Print This Article!


ALGER — A quick flurry of rain may have slowed down the first day of the Jim Raper Memorial Dirt Cup on Thursday, but in the end the weather — and a field stocked with some of the biggest names in sprint car racing — couldn’t stop Jayme Barnes from claiming a win on the first day of the signature race at Skagit Speedway.

Three members of the Kaeding clan started in the top four positions in the A Main with Bud taking the pole and Brent and Tim both sitting in the second row.

Brent, who is Tim and Bud’s father, is a recent inductee into the Sprint Car Hall of Fame.

The rain caused a delay of over an hour with the qualifying laps, which were scheduled to begin at 5:45 p.m., but subsided quickly enough for the racing to be squeezed in at the Dirt Cup, a three-day race which frequently draws some of the best sprint-car talent on the west coast.

Current 410 points leader Barry Martinez had a wilder-than-anticipated night.

Martinez flipped several times after a crash in his heat race, and despite extensive damage to his car his crew was able to fix it in time to allow Martinez to return for the B Main.

He finished well enough in that race to advance to the A Main.

Jason Solwold, who was also involved in a crash in his heat race, was unable to return.

In a fast-moving C Main, the two front-row drivers, Josh Edson and Evan Suggs, dueled to a close finish with Edson taking first and Suggs taking second in the race, from which the top three moved to the B Main.

Edson was tangled up in a crash early in the B Main but was able to return; Suggs elbowed his way into the A Main with a sixth-place finish in the B.

Mack Brown won the D Main.

• Trevor Pyle can be reached at 360-416-2156 or by e-mail at