Joey Pederson claims River Cities Speedway season opener

EAST GRAND FORKS, Minn. (May 22, 2019) – For the fifth time in his career, Joey Pederson parked his No. 7P Late Model in victory lane on opening night at River Cities Speedway. On paper, Pederson dominated the event as he led all 20 trips around the high-banked three-tenths mile oval, but in reality, it was a hard fought race all the way down to the final lap.

Pederson started on the outside of the front row, but took the lead on the opening lap. Pederson held a somewhat comfortable lead for the majority of the race until a hard-charging Brad Seng placed his bid for the lead in the closing laps.

As the white flag waved, Seng drove underneath Pederson in turns one and two and took the lead down the back straightaway. However, Pederson went to the high side in turns three and four and drove right around Seng off turn four to retake the lead and steal the win at the checkers.

“Without any cautions, I didn’t know how close second place was to me, but knew Brad was in second from the board on the back straightaway,” said Pederson in victory lane. “I had to alter my line in lapped traffic and I knew that was slowing me down. He got underneath me on the last lap and I’m not going lie, I tried to find another gear going into turn three so I came out ahead of him out of turn four.”

Tucker Pederson was also in action Friday night at the Bullring in his No. 27P Wissota Street Stock. Tucker drove to a fourth place finish in his heat and finished 13th in the feature.

The entire Joey Pederson Racing team will be at full strength next weekend as Kelsi kicks off her 2019 season on Saturday at Greenbush Race Park with the NLSA Lightning Sprints. Joey and Tucker will be back at River Cities Speedway on Friday night. Tucker will also be racing on Saturday at Greenbush.

2019 Stats:

Joey Pederson:
Races: 1
Wins: 1
Top Fives: 1
Top Tens: 1

Tucker Pederson:
Races: 1
Wins: 0
Top Fives: 0
Top Tens: 0