YREKA, Calif. — Mitchell Faccinto won the 30-lap Western Sprint Tour opening night of Speedweeks on Monday night at Siskiyou Golden Speedway.
He led the entire distance after starting on the pole but had to survive two late-race cautions which allowed his competition a shot at him.
Faccinto drove the blue Western Metal Co.-sponsored No. 37 owned by Stan Greenburg to the $2,000 paycheck on the first of five nights of racing in the Northwest. The event for the 360 sprint cars is held every July in California and Oregon.
Seth Bergman took the runner up spot just ahead of Justin Sanders. Bergman used a late race caution to move with striking distance of the high flying Faccinto. Bergman, now living in Oklahoma, returned to his sprint car roots and joined Justin Sanders in taking advantage of two cautions which bunched the field on Faccinto’s tail.
Bergman started from the fourth spot while Sanders started in the row behind him. On both restarts Faccinto was able to pull away taking advantage of the clear track ahead. The last caution came out with just four laps to go for a single car spin in the second turn. Faccinto had little problems holding off the competition on the quarter-mile oval.
Twenty-one cars signed into the pit area with Justyn Cox setting fast time. All the competitors competed in one of three heat races except for Emily Williams who had the misfortune of flipping during one of her qualifying laps. Williams, the only car to get upside down during the night, made repairs to her car and tagged the tail of the feature.
Faccinto beat Cox in the six-car, five-lap dash setting up the front row of the main event.