WATSONVILLE, Calif. – Cole Macedo led only two laps at Ocean Speedway on Friday night, but they were the most important two laps.
The Lemoore, California driver claimed the season opener for the Taco Bravo Sprint Cars by beating Chase Johnson in a green-white-checkered finish in the 30-lap feature.
Johnson, driving the Sean Quinn Motorsports No. 28, finished second ahead of polesitter Dylan Bloomfield. Rounding out the top five were Mitchell Faccinto and Bud Kaeding. Macedo, in the Tarlton Motorsports No. 21T, started in the eighth spot in the 22-car field.
Bloomfield and Dominic Scelzi started on the front row as Scelzi quickly jumped to the lead over the novice driver. Scelzi, followed closely by Johnson, soon had to contend with lapped cars.
On the 16th lap, the complexion of the race changed dramatically as Scelzi got into two-wide closer cars and mistakenly ran into the back of one of the cars he was lapping, causing the leader to spin. Johnson managed to avoid the incident but third place running Justin Sanders got caught up in it.
Both Scelzi and Sanders were forced to retire from the race handing the lead over to Johnson.
Johnson’s white, blue and red No. 28 held the lead even through a lap 19 caution slowdown for a spin by Kurt Nelson. On the 22nd lap, Macedo moved into the second spot with Kaeding making his way into 5th.
The race changed again with just two laps to go when Jeremy Chisum spun in the fourth turn, setting up a two-lap shootout. Macedo drove hard into the first turn and pulled to the inside of Johnson as the two drag raced down the backstretch on the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds quarter-mile track. Macedo went on to take the win.
Feature Finish (30 Laps)
Cole Macedo, Chase Johnson, Dylan Bloomfield, Mitchell Faccinto, Bud Kaeding, Tanner Carrick, Gauge Garcia, Ricky Sanders, Chris Nelson, Michael Pombo, Bradley Dillard, John Clark, Caleb Debem, Travis Labat, Jason Chisum, Mariah Ede, Jeremy Chisum, Kurt Nelson, Dominic Scelzi, Justin Sanders, Geoffrey Grimm, Ryan Rocha