World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series point leader Joey Saldana won the Kasey's King of LaSalle Thursday night, taking the lead from KKR teammate Paul McMahan on lap 22 of the 35-lap event to score the Showdown for the Bud Crown finale at LaSalle Speedway in Illnois.

“It was a great effort,” said Saldana. “We drew dead last (for time trials) and qualified 10th. We started ninth in the dash and moved up to sixth and then went from sixth to win, that was a great effort. They can’t say that we started on the front row and they gave us that one. We worked for everything the whole night. We worked with our car and the whole crew did a really good job.”

The Showdown for the Bud Crown, a four-race mini-series with it's own points championship, was co-promoted by NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Kasey Kahne, Saldana's car owner.

“He’s put a lot into the World of Outlaws and I just hope everyone appreciates what he’s doing,” said Saldana of his car owner. “I know we do and Budweiser does. He not only has these cars out here racing, but he takes time out of his very busy schedule to try and promote the World of Outlaws. That’s why he wanted to put this series on and come to these tracks that we hadn’t been to in a while and he got us back to these places. The crowds have been tremendous and the racing has been awesome."

Paul McMahan finished second at LaSalle Thursday night, also taking second in the Showdown for the Bud Crown points battle, four points behind Bud Crown champion Jason Meyers.

“I knew if Joey (Saldana) got out front he would be hard to catch,” said McMahan. “He cleared me one time and I got back underneath him and we went back ahead and I just couldn’t clear him. It was a great effort by the whole KKR team to come home first and second. We tried to come in and win this Bud Crown tonight and came up just a few points short. We did everything we had to do. We out qualified Jason (Meyers). We matched him in the heat race and outran him in the main event. We just came up a few points short.”

Steve Kinser, Donny Schatz and Lucas Wolfe completed the top-five finishers in Kasey's King of LaSalle.

Jason Meyers finished eighth Thursday night to capture the Bud Showdown points title.

“It’s really a neat deal for companies like Budweiser and someone like Kasey Kahne to get behind our sport and to come out here and put some races on for us with this mini-series,” Meyers said. “It was really great that they did this and we are very thankful to them. We’ve been working really hard this season and had a very good start to the year and hopefully this is a sign of things to come.”

The World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series next stop on the 2010 schedule is Saturday, July 10 at Beaver Dam Raceway in Wisconsin for the Jim Boyd “JB” Memorial.

World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series Results Thursday, July 8, 2010
A-main (35 laps) - Starting Position [#]
1) 9-Joey Saldana[6] [$10,000]
2) 91-Paul McMahan[1] [$5,500]
3) 11-Steve Kinser[15] [$3,200]
4) 15-Donny Schatz[8] [$2,800]
5) 5W-Lucas Wolfe[3] [$2,500]
6) 83-Tim Kaeding[18] [$2,300]
7) 7S-Jason Sides[13] [$2,200]
8) 14-Jason Meyers[7] [$2,100]
9) 11K-Kraig Kinser[4] [$2,050]
10) 6-Danny Lasoski[9] [$2,000]
11) 1HRP-Daryn Pittman[12] [$1,500]
12) 17B-Bill Balog[22] [$1,200]
13) 10-Ricky Logan[11] [$1,100]
14) 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr.[17] [$1,050]
15) 1M-Jim Moughan[24] [$1,000]
16) 14AJ-Wayne Modjeski[19] [$900]
17) 4X-Toni Lutar[21] [$800]
18) 2B-Ben Gregg[23] [$800]
19) 7-Craig Dollansky[5] [$800]
20) 1X-Randy Hannagan[10] [$800]
21) 1-Sammy Swindell[14] [$800]
22) 63-Chad Kemenah[16] [$800]
23) R19-Jac Haudenschild[2] [$800]
24) 22-Brian Ellenberger[20] [$800]

Lap Leaders: Paul McMahan 1-21, Joey Saldana 22-35
KSE Hard Charger Award: Steve Kinser
Penske Power Position Award: Toni Lutar
Chizmark-Larson Hard Luck Award: Brian Ellenberger

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