Tom Rolfe Racing @ SprintCar PR

30-Cent Part Costs ‘TK’ $30K at Oval Nationals

LAKE PERRIS, CA (November 3) – Tim Kaeding was leading the 12th Annual Budweiser Oval Nationals Saturday at Perris Auto Speedway when an injector spring broke and caused the #10 Tom Rolfe Trucking Maxim to slam into the fence, costing him the $30,000 first prize.

“We had a great racecar, but a 30-cent part – a spring on the injectors – broke and we were in trouble from there,” Tim said. “It’s definitely not the way we wanted to end the non-winged racing season. We were leading it with nine laps to go; the race was within in our grasp.”

Kaeding, the runner-up in Friday’s Preliminary Feature, started Saturday’s 40-lap main event outside the second row.

“We were good; we got right out in front real quick off the start,” Tim said. “Damion (Gardner) got by us about lap 10 or so and we followed him around for a while. There was a red on about lap 20 after I got the lead back from him in lapped traffic.

“We were just cruising around having fun and keeping the car going fast and straight. The next thing you know, I was either wide open or had no throttle at all. At that point, all I could do was hold on and pray. We were right up on the fence and we had the quickest car out there. I was just keeping it nice and straight and smooth and, from there, I started thinking, ‘Oh God, this is going to be ugly’ and we were in the fence crashing. I was just trying to keep it going straight and we got up into the curb and the throttle just stuck wide open and ran me up into the fence. I got it to stop, and once it stopped bucking and jumping, the pedal got stuck to the floor again and I said to myself, ‘Oh God, this is going to hurt.’ We were lucky to get it stopped and not get hit by anybody. There was no way we were going to go back out, so I just got out of the car and put my head down and walked into the pits.”

When asked if it helped his feelings any when his brother, Bud, won the race for the third time, Tim said, “No, not at all. I’m glad he won and I give him credit for running a great race, but it was our race to win.

“That’s just one of those things you don’t expect. You don’t expect a part like that to fail, but it was just a spring that broke. I just said, ‘OK, now we know to put new springs on more often and make sure we have extra ones.’”

Kaeding and his Tom Rolfe Racing teammates will be back in action Saturday in the Cotton Classic at Kings Speedway in Hanford , CA .

Tim Kaeding drives the #10 Tom Rolfe Trucking Maxim

Photo courtesy of John’s Racing Photos

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