BAKERSFIELD, California — M.K. Kanke started the 2010 SPEARS SRL Southwest Tour Series with a twenty-seventh place finish at All American Speedway, but the reigning SRL championship team of RPM Motor Sports bounced back to claim victory Saturday night in the Citizens Business Bank 135 at Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino, CA. The win was Kanke’s twenty-seventh career Southwest Tour victory.
Kanke, of Frazier Park, CA, spent most of the night chasing leader, Jacob Gomes. The 17-year-old series rookie from Manteca, CA took the lead from pole-sitter Josh Combs of Sacramento, on lap 32. Gomes then did a masterful job dealing with traffic on the tight quarter-mile to maintain the lead for the next 96 laps. A yellow on lap 128 slowed the field due to oil on the track surface.
Gomes had been able to pull away slightly on all eight of the previous restarts. However when the green flag waved on lap 128, he pulled his Dell’Osso Family Farms/PumpkinMaze.com Chevrolet to the inside of the track, after losing an axel. Kanke then charged into the lead ahead of fast qualifier Derek Thorn of Bakersfield and veteran Jim Pettit II, who had moved up from his fifteenth starting position.
As the final laps wound down, Thorn and Pettit did all they could to steal the victory away as the three drivers used all of the Orange Show quarter mile trying to get to the checkers first. Kanke’s Sims Trucking/RPM Chevrolet finished 0.362 of a second ahead of Thorn, who had won the season opener at Roseville, CA. Pettit came home in third, Ryan Foster fourth and Thomas Martin in fifth. Rounding out the top ten was Kyle Cattanach, Jason Gilbert, Rex Lockwood, Keith Spangler and Eric Richardson.
The next event for the SPEARS SRL Southwest Tour Series will be Saturday night, May 8th at the Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with the “Blackjack 121 presented by GoLiveStream.TV.”
