Holder captures IMCA modified main event victory
Roger Holder of Bakersfield found himself standing in victory lane Saturday night after a 25 lap battle. Holder needed every one of those laps to find his way to the front. Steve Noland had control of the 16 car field for most of the race as Holder was working his way up from his fourth starting position. In the end Holder made the pass to claim his first victory of the season followed by Steve Noland, Cody Laney, Rob Sander and Justin Schweitzer rounding out the top five.
Kevin Collier needed a little help and he got it from a lapped car during Saturday night’s Hobby Stocks main event at Bakersfield Speedway.
Collier trailed Wasco’s Matt Wankum from laps 9-18 in the 20-lap race. But as the race entered the final two circuits around the clay oval, Chris McCauley’s lapped car slowed Wankum and Collier pounced.
Collier went low and slipped past Wankum along the rear straight on the 19th lap. Collier then captured his seventh main event win of the season with Wankum right on his rear bumper at the finish line.
The first eight laps were led by Aaron Stewart, who had a strong night to that point. He had won a heat race earlier, but on the eighth lap during a yellow flag slowdown, Stewart went to the infield and his car died, ending his evening.
Rick Childress Jr. was the dominant car in winning the yellow flag plagued 25-lap Sport Mod main event.
The first half of the race was plagued by yellows — nine in the first 13 laps and 10 in all.
But when the green was out, Childress, who posted his second main event win of the season, had the horsepower that pulled away from the pack.
Michael Johnson also ran strong and finished second, with some late-race lapped cars preventing him from possibly challenging Childress. Billy Simpkins was third.
There were 21 cars at the start but spinouts brought the yellows out.
Pole sitter Garrett Jernagan spun on the third lap and was forced to the back of the field. He was able to pull into the top 10 but couldn’t mount a serious challenge beyond that.
Johnson was able to stay in the race after slamming the wall after going high out of Lap 4 just past the midway point of the race.
Rick Childress Sr. won his first IMCA Stock Car main event, cruising to the 20-lap main event victory.
Childress, from Bakersfield, started in the second spot and took the lead on the opening lap. He really wasn’t challenged after that.
There were no yellows in the clean race, with Childress, second-place Troy Patee of Hanford, third-place Loren DeArmond from Lemoore and fourth-place Ron Hurt from Hanford ran in that order the final 16 laps of the race.
Bobby Michnowicz from Lomita coasted to a dominant win in the 20-lap California Lightning Sprints main event.
Michnowicz started second and moved into the lead on the first lap. Runner-up Alex Grigoreas from Upland moved into the second spot by the third lap and the two leaders held those spots the rest of the race.
Grigoreas could not challenge Michnowicz. The only question was whether Grigoreas could make a move when Michnowicz caught up with lapped traffic, but Michnowicz easily maneuvered through five cars.
A yellow on Lap 11 tightened the field, but Michnowicz simply used that to his advantage. With a wide-open track ahead of him on the restart, there were no cars to slow him down until he caught up with field on the final half-lap of the race.
West Evans from Moorpark won the 20-lap NMRA TQ Midgets main event. Evans and third-place finisher Chuck West from Clovis battled back and forth for the first five laps with West taking the early lead before Evans moved past him on the fourth lap.
By the eighth lap, Evans had a 10-12-car length lead and played it safe by backing off the throttle on the turns and picking up speed on the straightaways.
Scott Dobson from Newbury Park, who was running third the first half of the race, slipped past West on the 10th lap and held second the rest of the way.
