Gharst completes the weekend sweep at Quad City Raceway
By Jake Croxton

EAST MOLINE, Ill. (Sept 9) – Kaley Gharst took to the quarter-mile Rock Island County Fairgrounds for the first time and continued his march toward the 2007 Ideal Ready Mix Sprint Invaders championship. Gharst notched his sixth win and second in a row in his Hostiowa.net / Bell Helmets / Wesmar / Maxim.

“As long as we have no mechanical failures, we’ve been looking good the last couple nights,” said the Decatur, Ill. driver of his title hopes. “ We’ve got the momentum going into the last couple races. [Sutton’s] seen those tracks a few more times than we have, but we’ve been fast. We’ve won at Donnellson a couple times and when we were a Burlington, we broke a rear end.”

With the victory, Gharst tied the all-time single-season win mark set by Jerrod Hull in 2005. While Hull was not in contention for the championship that season, Gharst is in a much different situation.

“I think our worst finish – that we’ve actually finished – with the Invaders is fifth,” he continued. “The three that we didn’t finish, we were leading or running second. We’ve had a pretty decent year with the Invaders and hopefully we can get two more before the year’s out. We really didn’t change the car a whole lot, tonight. It was pretty much the same from practice on. The car was fast all night long…The last time we won the heat and the dash, we broke in the feature. It was nice to finally turn our luck around a little.”

In a virtual repeat of the night before at Bloomfield, Gharst tracked down early race leader Josh Schneiderman in lapped traffic. The winning pass came one lap earlier than the night before at lap 9.

“We had a great racecar and I think we were pulling away from those guys,” said a disappointed Schneiderman. “Inexperience in lapped traffic killed us again, tonight. It should have been win number two this weekend, but [that 3* car] is tough to beat…We were just holding our line, trying to get around some lapped cars and weren’t able to.”

Near the halfway point, the surface began to take rubber and passing became difficult. Current points runner-up Matt Sutton had one of his best runs of the late-summer and was able to keep touch with Gharst and moved by Schneiderman as the caution flew for Justin Newberry’s spin in turn two.

Newberry’s spin set up an eight-lap dash to the finish, but Gharst would not be denied.

Sutton made things interesting coming to the checkered flag as Gharst was hung behind a large group of tail-end lead lap cars. Time simply ran out to mount any serious challenge.

“We didn’t need the yellow before,” said Sutton, driver of the S&S Shortstop / Thom’s Auto Body / Onion Farms / Olson Bros. / Maxim. “ I think we had something for him in traffic. Kaley’s pretty tough…We’re going to go as hard as we can go every lap and get every point we can get.”

Jerrod Hull finished fourth, while Matt Rogerson had a plume of smoke trailing his fifth-place car. Lance Gullo equaled his career-best Invaders finish in sixth, while Matt Harms, Jordan Goldesberry, John Schulz, and Manny Rockhold completed the top ten.

Two events remain on the 2007 calendar. The series returns to 34 Raceway during the Friday portion of the Pepsi USA Late Model Nationals. The annual series finale will take place at Lee County Speedway on September 22.



Results

Car Count – 18
Cautions – 2 – L0, 17
Leaders – Schneiderman 1-9, Gharst 10-25
Laps Led – Gharst 16, Schneiderman 9
Highest Finishing Rookie – Jordan Goldesberry (8th)

Contingency:
KSE Racing Products Hard Charger – Jerrod Hull
(Started 10th, Finished 4th)
Rod End Supply – Patrick Moore
Rod End Supply – Tim Moore
Saldana Racing Product – Jamie Needham
Ultra Shield – Ryan Jamison
Diversified Machine – Justin Newberry
MPD – Manny Rockhold
The Brake Man – Josh Schneiderman
M&W Aluminum Products – Rager Phillips

Staats Awards Heat Race #1 (Top 6 advance) -- 1. 3* Kaley Gharst, Decatur; 2. 29 Matt Rogerson,Burlington, IA; 3. 14P Rager Phillips, Pleasantville,IA; 4. 12 Jerrod Hull, Sikeston, MO; 5. 9X BartAndrews, Muscatine, IA; 6. 10T Tim Moore, Moline

Budweiser Heat Race #2 (Top 6 advance) -- 1. 49 Josh Schneiderman, W. Burlington, IA; 2. 3G Lance Gullo, Springfield; 3. 53H Matt Harms, Chillicothe; 4. 2 John Schulz, W. Burlington, IA; 5. 36 Justin Newberry, Burlington, IA; 6. 2X Patrick Moore, Moline

Storm Steel / Abrasive Jet Technologies Heat Race #3
(Top 6 advance) -- 1. 65 Jordan Goldesberry,Springfield; 2. 3 Matt Sutton, Macomb; 3. 99W KoreyWeyant, Springfield; 4. 99 Manny Rockhold, Pekin; 5.51J Ryan Jamison, Mediapolis, IA; 6. 93 Jamie Needham,Moline

Modern Welding Shake-up Dash – 1. Gharst; 2. Sutton;3. Rogerson; 4. Goldesberry; 5. Gullo; 6. Schneiderman

Quad City Raceway Sprint Showdown 25
1. Gharst(3); 2. Sutton (4); 3. Schneiderman (2); 4. Hull (10);5. Rogerson (5); 6. Gullo (1); 7. Harms (8); 8.Goldesberry (6); 9. Schulz (11); 10. Rockhold (12);11. Weyant (9); 12. Jamison (15); 13. Andrews (13);14. T. Moore (16); 15. Newberry (14); 16. P. Moore(17); 17. Phillips (7); 18. Needham (18)