Shane Golobic captures his first Outlaws victory at Antioch Speedway.

Photo Credit: Megan Hazel for the World of Outlaws

The Outlaws took on Antioch Speedway which is located on the Contra Costa County Fairgrounds. Antioch Speedway has hosted weekly auto racing since 1961. Everything from $99 claimers to skinny (sportsmen) cars to late models and sprints have run there. The track currently has the ALLPRO sanction banner guiding its competitors, while in the past it also carried the NASCAR banner. Last night's event, of course, will run under the Word of Outlaws sanction banner. This was the series' third visit to the track.

The track is a 3/8-mile, high banked facility whose surface is a dirt, silica and clay mix. The track record was set by Sammy Swindell on Sept. 12, 2011 with a lap of 11.563 seconds or 116.751 mph. Heavy rains over the last few days as well as earlier yesterday made for a wet and heavy track, whose speeds were much slower than the speeds seen at the speedway in the past. Because of that Swindell’s record was not broken during last night’s qualifying. Quick Time was set by Daryn Pittman who turned a lap of 11.706 seconds. Second and third went through the tie breaking process of quickest second lap with Kyle Larson coming out on top of Tim Kaeding. Sammy Swindell was fourth and Kraig Kinser was fifth.

Qualifying had its own excitement when Kerry Madsen clipped the wall coming out of Turn 2 on his second qualifying lap, got the car upside down and into the retaining fence. The car was very badly damaged and the fence was seriously damaged but Madsen walked away unhurt. The Keneric Racing team would pull down the back up and Madsen’s night would continue. Also, having misfortune during qualifying was Wayne Johnson who broke the second U Joint of the night coming to take the green flag. Johnson would limp away from the car and would be a scratch for the evening.

The four heat race winners were Cody Darrah, Shane Golobic, Jason Meyers and Sammy Swindell. The race track would be narrow making passing difficult during the heats. The winged sprints would push the cushion up and the support class (the modifieds) would push the cushion back down. Sammy Swindell would make up the most ground in the final heat as the track began to dry out and the cushion began to move up and widen the track out.  

The Dash inversion draw was an eight putting Shane Golobic on the pole and Jonthan Allard to his outside. They are both California natives and were running in front of home town crowds. The dash was a very quick six laps. Jonthan Allard would get the jump on Golobic early and lead from green flag to checkers. Kyle Larson who would come home seventh but would experience mechanical issues after the checkered flag causing him to stop on the backstretch during the cool down lap. It was reported that he had broken the rear end as it came across the line for the checkered flag.

The Last Chance Showdown was the first time the yellow flag would fly. With the track being so narrow it was decided before anything ever took the track that all restarts would be single file. On Lap 2, Brian Brown and Carson Macedo got together on the back stretch and Billy Aton flipped several times in an effort to miss the two stopped cars. All three drivers were okay but all three cars were damaged beyond the ability to repair them in the allotted two minutes in the work area. As a result, the cars were taken to their respective trailers ending the evening for all three drivers. Transferring to the A Main were Craig Dollansky, Greg Wilson, Evan Suggs and Terry McCarl.

With the A Main field set the drama was about to begin. When the cars were pushed to fire the engines, Chad Kemenah’s car would not fire. It was believed it had a bad ignition box and Kemenah was pushed to the work area. The rules say if you are not ready to go by the time the field lines up and the yellow lights are turned out, the first alternate is pushed to the track. The first alternate was Dominic Scelzi. Kemenah’s team would get the box changed and get him back on the track about the same time that Kerry Madsen’s car quit running on the front stretch. His car would not refire and he was pushed to the work area. When the field got the one to go Madsen’s car was not to the staging line and Scelzi was pushed to the track to start the A Main from the rear of the field.

When the green flew Jonthan Allard jumped out to the lead but Shane Golobic was all over his tail tank and never let up. Allard entered heavy lapped traffic quickly and it was there that Golobic would make his move. Coming out of Turn 3, Golobic would swing high with two wheels over the cushion and drive by Allard on the outside. Allard would make a run at Golobic but got sideways in Turns 1 and 2 losing several positions. Joey Saldana would take flight with his sights set on the young California driver. Saldana tried high in traffic and low in traffic but just couldn’t quite get the room to get around Golobic. In the end Shane Golobic would win his first World of Outlaws feature event. Joey Saldana would come home second and Tim Kaeding would come home third. The Hard Charger of the race went to Kyle Hirst who gained five spots to finish fifth in the final order.

Mother Nature played her hand but she couldn’t quite rain out the scheduled racing at Antioch Speedway. However, she did successfully cancel Calistoga Speedway’s debut of its new banked clay surface. Rain or no rain, wet track or no wet track - last night was Shane Golobic’s night. All of the pieces fell into place. All of the years of dreaming and working hard finally came together, this young man's dream of standing in the Outlaws victory lane came true. He dedicated that win to his uncle who is fighting cancer. He credited his crew and his car owner for always believing in him even when it was difficult to see that success was coming. Even as the lightening flashed in the distance, Mother Nature smiled. She had played her hand and a young man from Southern California, where it doesn’t rain, called her bluff and walked away a winner. How can anyone not like the way that story ended?

Qualifying Results: 1) Daryn Pittman 11.706 2) Kyle Larson 3) Tim Kaeding 4) Sammy Swindell 5) Kraig Kinser 6) Paul McMahan 7) Chad Kemena 8) Kyle Hirst 9) Cody Darrah 10) Joey Saldana 11) Rico Abreu 12) David Gravel 13) Jonthan Allard 14) Shane Golobic 15) Jason Meyers 16) Donny Schatz 17) Jac Haudenschild 18) Jason Sides 19) Steve Kinser 20) Kerry Madsen 21) Craig Dollansky 22) Carson Macedo 23) Greg Wilson 24) Dominic Scelzi 25) Terry McCarl 26) Evan Suggs 27) Brian Brown 28) Bobby McMahan 29) Austen Wheatley 30) Jason Statler 31) Sean McMahan 32) Billy Aton 33) Pat Harvey Jr. 34) Dusty Green 35) Wayne Johnson (NT)

First Heat Race Results: 1) Cody Darrah 2) Jonthan Allard 3) Daryn Pittman 4) Jac Haudenschild 5) Kraig Kinser 6) Craig Dollansky 7) Terry McCarl 8) Austen Wheatley 9) Pat Harvey Jr.

Second Heat Race Results: 1) Shane Golobic 2) Joey Saldana 3) Paul McMahan 4) Jason Sides 5) Kyle Larson 6) Evan Suggs 7) Carson Macedo 8) Jason Statler 9) Dusty Green.

Third Heat Race Results: 1) Jason Meyers 2) Tim Kaeding 3) Rico Abreu 4) Chad Kemenah 5) Steve Kinser 6) Greg Wilson 7) Brian Brown 8) Sean McMahan

Fourth Heat Race Results: 1) Sammy Swindell 2) Donny Schatz 3) David Gravel 4) Kyle Hirst 5) Kerry Madsen 6) Dominic Scelzi 7) Bobby McMahan 8) Billy Aton

Dash Results: 1) Jonthan Allard 2) Shane Golobic 3) Sammy Swindell 4) Joey Saldana 5) Tim Kaeding 6) Cody Darrah 7) Kyle Larson 8) Jason Meyers 9) Daryn Pittman 10) Donny Schatz

Last Chance Show Down Results: 1) Craig Dollansky 2) Greg Wilson 3) Evan Suggs 4) Terry McCarl 5) Dominic Scelzi 6) Bobby McMahan 7) Austen Wheatley 8) Jason Statler 9) Sean McMahan 10) Pat Harvey Jr. 11) Dusty Green 12) Carson Macedo. 13) Brian Brown 14) Billy Aton

A Main Results: 1) Shane Golobic 2) Joey Saldana 3) Cody Darrah 4) Tim Kaeding 5) Kyle Larson 6) Sammy Swindell 7) Jonthan Allard 8) Donny Schatz 9) Kyle Hirst 10) Daryn Pittman 11) Jason Meyers 12) Paul McMahan 13) Rico Abreu 14) Kraig Kinser 15) David Gravel 16) Jac Haudenschild 17) Craig Dollansky 18) Dominic Scelzi 19) Steve Kinser 20) Evan Suggs 21) Jason Sides 22) Terry McCarl 23) Chad Kemenah 24) Greg Wilson 25) Kerry Madsen.