and teams were able to take to the intimidating half-mile for the Branson/Larson Classic, which was part of the Coca-Cola Spring Classic weekend.
A 34 car field of wingless 410 sprint cars was on hand for the night and Kaeding started it off well by clocking a lap of 15.552, which was good enough to place the K&N Filters, MPD Racing Products, Kaeding Performance No. 29, ninth fastest overall. He then took to the track in the first heat and raced to a fifth place finish behind Brad Sweet, Chris Windom, Cole Whitt and Dave Darland, putting him into the semi.
Kaeding started at the front of the 12-lap b-main and put together a solid race to beat out Jesse Hockett and pick up the win to transfer the High Five Pizza, Swift Metal Finishing, Angellos ATV Rental machine into the main event. Running with the top non-wing sprint car drivers in the country Kaeding diced it up among the top 10 in the 30 lap feature and at the checkered flag crossed the stripe in seventh, just behind fellow Nor Cal native Robert Ballou. The feature event was won by defending USAC National Sprint Car & Silver Crown Series champion Jerry Coons Jr.
Kaeding next weekend is scheduled to return home for a double-header of competition as he gets re-acquainted with the wing atop the car beginning on Friday night with the second GLR Investments 360 Series event at the Ocean Speedway in Watsonville. The 29 year-old driver will be in action for the evening driving the Sala/Matherly Racing No. 19 sprint car and is coming off a third place finish during his first outing in the car on April 3.
On Saturday Kaeding will head to the always racy Petaluma Speedway for the fourth round of the Golden State Challenge King of California Sprint Car Series season. Last April saw the Campbell racer pick up a win at the 3/8 mile clay oval, which marked his fourth career GSC victory and he'll look to duplicate that performance on Saturday at the helm of the BK Motorsports, MDR Machine, Maxim Chassis No. 29.
