SHORT TRACK NATIONALS: Sweet home cooking in prelim

— Brad Sweet doesn’t get to race back in California very often these days.

But Friday night, Little Rock’s I-30 Speedway felt just like home.

Sweet, of Grass Valley, Calif., led every lap to winFriday night’s preliminary feature at the 23rd annual Comp Cams Short Track Nationals at I-30.

“I grew up on tracks just like this,” he said after thevictory. “Placerville, Chico ... they’re both small quartermiles.”

Sweet’s chief racing jobthese days is driving sprints and midgets owned by NASCAR star Kasey Kahne. He also has made six starts this season in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and made his first NASCAR Nationwide Series start last week at Madison, Ill.

Still, he was thoroughly impressed by the record field of 128 cars for the Short Track Nationals.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw the entry list,” said Sweet, who is making his second visit to the Short Track Nationals, finishing 18th in 2006. “There’s good cars from all other the country here. To be honest, I didn’t know how good I would be here.”

Sweet started the 25-lap feature on the outside of the front row and drove past polesitter Chad Kemnah of Findlay, Ohio, at the start and then slid throughtraffic to take the victory.

Fourth-place starter Brandon Wimmer of Fairmont, Ind., finished second and Kemenah took third. Sweet, Wimmer and Kemenah secured spots in the $15,000-to-win main event, which was held late Saturday night. The top three finishers from Thursday’s prelim - Sam Hafertepe Jr. of Sunnyvale, Texas, Sammy Swindell of Bartlett, Tenn., and Greg Wilson of Benton Ridge, Ohio - also qualified for the A-Main. The rest of the 20-car field was set in a series of heat races and qualifiers earlier Saturday night.

Benton’s Tim Crawley, the 1998 winner, came up short in a third-place battle with Kemenah and finished fourth. Jason Sides of Bartlett, Tenn., the 2001 winner, was fifth.

Memphis’ Justin Carver was sixth and former World ofOutlaws champion Danny Lasoski of Higginsville, Mo., took seventh. Brian Brown of Grain Valley, Mo., Danny Wood of Norman, Okla., and Tim Kaeding of San Jose, Calif., rounded out the top 10.

Other Arkansans making the prelim field were Little Rock’s Ricky Logan in 11th, Alexander’s Eric Sandage in 15th, Zach Pringle, also of Alexander, in 17th and Benton’s Cody Gardner in 20th.

With NASCAR racing in the region this weekend - today’s Sprint Cup race is at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway - Sweet said it was likely that Kahne would hop on a plane and be at I-30 on Saturday night.

“I hope so,” Sweet said. “He told me if we were running good, he would be here Saturday night. And I think we were running good.”

Sports, Pages 25 on 10/31/2010

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