From Placerville Speedway
Placerville, CA — (April 11, 2015) — After two high profile events in a week, Placerville Speedway opened its Red Hawk Casino Championship point racing season presented by Thompson’s Auto Centers on Saturday night with four divisions of competition and a hearty car count in each of them. The event offered inflated winnings to each of the weekly division which in turn, produced an exciting night of racing for the weekly series in the 50th Anniversary Season.
In the Domco Plumbing Sprint Car Division Colby Wiesz of Colfax took command of the feature event to take home the $2000 win. Ryan McDaniel drove to victory in the Domco Plumbing Late Model feature to earn the $750 payout. Dan Jinkerson of Diamond Springs led every lap of the Jay’s Mobile Welding Pure Stock feature event to earn the $500 victory.
With 21 cars in the field in the Sprint Car Division Saturday night, all competitors were eligible for the feature event which produced its share of thrills and spills for all 25-laps. Wiesz started on the pole position and was immediately challenged by Elverta’s Steven Tiner who started on the outside of the front row.
In the opening laps, Placerville’s Andy Gregg muscled his way into the top three and the trio began battling for the top position, entering lapped traffic early. Earlier in the night Gregg earned the ADCO Driveline $100 Fast Time Award. As Wiesz worked his way into the slow traffic he began to stretch his lead over Tiner, Gregg and Elk Grove’s Greg DeCaires until the 7 lap mark when a red flag delayed the event for an accident in the third turn.
DSC_9590The accident originally involved James Sweeney who suffered front suspension failure and the loss of a front wheel traveling down the back stretch, launching him into the hillside of turn three in a wicked tumble. As Sweeney came to rest he collected Cameron Park’s Cody Spencer head on. Wiesz and Tiner dodged the incident but Gregg wasn’t so lucky as he tried to avoid the carnage and rolled over as well.
“James Sweeney was high enough in the air that I couldn’t even see him,” said Spencer. “I didn’t even know he was in trouble until his car landed directly in front of me and I had nowhere to go.”
The ensuing restart was delayed by a second red flag for roll over victim Bud Walberg of Corning. Walberg tumbled in the same turn as the others but suffered less extensive damage that the previous crash which totaled Sweeney’s car due to the impact of Spencer’s car directly into the engine compartment and against the front of the cockpit. Nobody was injured in either incident.
Once the green flag flew again, Wiesz began feeling the pressure DeCaires who worked his way by Tiner and began bidding for the lead. The two front runners raced side by side at several moments as DeCaires made a strong effort to slide below the leader with Tiner in their wake and Jake Morgan of Fair Oaks well in the mix of things challenging Tiner for the podium position.
At the checkered flag, Wiesz picked up the win over DeCaires. Tiner finished in third place with Morgan fourth and Wilton’s Matt Peterson who drove from1 2th to fifth at the flag.
“I’m not much of a big track guys and it’s always nice when you can race close to home for good money,” said Wiesz, as he donned the first Placerville Posse cowboy hat of the season. “I do my best on these bullring tracks and we’re planning on running here quite a bit this year. I made some mistakes out there and almost lost the lead to Greg (DeCaires). He was pushing hard but he’s a driver I have run with many years and you can run side by side like that and know he’s not going get into you. This was some good racing tonight and I want to thank all these fans that came out in the cold to support it so well.
With one Placerville Posse victory to his name now, Wiesz is poised to be a contender for the series ending bonus as well. Any driver who wins all four Placerville Posse events earns $2000, making their efforts worth a total of $10,000 for just four races. The next Placerville Posse installment will be Saturday, April 25.