FREMONT, Ohio — Most racers like to do victory donuts. Not Cole Macedo.
The Lemoore, California native won his first national touring race Monday at Fremont Speedway Presented by Gill Construction and after taking the checkers hopped the right rear of another car and flipped.
But the win against the Kubota High Limit Racing Series Roto-Rooter Midweek Series stood for Macedo, who moved to Fremont, Ohio a few years ago to pursue a career in sprint car racing.
Macedo, who is vying for the rookie of the year honors with the World of Outlaws aboard the No. 2c sprint car owned by Todd and Kelly Carlile, served notice he was the car to beat on Kistler Racing Products Night.
He set fast time in qualifications, then driving from fourth to his heat race win, and dominating the dash to start on the pole of the 35 lap, $12,000-to-win feature.
Macedo led every lap of the A-main, though it wasn’t easy as Kyle Larson pressured him the final nine laps and he had to deal with very lapped traffic from lap 10 to the end. After the flip at the end of the race, the team held its breath as the car had to be lowered onto the scales by a wrecker, creating a tense few minutes before it was announced Macedo had made weight.
“I thought I had lost the race when I flipped. I didn’t see the checkers. This is so awesome to do this in front of the friends and family I made here,” Macedo explained. “I grew up here. I love this race track. I had to really push the team to come to this race and it paid off.
“Wayne and all the guys have been working so hard this year. We’ve had speed but just couldn’t seal the deal. This gives me a huge burst of confidence and hopefully we can get a lot more of these national series wins.”
It was Macedo’s 11th career win at Fremont.
Rounding out the top five were Larson, Tyler Courtney, Brad Sweet and Brent Marks.
The finish:
Feature (30 laps): 1. 2C-Cole Macedo[1]; 2. 57-Kyle Larson[4]; 3. 7BC-Tyler Courtney[6]; 4. 49-Brad Sweet[3]; 5. 19-Brent Marks[11]; 6. 13-Daison Pursley[2]; 7. 24-Rico Abreu[13]; 8. 19H-Joel Myers Jr[12]; 9. 88-Tanner Thorson[15]; 10. 48-Danny Dietrich[14]; 11. 14R-Sean Rayhall[5]; 12. 4-Zane DeVault[10]; 13. 33W-Cap Henry[18]; 14. 87-Aaron Reutzel[25]; 15. 42-Sye Lynch[8]; 16. 26-Justin Peck[27]; 17. 5-Brenham Crouch[29]; 18. 09-Craig Mintz[16]; 19. 16-DJ Foos[26]; 20. 14-Spencer Bayston[22]; 21. 29-Zeth Sabo[19]; 22. 15C-Chris Andrews[20]; 23. 9-Kasey Kahne[28]; 24. 11N-Kasey Jedrzejek[23]; 25. 3J-Trey Jacobs[7]; 26. 14BC-Corey Day[9]; 27. 11-Cole Duncan[24]; 28. 101-Kalib Henry[17]; 29. 9R-Chase Randall[21]
