Tanner Carrick, Tyler Lightfoot, Nick Baldwin and Ben Wiesz score Placerville Speedway wins Saturday
By Gary Thomas
Images courtesy of Petersen Media
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]
Placerville’s Tyler Lightfoot had car issues early on which could have left him parked for the night. The two-time winner this year however, proceeded to climb aboard the Paul Gugliomoni machine and ended up driving to his third triumph of the season in the main event. Diamond Springs’ Dan Jinkerson kept Lightfoot honest over much of the race as he looked to find a way by for the top-spot. Lightfoot never faltered though and crossed under the checkered flag for another victory. Jinkerson came home second over Randy Shafer, Rod Oliver and Eddie Gardner.
Ltd. Late Model finish: 1. 23J-Tyler Lightfoot[1]; 2. 23-Dan Jinkerson[3]; 3. 22G-Randy Shafer[5]; 4. 57-Rod Oliver[2]; 5. 3-Eddie Gardner[10]; 6. 23T-Tom Tilford[4]; 7. 1-Ted Ahart[8]; 8. 4X-Anthony Slaney[6]
Oakley’s Nick Baldwin continues to be the man to beat at the Placerville Speedway in the Pure Stock division. After lining up on the pole Baldwin drove a phenomenal 20-lap contest on Saturday to earn his sixth victory of the season on the quarter-mile. By doing so he extended his current point lead with just three events remaining. Kevin Jinkerson put together another solid night to finish second over Ryan Peter, Jason Poppert and Jimmy Wall in the top-five.
Pure Stock finish: 1. 17-Nick Baldwin[1]; 2. 30-Kevin Jinkerson[6]; 3. 83-Ryan Peter[3]; 4. 87-Jason Poppert[8]; 5. 68E-Jimmy Wall[2]; 6. X86-David Silvia[7]; 7. 5-Cody Rickard[13]; 8. 43-Kenny Bernstein[9]; 9. 47-Michael Murphy[10]; 10. 23-Bill O'Neal[4]; 11. 4-Jonny Walsh[11]; 12. 93-Mel Byers[15]; 13. 316-Ryan Murphy[14]; 14. 14-Scott Grunert[5]
As always, the Nor-Cal Dwarf Car Association brought out a stellar field of cars with 32 total on hand. Colfax competitor Ben Wiesz rolled the middle of the speedway to grab the lead early on and held off all challengers to get his second win of the season at Placerville Speedway. Galt’s Ryan Winter tried his best at running the high side of the speedway in pursuit of the leader but couldn’t quite get around it smooth enough to shoot past Wiesz.
Mike “Spanky” Grenert slipped under Winter late to earn a second place finish. Winter, Mike Reeder, Shawn Whitney, Dan Geil, Austin Quilty, Chuck Conover, Gage Meyers and Fred Dickey completed the top-10 in the 20-lap feature.
Dwarf Car finish: 1. 57N-Ben Wiesz[6]; 2. 12N-Mike Grenert[9]; 3. 28N-Ryan Winter[8]; 4. 72N-Mike Reeder[2]; 5. 15N-Shawn Whitney[17]; 6. 32N-Dan Geil[5]; 7. 6N-Austin Quilty[10]; 8. 52DD-Chuck Conover[15]; 9. 99N-gage meyers[20]; 10. 21N-Fred Dickey[12]; 11. 14E-Tommy Velasquez III[7]; 12. 31N-Dylan Shrum[16]; 13. 42N-Isaak Geil[13]; 14. 16N-Brian Quilty[11]; 15. 36N-Jameson Sole[14]; 16. 59N-Austin Struthers[3]; 17. 71R-John Peters[1]; 18. 31R-Carroll Mendenhall[4]; 19. 12R-Sam Borland[19]; 20. 83N-Sam Wren[18]
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.