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Photo by Davy Thomas
Croft wins 1st GSC main event of season in Quincy
By Gary Thomas
Quincy, CA - June 23, 2007...One of the most improved drivers this year in California 410 sprint car racing has undoubtably been Sacramento’s Willie Croft, but coming into this past weekend’s event at the American Valley Speedway in Quincy, the driver known as "Double Down" hadn’t captured a feature event victory yet this season. Everybody knew that sooner or later he was going to get it done, however, and on Saturday night the 35 year-old driver was able to put it all together and led flag to flag aboard the Tom Rolfe Trucking, Holey Smokes BBQ, BR Motorsports No. 10 to pick up his second career win with the series. The night of action was the first time that the Golden State Challenge Series had ever competed at the narrow and long 3/8 mile track located in beautiful Quincy, Calif.
The 30 lap main event started out with Chico’s Johnny Gray on the pole after he drove the Jessee Heating & Air No. 71 to his first ever GSC dash win earlier in the program. The first start saw Tracy’s Jason Botsford and Rio Vista’s Dan Simpson spin on the front-stretch to bring out a caution. During the yellow, pole sitter Gray was set back two rows for jumping the initial start. This moved Croft up to the pole position alongside 12-time King of California Brent Kaeding. On the next attempted start a car near the front of the pack got sideways in turn four and it created a huge log jam which saw a few cars get upside down and handful of other cars involved. Cars that got a piece of the action included flip victims Pat Harvey, Danny Bullock & Mark Workentine as well as Brett Miller, Jason Botsford, Matt Shelton and Jonathan Allard.
The next start saw Croft blast into the lead, but he felt a bit of pressure early on from Kaeding. Earlier this season in Tulare, Croft led 26 laps in the feature before the 12-time champ was able to get around him to steal the win away with less than five laps left in the contest. Kaeding had won eight GSC feature’s going into Quincy and was also coming off a win the previous night in Chico during track point race competition. He looked to be in good position early on, but during a red flag on lap nine for Matt Shelton, BK had to change a right rear tire which forced him to go to the rear of the field. After that Croft had no problems up front, except for an incident on lap 16 that nearly took away his shot at winning.
As the caution came out for youngster Brent Bjork who had spun in turn two in front the leaders, Croft slid to the infield to avoid him and contacted one of the infield tractor tires. He bounced off the tire into another tire and looked like it was going to make him stop, but somehow he kept the engine lit and moved the tire out of the way to continue on. The only damage was a bent front wing but it didn’t slow him down as he went on to drive the LRB Manufacturing, Amerikote High Temp Coatings, D & D Roofing No. 10 to his first victory of the season. Croft’s only previous win with the Golden State Challenge Series came in 2004 when he picked up the win at the Mini Gold Cup in Chico while driving the Fisher/Main Motorsports No. 35m.
Ironically the Fisher/Main Motorsports No. 35m finished second at Quincy as Sean Becker drove a solid race to finish runner-up to Croft. It was Becker’s series leading 18th top 10 finish of the season aboard the Cherry St. Mini Storage, Rolling Hills Reality, ART Enterprise sponsored machine.
Campbell’s Brent Kaeding made an outstanding charge back through the field to finish an impressive third after changing the right rear earlier in the race. BK’s Al’s Roofing Supply, Kaeding Performance, Selco Heating & Air No. 69 was lightning fast as he passed cars high and low coming back through the pack. Kaeding’s win in Chico the previous night was extremely impressive and he followed it up with another stout performance in Quincy, a track he won at last August. The podium finish was the 16th time this season that the living legend has finished in the top five with the series.
Chico’s Brett Miller came back to finish fourth aboard the Care Free Pools, Platinum Powder Coating, Smartwebsales.com No. 1x. After the first lap incident Miller charged back through the field to tie his career best GSC finish which he accomplished the previous event in Medford. Rounding out the top five was Chico’s Jonathan Allard aboard the Williams Motorsports, K & N Filters, Red Line Oil No. 0. Like Kaeding and Miller, Allard also charged back through the field after going to rear earlier in the race.
Completing the top 10 in the feature was the Nor Cal Performance No. Kr14 of Tyler Spath, the Superior Hydraulics No. 49 of Mike Monahan, the Adrad Radiatar No. 11au of Trevor Green, the DL Tabor Construction No. 36n of Mark Tabor Sr. and the Extreme Fabrication No. 29 of Jason Botsford.
The six lap dash was picked off by Johnny Gray and the three 10 lap heats were captured by Brent Kaeding, Gray and Sean Becker. Jonathan Allard set the mark in qualifying with a lap of 15.200 around the long 3/8 mile dirt oval.
Curt Nieman, Jim Richardson and the American Valley Speedway staff have to be commended for making the event possible. A large crowd witnessed a rather entertaining feature and many people in attendance had a great time. Silver Dollar Speedway announcer Troy Hennig came over for the event and did a bang up job on the mic as usual. The American Valley Speedway will also be holding a non-sanctioned 410 winged sprint car race later this Summer on August 25. More info visit http://www.avspeedway.com
For full results from the night log onto http://www.johnpadjenmotorsports.com
www.sprintcarchallengetour.com
www.placervillespeedway.com
www.stocktondirttrack.com
www.thunderbowlraceway.com
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Thanks Kelly. Appreciate your kind words.
Ya I thought it was fun as well. I wasn't sure how much passing we'd see, but I thought the drivers did a great job.
Congrats to Willie and the team. Rick Hirst has had that thing running really good this year and they are very deserving of a win.
Thanks to all the people that came out to the race. It was cool to see a nice crowd on hand.
www.sprintcarchallengetour.com
www.placervillespeedway.com
www.stocktondirttrack.com
www.thunderbowlraceway.com
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