By Gary Thomas
Watsonville, CA…Hanford’s DJ Netto has been gaining steam with the season wearing on and last night put together dominating performance for his second Ocean Sprints presented by Taco Bravo win of the season.
Sharing victory lane during Hall of Fame Night were Bobby Hogge IV with the IMCA Modifieds, Jacob Mallet Jr. with the IMCA Sport Mods, Terry Campion with the Hobby Stocks and Danny Wagner with the South Bay Dwarf Cars.
Netto jumped into the lead at the waving of the green flag in the feature after earning the pole, by way of his win in the six-lap Dash earlier. The initial nine laps clicked off fast and furious following some track work just before the 30-lap contest. Ocean Sprints point leader Kurt Nelson then slowed to a stop in turn two, which drew the caution flag and set up a double file restart. Once getting back underway a long green flag was seen and during it Netto pulled away from the field with ease.
The 2019 NARC champion worked traffic to perfection, at one point having the comfort of six lapped cars between himself and second running Bud Kaeding. A yellow flag on lap 24 brought the party to a stop, but after that things began to heat up. When Ed Entz waved the green flag again fifth running Kaleb Montgomery made a wild move down low passing three cars to move up to second. He and Kaeding proceeded to battle back and forth in a thrilling duel before Montgomery solidified the spot prior to a caution with three circuits left.
Netto hit his marks on the final restart and drove off to accept the checkered flag aboard his Netto Ag/ Mission Foods No. 88n machine. Montgomery crossed the stripe in second to cap a solid night during his second start with the Keller Motorsports team. Kaeding, JJ Ringo and Jake Andreotti completed the top-five. Both Ringo and Andreotti raced close together for virtually the entire contest. Rounding out the top-10 in the feature were Mitchell Faccinto, Dylan Bloomfield, Rickey Sanders, Joey Ancona and Travis Labat.
Ocean Sprints finish: 1. 88N-DJ Netto[1]; 2. 2K-Kaleb Montgomery[8]; 3. 69-Bud Kaeding[2]; 4. 3T-JJ Ringo[5]; 5. 7P-Jake Andreotti[4]; 6. 21-Mitchell Faccinto[6]; 7. 83V-Dylan Bloomfield[7]; 8. 17-Rickey Sanders[3]; 9. 88A-Joey Ancona[10]; 10. 61-Travis Labat[12]; 11. 98-Michael Pombo[11]; 12. 72S-Bradley Dillard[16]; 13. 36-Craig Stidham[19]; 14. 5-Mark Chaves Jr[9]; 15. 72JR-Chris Nelson[13]; 16. 88-Koen Shaw[18]; 17. 87-Ashlyn Rodriguez[21]; 18. 25Z-Jason Chisum[17]; 19. 99-Wayne Katen[22]; 20. 21X-Gauge Garcia[14]; 21. 50-Bryce Eames[20]; 22. 72W-Kurt Nelson[15]