By Gary Thomas
Placerville, CA – May 15, 2021…Foresthill’s Ryan Robinson remained calm, cool and collected through several slowdowns in the Thompson’s Winged Sprint Car feature, before pulling away at the end to tally his first career Placerville Speedway triumph on Saturday.
Robinson, the son of three-time track champion and 23-time Placerville winner David Robinson Jr., took the lead early and looked impressive out front en route to the big win. Sharing victory lane on Mountain Democrat Kids Bike Night were Tyler Lightfoot with the Ltd. Late Models, Nick Baldwin with the Pure Stocks and Mike Miller in the Mini Truck division. Thanks to the graciousness of several individuals a total of 25 bikes were given away to youngsters in attendance.
At the waving of the green flag in the Thompson’s Family of Dealerships Winged 360 A-main it was past Marysville champion Michael Ing who blasted into the lead. The Chico driver looked fast all night and held command until Ryan Robinson slipped to his inside on lap six for the lead. Following a restart on lap eight Ing took a shot at reclaiming the point but got sideways and slipped up over the cushion to bring out a yellow flag.
An excessive number of cautions and a couple reds plagued the contest, but Robinson never faltered out front and rocketed away on the final restart to pick up the Ron Stahl checkered flag by nearly four seconds over his nearest competitor. Despite Robinson having his way with things out front the clash for second on back over the closing laps remained a good one.
Roseville’s Colby Copeland fought his way forward to cross the stripe in second, followed by 15-year-old Joel Myers Jr. of Sebastopol, Placerville’s Shane Hopkins and another 15-year-old youngster Dylan Bloomfield. For the Oakley racer it marked his first Placerville top-five in just his third Winged 360 start at the track.
Rounding out the top-10 were Justyn Cox, Justin Bradway, Stephen Ingraham, John Clark and Bubba Decaires. Bradway and Ingraham were two of the biggest movers and shakers during the feature. Bradway had a solid run carving his way from 18th to seventh, while Ingraham was the Hard Charger with his run from 20th to eighth.
Winged 360 finish: 1. 14W-Ryan Robinson[3]; 2. 5V-Colby Copeland[6]; 3. 46JR-Joel Myers Jr[4]; 4. 21-Shane Hopkins[2]; 5. 33-Dylan Bloomfield[9]; 6. 7C-Justyn Cox[7]; 7. 80N-Justin Bradway[18]; 8. 93-Stephen Ingraham[20]; 9. 12J-John Clark[11]; 10. 94-Greg Decaires V[15]; 11. 34-Landon Brooks[8]; 12. 85-CJ Humphreys[14]; 13. 24-Justin Henry[13]; 14. 87-Ashlyn Rodriguez[19]; 15. 98-Chris Masters[16]; 16. 7-Clayton Snow[17]; 17. 83SA-Isaiah Vasquez[10]; 18. X1-Andy Forsberg[5]; 19. 21X-Michael Ing[1]; 20. 16X-Andy Gregg[12]