PLACERVILLE, Calif. — After leaving for a month to pursue other racing opportunities, Justin Sanders made his triumphant return to the NARC King of the West sprint car scene, as he fought his way through traffic and made a late winning pass to score a $5,000 Pay Dirt Showdown victory Saturday at Placerville Speedway.
Sanders started the 30-lap feature outside the second row and early on passed Dylan Bloomfield to move into the third position, before quickly going after pole sitter Justyn Cox for second. Making that move into the runner-up spot, Sanders then set his sights on race leader Sean Becker.
Becker survived an assault by Cox in the opening two laps, withstanding slide job attempts and close quarters between cars on the quarter-mile bullring and then taking off from there with the lead. Becker, however, then was forced to contend with constant traffic on the small oval.
That allowed Sanders to close in and challenge during the middle and latter parts of the race.
Becker at times made key passes around slower cars to keep Sanders at bay.
As the laps winded down, traffic thickened for Becker and left him struggling to find a path around as the race reached five laps to go. That’s when Sanders finally pounced, getting a run around the bottom side of Turns 3 and 4 as Becker was held up by a pair of slower cars right in front of him. Sanders scooted by Becker as they exited the fourth turn to lead the 26th lap.
Sanders led the final five laps to take his series leading seventh NARC win of the season aboard the Yuba Sutter Aviation-sponsored Mittry Motorsports No. 2x Fisher-powered KPC.
Sanders knew Becker was second in NARC points entering the night and was competing for the championship. Because of that, Sanders said he wanted to pass Becker clean and waited for the opportunity to do so as they raced in traffic.
“Sean was running a good race. He was switching up his lines and really making me think about what I had to do to get closer. I looked up on the board on Lap 23 and I was like ‘I don’t know if I’m going to get this’ and then we got into traffic and I made it stick on the bottom,” said Sanders, who again also praised the Mittry Motorsports team. “Awesome to be back in the 2x. Nice to be back home with these guys. Happy to get another 410 win.”
Bloomfield made the late pass around Becker in the closing laps to take the runner-up spot and finished there aboard the Gary Silva Ranches-sponsored Vertullo Racing No. 83v Kistler-powered Maxim.
Saturday’s race was Vertullo Racing’s final NARC start before the team relocates to the Midwest after decades as one of the most recognizable cars in California.
After leading 25 laps, Becker finished third aboard the D&J Construction Rental-sponsored Bjork Construction No. 7b Shaver-powered Maxim and shaved a few points off D.J. Netto’s point lead. After starting on the pole, Cox eventually finished fourth aboard the BERCO Redwood-sponsored Bates Hamilton Racing No. 42x Kistler-powered Maxim. Gauge Garcia ran in the top five throughout and finished fifth in the Monarch Ford-sponsored Keller Motorsports No. 2k Speedway-powered Triple X.
The finish:
Feature (30 laps): 1. 2X-Justin Sanders[4]; 2. 83V-Dylan Bloomfield[3]; 3. 7B-Sean Becker[2]; 4. 42X-Justyn Cox[1]; 5. 2K-Gauge Garcia[8]; 6. 88N-DJ Netto[6]; 7. X1-Chance Grasty[5]; 8. 21-Jesse Schlotfeldt[9]; 9. 3-Kaleb Montgomery[16]; 10. 29-Bud Kaeding[11]; 11. 83T-Tanner Carrick[13]; 12. 12J-John Clark[12]; 13. 2XM-Max Mittry[17]; 14. 83-Cannon McIntosh[19]; 15. 10-Dominic Gorden[10]; 16. 61-Travis Labat[21]; 17. 9-DJ Freitas[18]; 18. 15-Michael Sellers[22]; 19. 85-AJ Alderman[23]; 20. 14-Mariah Ede[20]; 21. 17-Colby Copeland[7]; 22. 92-Andy Forsberg[15]; 23. 17W-Shane Golobic[14]
