Forum: Northern California Sprint Car (go)
Moderators: StuDeedooo

Peter Murphy in the Tarlton #21 swept the Petaluma Speedway 360 run what you brung sprint car show tonight. Murphy set fast time over a 29 car field with a time of 14.197. Murphy captured Heat 1 from 6th starting. Starting 4th in the A-Main Murphy was running 2nd to Andy Forsberg on lap 21 when Forsberg tangled with a lap car ending his night. Forsberg had been in command from the start and looked very much like he was going to win this race. Murphy assumed the lead, but as result of the lap 21 Fosrberg mishap hes suddenly had a flat left front. Murphy stayed on the track manhandling a sometimes very tight sprint car and held off the challenges of the #33 of Jason Macintosh and a late race yellow to win by several car lengths and pocket $2,500.. Bullet Blake Miller in the Gardenr #93 surged outside Macintosh in the final corner and outdragged the #33 machine to take 2nd by half a car length (from 10th starting) and grab the $1,500 2nd place award.

Heat race winners were Murphy, Heat 2 went to the #m1 of Billy Macedo, Heat 3 to the #25 of Dustin Baxter, and Heat #4 was won by #93 of Miller.

B-Main winner was #98m of Tony Richards.

Cars seemed to be fairly evenly split between 360 injected and 360 carb'd.

Also in attnedance was the #73 of Josh Ford, the #4r of Eric Rossi, the #14 of TJ Smith and the #86 of Marc Mackay.

Ford would finish 6th in the feature, Rossi 5th, Smith 15th, and Mackay 4th.

Forsberg hah an interesting take on the run what you brung them running a sideboard on the right hand side of the car and air dams or fins on the hood for a very interesting look.

All in all a good night of non wing sprint car racing in front of the 2 day Calistoga show. Too bad the grandstands were only about 60% full. Friday night seems to be a tough draw sometimes..

...........I should have added it was a 30 lap race, so Murphy ran the final 9 laps with the bad left front.

#96 of Arvo Backholm was 7th, #41 David Press was 8th, Macedo was 9th, #26 Billy Aton was10th, #6 Sparky Howard was 11th, #5 Decon Ostehimer was12th, #42 of FLoyd Alvis 13th, Richards was 14th, and Smith 15th. Al of these cars were on the lead lap. Positions 16-22 were not announced or posted. There were several cars that did not finish including the #5v of Jim Van Lalre, the 19 of Brandon Davis who dropped out mid race while running 2nd, the #20 of Keith Shipherd, and the #20j of Sweeney. Not making it thorugh the B-Main was the #56 of Shawn Arriaga, #3x of Dupont, and the #4 of DeCarlo. The #41s of Randy Lathrop DNS.

#32 of Johns flipped in Heat 2, Johns was reported OK. The #8c of Ford Cook flipped in Heat 3. No report on Cook.

60% full stands? Looked more like 30% from where I stood. Too bad, they missed a fun show. Even the dwarf car race was a good one.

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