Back on a big half-mile for the first time in a month and a half, Craig Dollansky and the Big Game Treestands #7 team returned to Missouri State Fair Speedway on Friday after a one year absence for the first round of the Kasey Kahne Challenge.
With 27 cars signed in to battle it out, ‘The Crowd Pleaser’ established the standard in qualifying by rocketing around the half-mile in 15.975 seconds to record his first quick-time of the season. Heat race action saw the Aggressive Hydraulics Maxim start fourth and charge to the runner-up spot behind Tony Stewart to earn a spot in the dash. An unfriendly inversion of eight pinned Dollansky outside of row four for the dash. In the wrong place at the wrong time for the start of the dash, another car tagged the frontstretch wall collecting the Elk River, Minnesota native and violently flipping the MobileStar #7.
After feverish work by DJ Lindsey and Luke Dollansky with no time left to spare, repairs were made just in time as the cars rolled onto the track for the start of the feature. In the 25-lap A-Main the Eaton’s Aeroquip Performance Products sprinter started ninth. Following a red on the opening lap and a caution on lap 4, ‘The Crowd Pleaser’ ran around the top ten until just after the halfway point when another caution came on lap 14. Battling a car with bent front torsion tubes, Dollansky went on to record a top-ten by crossing the finish line in 9th.
“It was unfortunate what happened in the dash because we had a real good race car,” commented Dollansky. “Starting 8th in the dash we would have had a shot at putting ourselves in good position for the feature. As it was we got bent up pretty good and had to scramble to barely make it back out for the A-Main. All things we’re right with our race car but we salvaged a top-ten out of it.”
With Sedalia in the rearview mirror, the Big Game Treestands #7 team will now travel east to Haubstadt, Indiana where racing resumes tonight at Tri-State Speedway.
