Kaleb Johnson posted his season-best result with a second-place showing last Friday at Jackson Motorplex.
The podium performance during the Midwest Sprint Touring Series and Midwest Power Series event at the dirt oval in Jackson, Minn., marked his third top-three outing of the season.
A second-place qualifying run followed by a fourth-place finish in a heat race earned a spot into the feature redraw.
“We were able to lay down a good qualifying lap,” he said. “We didn’t have the greatest heat race, but we did enough to make the feature redraw. It was a revenge redraw and someone gave me the No. 5 so we started fifth. I was able to use the bottom to my advantage the first few laps and get to third. It was around the top after that. I used some restarts to my advantage to get to second. We had a late restart and I threw a slider on the leader. I couldn’t get enough speed into turn one to clear it, but we were definitely happy with finishing second the way the last month has gone.”
The weekend wrapped up on Sunday at Huset’s Speedway, where Johnson timed in 16 th quickest before he advanced from sixth to fourth place in a heat race and from 13 th to ninth place in the main event.
“We’ve been struggling in qualifying there,” he said. “I always feel I’m way too tight. Last night was one of our worst qualifying performances. We changed a bunch of things on the car to get it to handle better. We were able to pick off a few cars toward the start of the feature. Then I don’t know if I hit dirty air or what, but it sucked me into the wall. I broke the Jacob’s Ladder and radius rod. I fell back a few spots. Toward the end of the race I used a restart to my advantage and got back into the top 10.”
Next up is the 33 rd annual Xtream Powered by Mediacom 360 Knoxville Nationals presented by Great Southern Bank at Knoxville Raceway in Knoxville, Iowa. Johnson’s preliminary night is Thursday with the event finale on Saturday.
QUICK RESULTS –
July 28 – Jackson Motorplex in Jackson, Minn. – Qualifying: 2; Heat race: 4 (4); Feature: 2 (5).
July 30 – Huset’s Speedway in Brandon, S.D. – Qualifying: 16; Heat race: 4 (6); Feature: 9 (13).
SEASON STATS –
31 races, 0 wins, 6 top fives, 11 top 10s, 11 top 15s, 17 top 20s
UP NEXT –
Thursday and Saturday at Knoxville Raceway in Knoxville, Iowa, for the 33 rd annual Xtream Powered by Mediacom 360 Knoxville Nationals presented by Great Southern Bank with the ASCS National Tour
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