BY: Chris Santos
10/24/22…Tulare California: Friday Night, Kaleb and his team would make the trip to Tulare California as he would partner up with the Keller Motorsports team for the 2022 Trophy Cup. A very great field of 86 Winged 360 Sprint Cars would be in the pit area ready to roll for the 2022 Trophy Cup!
Kaleb would kick his Trophy Cup off with qualifying where he would go out around halfway through the second group. He would lay down a really good lap that would put him 11th quick in group B and setting himself up very nicely for the rest of the opening night of Trophy Cup. “Qualifying time we were flight B. I think we ended up 11th or 12th at the very end. Not bad that would put us in a nice spot for points.”
The heat race would see him roll off from the 4th position in the heat race. Starting 4th Kaleb would need to make moves to make the feature. He would battle hard with Tim Kaeding and bring home a 3rd place finish in the heat race. “Heat race started 4th, we did a lot of battling which wasn’t very beneficial. We got a little lucky on my part and I think we finished 3rd.”
In the B-main, Kaleb would roll off from the outside of row 2 in the 4th spot. Early on he would go in to turn 1 and get into the back of another car that would send him spinning. He would restart in the back but was only able to get back to 11th and that would end his night.
“In the B-main I was running 4th and went to throw a slider and got collected with someone else. It put me to the tail end of the field and I thought that every point mattered so I went out there and tried to pass as many cars as possible. I think we got to 11th or 12th again.”
Friday Night, Kaleb would return to Tulare Thunderbowl for Night 2 of the 2022 Trophy Cup. 84 Winged 360 Sprint Cars would return to the track as they would be looking to put themselves into a very good spot in points for Saturday Night!
Kaleb would start his night off as he would roll out earlier in qualifying Friday. He would make mistakes on both laps which would end up putting him 18th quick in his group. “In qualifying the driver didn’t really get his job done, he made a bad mistake and cost us a lot of time, 3 or 2 tenths.”
The heat race would see Kaleb start on the outside of the front row in the 2nd spot. He would take the lead early on and got rolling. Tim Kaeding would reel him in but Kaleb would get the best of their battle and hold on to win his heat race and lock himself into the feature.
“That put us in 2nd place for the heat race. We made the most of it, we got really dicey with TK and hung the dueces out going across the checkered because we won.”
Following the heat race, Kaleb would be locked in for the Friday Night Feature event. Kaleb would roll off kind of deep as he would start 16th. However he would be on point in the feature. After falling back early he would start picking off cars.
With some help from some wrecks and making good moves he was up to 7th. A last lap red would bring the field to a halt. However, when being pushed off his car would not refire. That would end up bringing his night to an unfortunate end as he would finish in the 17th spot and lose a lot of points.
“We went back and forth but there for a hot second we went back to like 15th. We marched our way back up to 11th, then 7th but that’s all because of the benefit of other cars spinning and wrecking. It’s all a product of us racing hard at the Thunderbowl for Trophy Cup. We were picking em off one by one. My steering something was wrong with it, and it turned into more issues so we gotta really dissect this thing and pick it apart tonight.”
Saturday, Kaleb would return to the Tulare Thunderbowl as the highest sitting Fast Time Media Driver in the 26th position, putting him into the heat race inverts. 75 Winged 360 Sprint Cars would return to the Trophy Cup for Night 3, looking to add their names to the list of legends to capture the event title.
Kaleb would roll off in his heat race from the outside of row 2 in the 4th spot. He would need as many spots as possible to lock into the feature. On the initial start he would Quickly get to 3rd and had grabbed 2nd before a caution came out and sent him back to 3rd. On the restart he would take 2nd from Faccinto but by then the leader Ancona was gone and Kaleb would finish the heat race in 2nd.
With a 6 car invert for the B-main, Kaleb would start in the 5th spot, sitting 22nd in points. Early on he would get to the 4th spot but would get passed and fall to 5th. He would end up falling to 6th and try to reel them in but wouldn’t be able to. Kaleb would end his night there in the 6th position in the B-main.
Overall it was a good, but unlucky weekend for Kaleb in Tulare. If not for his issues late in the feature on Friday, Kaleb would have most likely been locked into the feature Saturday. Despite that, Kaleb and the Keller Motorsports team still battled hard on Saturday and still nearly made it happen.
Kaleb & Keller Motorsports would like to thank their sponsors; Ernest Hemingway Vineyards, Monarch Ford, Crown Limousine, Mike Mitchell Construction, Carquest, Porter Diving, Porter Construction, TripleX, Central Coast Concrete Cutting, Blake's Hardware, America's Tire, Fastenal, Iron Oaks Winery, North County Insulation, Full Spectrum Powder Coating, Pioneer Automotive, Lucas Oil, Drake Farms Trucking, Nicholas Medeiros CPA, Smokey Speedshop, S&S Equipment Repair, Blast N Brew, Cowgirls Cafe, Hooker Harness, Dead Horse Whiskey, Taco Works, 805 Beer, Impact, R.I.P Dave Duty, Phenix Industries, Porras Marketing, Diezels BBQ, Keizer Wheels, Davis Motorsports, A&W, Quick Change Energy
#crownlimos805.com, #lucasoil, #itWorks, #805beer, @officiallucasoil
Next Race: TBA