OSBORN — Officially, Joey Saldana led only three times for three single laps on Friday night in the World of Outlaws’ Missouri High-Banked Nationals at U.S. 36 Raceway, but he traded the top spot with Johnny Herrera countless times over the course of the 40-lap event, sometimes multiple times on the same lap, as the pair battled tooth and nail in heavy, lapped traffic on the high-banked bullring.
Saldana would lead at the end of the most important lap, the final one, to pick up his 11th A-Feature win of the season and the 50th of his WOO career, making him just the 10th driver in the 30-plus year history of the series to accomplish the feat.
Saldana was running second coming to the white flag lap as the pair charged into turn one with a lapped car on the high side of the track. Herrera was bottled up with the slower machine for just a split second, giving Saldana the opening he needed as the pair headed for turn two. Saldana took the lead and stayed out front for the final half-lap.
“I don’t know what to say” said Saldana in victory lane. “I’m very proud of this team and this is a great team. It’s great to win. My dad just got inducted into the BCRA (Big Car Racing Association) Hall of Fame today, so it’s pretty cool to win here tonight.”
Herrera took the top spot on the opening lap of the second start after an early red flag, opened a comfortable lead as he worked his way up to lapped traffic. Saldana closed in as the pair negotiated the slower machines, with a red flag flying on the seventh lap and giving them clean track to work with.
After Saldana took his second official lead after the 19th lap, Herrera was back in front after the next and held it for 19 more circuits. Saldana would run second for those 19 before snagging the lead on the last lap in the Budweiser Maxim.
“Lapped traffic was the whole race,” noted Saldana. “…I just kept digging and got him at the end.”
Chillicothe, Mo. —
