PETALUMA, Calif. — Colby Copeland captured a thrilling three-overtime victory over Chase Johnson in Saturday’s King of the West-NARC Fujitsu 410 Sprint Car Series show at Petaluma Speedway.
Although the final stat line reads that Copeland officially led the entire 30-plus lap distance aboard Larry Antaya’s Fire Protection Management-sponsored, S & S Automotive-powered Maxim, it was far from that simple.
Copeland and Johnson started the event on the front row and created a highlight reel with a thrilling game of cat and mouse for the first 27 non-stop laps. The pair battled wheel-to-wheel and sliced and diced masterfully through slower traffic as Copeland attempted to shag his aggressive tailgater.
The frantic action finally took a breath when the caution appeared for Jason Statler who spun in the second corner. This set the stage for Johnson, in Shawn Thomas’es Fire Suppression Engineering sprinter, to regroup once again for another all out blitzkrieg on the leader. However, the final few laps were packed with even more drama.
First, the event came to a screeching halt on the 30th circuit when Eli Deshaies tangled with Stephen Ingraham and flipped head-over-tail on the frontchute.
This set the stage for the first green-white-checkered dash. Bud Kaeding, who had the best seat in the house running third for most of the night, banged the frontstretch concrete and spun on the next white flag lap to bring out the yellow once again.
On the next restart, Johnson attempted to run the high side around Copeland, but smacked the wall on the final lap and stopped on the back chute.
On the final OT restart, Copeland, held off the hard charging D.J. Netto to score the three-car length victory.
“I felt like I won this race at least four times,” explained a very happy Copeland. “I wasn’t sure if this race was going to ever end.”
The finish:
Colby Copeland, D.J. Netto, Geoff Ensign, Ryan Bernal, Dominic Scelzi, Bud Kaeding, Jason Statler, Chase Johnson, Willie Croft, Nathan Rolfe, Kyle Offill, Kenny Allen, Tim Estenson, Stephen Ingraham, Eli Deshaies, Richard Brace Jr., Sean Watts, Matt DeMartini