COTTAGE GROVE, Ore. — Justyn Cox scored an incredible $5,000-to-win feature with the NARC 410 Sprint Car Series with a late race maneuver past Cole Macedo in heavy lapped traffic at Cottage Grove Speedway on Friday night.
It was the Bates-Hamilton Racing driver’s second career NARC win, in a thrilling 30-lap Fastest Five Days in Motorsports show that had the crowd on the edge of their seats.
“Cottage Grove is my favorite track in the country, and I’ve said that for years, and I feel like I have the most laps here out of the whole field,” said the completely ecstatic main event winner. “(Cole Macedo) kind of got out of line to try and do what he needed to do as the leader, and I had one shot, so I got a couple of extra miles an hour faster than him and threw a dive bomb.”
The main event began with the Beacon Wealth Strategies dash winner Cole Macedo jetting out in front in his Tarlton Motorsports mount. The lone race stoppage was for a red flag incident with three laps complete that saw Billy Aton and Gauge Garcia collide. Neither driver was injured.Â
When green flag action resumed, the Tarlton & Son No. 21 Maxim of Macedo set a wicked pace and developed a substantial 10-car length advantage.
Things got interesting when lapped traffic came into the mix on the ninth trip past the flag stand. With the race going caution-free, traffic got heavier. Macedo had to make some critical decisions to get around the slower cars. Cox shadowed his every move and began to reel him in aboard his Diamond Plastics No. 42X Maxim.
Cox carried a lot of speed entering the bottom of turn three to power his way past Macedo to capture the lead with four laps remaining. The new pacesetter was not entirely out of the woods yet, as he had to deal with lapped traffic and a motivated Macedo. Despite Macedo’s best efforts, Cox kept his car out in front and scored the victory.
Macedo would have his hands full in the waning circuits with the Whipple Supercharges No. 41 Maxim of Dominic Scelzi but managed to beat him to the checkered for second.
Scelzi notched his first podium of the week with his third-place result.
Feature Finish (30 Laps)
1. 42X-Justyn Cox [3]; 2. 21-Cole Macedo [1]; 3. 41-Dominic Scelzi [7]; 4. 24-Chase Johnson [5]; 5. 18T-Tanner Holmes [10]; 6. 7-Tyler Thompson [4]; 7. 2X-Justin Sanders [9]; 8. 83V-Dylan Bloomfield [8]; 9. 83T-Tanner Carrick [6]; 10. 29-Bud Kaeding [12]; 11. 121-Caeden Steele [11]; 12. 5K-Kinzer Cox [13]; 13. 10-Dominic Gorden [15]; 14. 9T-Camden Robustelli [17]; 15. 21P-Robbie Price [16]; 16. 15-Nick Parker [19]; 17. 02-Ashton Torgerson [18]; 18. 96-Greg Hamilton [14]; 19. 12J-John Clark [20]; 20. 26-Billy Aton [2]; 21. 2K-Gauge Garcia [21];