TULARE, California — The 2010 season at the Groppetti Automotive Thunderbowl Raceway will fire-off in a big way this weekend as the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series highlight an exciting double-header bill that also includes the West Coast Late Models and USAC West Coast 360 Sprinters.
The event will mark the lone visit of the season for the World of Outlaws to the 1/3 mile clay oval and an extremely strong contingent of traveling stars is scheduled to be on hand. Last seasons March stop for the series featured terrific action over the two-nights of racing and saw main event victories taken by San Jose's Randy Hannagan and Brownsburg, Indiana's Joey Saldana, who captured an entertaining 35-lap non-stop affair during the Saturday portion of the weekend.
Joining the World of Outlaws on Friday night will be the West Coast Shootout Late Models. It will be the first time since 2006 that late models have competed at the Tulare Thunderbowl and will also mark the first of two season stops at the track for the tour, with the other coming on May 1. On Saturday evening the USAC West Coast 360 Sprinters will then be in action for the first of five visits to the track this year. Last season saw the Tulare County Fairgrounds facility host a trio of non-wing 360 events, which were captured by Santa Maria's Danny Sheridan, Clovis' Peter Murphy and Visalia's Richard Vanderweerd respectively.
Twenty-time World of Outlaws champion Steve Kinser will make his first Thunderbowl start since joining Tony Stewart Racing in the off-season and will lead the series into the track as he sits on top of the points aboard the Bass Pro Shops No. 11. "The King" was the victor of the very first WOO event at the 1/3 mile clay oval in 2003 and in total has captured three wins at the facility, which includes a two-night sweep of the inaugural National Sprint Tour weekend in '06. Kinser has finished on the podium in all three WOO events so far this season and has one victory, which came on February 6 during what was just his second start under the TSR banner.
Hot on Kinser's heels however, is his Tony Stewart Racing teammate Donny Schatz, who now finds himself second in the standings and only two scant markers back of the lead as he searches for his fifth consecutive World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series title. The Fargo, North Dakota veteran has won a pair of main events at the Thunderbowl in his career and will be searching for more to try and wrestle the top-spot back from Kinser. Along with his fourth WOO title last year the driver of the Armor All No. 15 also made more history by joining Kinser and becoming just the second driver to ever win the Knoxville Nationals four years in a row.
After winning 21 overall main events with the World of Outlaws last season Kasey Kahne Racing driver Joey Saldana goes into this weekend ranking third in the standings, just 12 back of the lead as he looks for his first career series title at the helm of the Budweiser No. 9 sprinter. In addition to his victory last March the "Brownsburg Bullet" also scored a World of Outlaw win at the Tulare Thunderbowl in 2007 and picked-up a preliminary night win at the Trophy Cup that same season, en route to a runner-up finish in the TC standings while driving for Grass Valley based car owner Harold Main.
