By Gary Thomas
Placerville, CA…When it comes to consistent speed over the last couple months few have been better than Lincoln’s Tanner Carrick, who claimed his third victory in his last three Placerville Speedway starts with the Thompson’s Winged 360 Sprint Cars on Saturday.
By winning the feature Carrick also took home a $1,000 bonus courtesy of the Dent Family and Thompson’s Family of Dealerships in memory of Tom Schirle. Sharing victory lane during Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday were Tyler Lightfoot with the Ltd. Late Models, Nick Baldwin with the Pure Stocks and Ben Wiesz with the Nor-Cal Dwarf Car Association. A total of 87 race cars filled the hill at the event.
Carrick started on the outside of the front row and jumped into the lead at the waving of the green flag in the 25-lap Sprint Car main event. The 19-year-old was never seriously challenged, as the first 13-laps clicked off non-stop and he held the rest of the field at bay through traffic. ADCO Driveline fast qualifier Willie Croft was in search of a clean sweep for the night and ran second over the first half of the race, until Penngrove’s Colby Johnson battled his way past with 15-circuits complete.
Johnson was fun to watch as he pounded the cushion while working his way forward in the feature. Carrick rolled the bottom to perfection however and went on to take the checkered flag for his fifth career Placerville triumph. One week after tallying a career best finish at the track Johnson came back and bettered that to snag an impressive runner up effort. Justyn Cox, Croft and Andy Forsberg completed the top-five.
Kalib Henry charged from 17th to sixth with Bubba Decaires, Blake Carrick, Shane Hopkins and Michael Ing rounding out the top-10. With point leader Joel Myers Jr. getting upside down in the main event, Forsberg now goes into the Mark Forni Classic on August 7th holding a one-point lead at the top of the standings. A strong field of 29 Winged 360 Sprint Cars were on hand during the show.
Sprint Car finish: 1. 83T-Tanner Carrick[2]; 2. 38-Colby Johnson[4]; 3. 7C-Justyn Cox[3]; 4. 29-Willie Croft[1]; 5. X1-Andy Forsberg[5]; 6. 5J-Kalib Henry[17]; 7. 94-Greg Decaires V[6]; 8. 38B-Blake Carrick[10]; 9. 21-Shane Hopkins[15]; 10. 21X-Michael Ing[11]; 11. 9-Reece Goetz[14]; 12. 15-Michael Sellers[12]; 13. 61-Travis Labat[18]; 14. 87-Ashlyn Rodriguez[7]; 15. 16X-Andy Gregg[8]; 16. 83SA-Isaiah Vasquez[9]; 17. 46JR-Joel Myers Jr[20]; 18. 01JR-Tyler Brown[13]; 19. 34-Landon Brooks[19]; 20. 24-Justin Henry[16]
The Placerville Speedway will be dark this weekend with the Sprint Car Challenge Tour competing at Merced Speedway on Saturday. The El Dorado County Fairgrounds bullring will return to action with the 16th annual Mark Forni Classic on Saturday August 7th.