Watsonville, CA…Concord, California’s Joey Ancona battled Taco Bravo 360 point leader Rickey Sanders early on, before pulling away at the end to score his second career Ocean Speedway triumph on Friday night.
The 30-lap Ocean Sprints presented by Taco Bravo main event saw Gizdich Ranch winner Rickey Sanders on the pole alongside Joey Ancona. At the waving of the green flag, it was Sanders who charged into the lead and held a steady advantage up front, until a lap-five restart gave Ancona the chance he needed.
Ancona rocketed to the inside and grabbed the lead that he would never relinquish. Sanders soon had to deal with the likes of DJ Netto, Jake Andreotti and Gauge Garcia. Netto at one point moved up to second, only to have a red flag negate the pass.
With the race waging on Netto slid to the inside of Sanders but contact between the pair ensued and resulted in Netto suffering a broken front end. As the race wound down a green-white-checkered restart was seen and during it, Sanders and Garcia came together, which saw both flip off turn two. Luckily, both drivers were okay but done for the race.
Ancona then led the final two circuits over Andreotti, Santa Maria’s Bryce Eames, Gilroy’s Kurt Nelson and Livermore’s Travis Labat, who began the night by earning the Ocean Sprints Fast Time Award in qualifying.
Ocean Sprints results: 1. 88a Joey Ancona, 2. 7p Jake Andreotti, 3. 50 Bryce Eames, 4. 72w Kurt Nelson, 5. 61 Travis Labat, 6. 8 Jeremy Chisum, 7. 25z Jason Chisum, 8. 121 Rickey Sanders, 9. 88n DJ Netto, 10. 2k Gauge Garcia, 11. 3d Caleb Debem, 12. 72s Brad Dillard