From Marysville Raceway Park
Marysville, CA – 18-year old 2nd generation driver Justyn Cox followed in his father’s footsteps to victory lane at Marysville Raceway Park Saturday. The Clarksburg, CA speedster ran away after a late race restart and claimed his 1st ever Mel Hall Memorial trophy. The Hall Memorial was a California Sprint Car Civil War event.
Cox started on the outside of row one next to celebrated speedster Shane Golibic. Cox got the jump and led every lap. Cox’s dad, Terry Cox, has won feature events at MRP in Midget Lite competition a decade ago.
Unusual weather conditions from a steady southeast wind created challenging track conditions that kept the 37 entrants guessing all night. MRP’s largest crowd since the Sherm Toller Race, that opened the 2013 season, packed the grandstand. The Mel Hall Memorial Race is MRP’s signature sprint car race honoring the driver, innovator and promoter that brought professional sprint car racing to the Yuba-Sutter area.
The heat races were won by Civil War Series point leader Justin Sanders, former Civil War Series champion Mike Henry, Oregon’s Mike Miller and 6-time Mel Hall winner Colby Wiesz. The C Main was captured by Jake Morgan and the B Main event was dominated by Mason Moore.
The feature was a whirlwind of action as the front row starters along with hard charging Andy Gregg reached lapped traffic quickly in the early stages of the 30 lap Mel Hall Memorial Race. Gregg was the Legal Shield fast time qualifier and jumped into 3rd from his 6th starting slot. Cox picked through traffic with relative ease as the other competitors were stymied by lapped traffic. But, when yellow flags interrupted the proceedings on 4 occasions, Cox got a breather and easily moved away from the field at each new green flag until; once again, lapped traffic gave other competitors a shot at the lead. But Cox was spot-on and mistake-free all race long.
Point leader Justin Sanders was one of the early yellow flags and had to tack on to the back for a lap 6 restart. Sanders would turn in the best passing job of the night going from 21st on lap 6 to 8th in the late going.
Gregg, while running 3rd, collided with another driver that cost him a shot at the win. Gregg retired with a flat tire and perhaps other damage. B Main winner Moore was impressive as he moved forward to a 3rd place finish behind Cox and Golibic. Wiesz and Sean Becker were 4th and 5th respectively. For more on this event and other Civil War results go to http://www.civilwarsprints.
MRP will be dark next week, but will bring the Winged 360 sprint cars back on June 8th paired with the mighty MRP Super Stocks on Dairy Queen of Yuba City’s Dilly Bar Night. Every one in attendance will receive free Dilly Bar compliments of Mike Hall and D.Q of Yuba City.
The Nor Cal Dwarf Cars will present another exciting event and the MRP Mini Stocks will also be on the card. At this writing an exhibition of vintage northern California Hardtops (sometimes called jalopies) are also scheduled. Stay tuned.
Pit Gates open at 3. Grandstands open at 5. Legal Shield qualifying is at 6PM with races starting at 6:30.
Life’s short. Live it. Race hard.
Note: Please make this observer aware of any names that are misspelled or incorrect. The text is based on information we have at the time of its release. Complete finishes, stats, assessed penalties and points become official and available at the close of business on Tuesday and will be posted to the web site.