NEW RICHMOND, Wis. — Carson Macedo said he felt like he was driving with steam coming from his ears on Friday night at Cedar Lake Speedway, and he carried that fire into Saturday.
A penalty for jumping the start at the Independence Spectacular opener fueled Macedo with a hunger. A hunger for redemption. A hunger to make it up to his Jason Johnson Racing team. A hunger to finally capture an elusive victory at Cedar Lake.
Consider that hunger satisfied.
Saturday’s story looked like it was going to be a domination by Giovanni Scelzi. He started fourth and ripped the KCP Racing No. 18 into the lead only three laps in. Scelzi set sail, but a yellow flag with 12 laps to go shook things up. Scelzi slid ahead of Macedo on the restart but plugged the wall in Turn 2. That allowed Macedo to slip by down the back straightaway, and he never looked back.
“I’ve lost a couple races here literally doing exactly what just happened there on the start of that race, just not really knowing where to be,” Macedo said. “I felt like I was fully in the grip, and Gio ripped around me. I never really heard him. I heard him one time off of (Turn) 2, and then I went into Turn 3 and thought, ‘OK, I’ll get up in (Turns) 1 and 2’” and then he ripped around me in (Turns) 3 and 4. So, hats off to Philip Dietz, Robby McQuinn, and Adam Zimmerman. Philip gave me a great car all night. We laid down a really nice lap and just put this Albaugh, JJR 41 right where it needed to be to be in position to get in the Dash, where you got to capitalize to win races.”
Macedo’s fifth win of 2025 is the 52nd of his career with the World of Outlaws, which breaks a tie with Jeff Swindell to give him sole possession of 17th most all-time.
David Gravel and the Big Game Motorsports team took the runner-up spot to cap a strong weekend. A win on Friday and Saturday’s second place finish pushed Gravel to 22 podiums on the season, and his point lead is up to 184 markers with roughly half of the campaign complete.
“His (Macedo) pace was pretty slow, and it caught me off guard,” Gravel explained of the final restart. “When I hit the throttle, it just didn’t go, so I took the long way around to get a good run down the frontstretch and get into (Turn) 1 with a lot of speed. That was our only shot to try to make it happen. It just seems like whoever was in the lead was much faster.”
The final step of the podium belonged to Michael “Buddy” Kofoid as the same three drivers claimed the top three spots both nights. The Penngrove, Calif., native started eighth and marched the Roth Motorsports No. 83 to his 15th podium of the season and seventh in a row.
“I feel like during the long green flag run we had a really good car,” Kofoid said. “I got to fourth pretty quick and was catching David and passed him a few times but couldn’t get enough speed on exit to not get crossed back under. Then I got back in line, and I felt like during the long run they were coming back to us. That’s probably when my car felt the best. I didn’t want that red (flag).”
Sheldon Haudenschild and Bill Balog completed the top five.
The finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 41-Carson Macedo[1]; 2. 2-David Gravel[3]; 3. 83-Michael Kofoid[8]; 4. 17-Sheldon Haudenschild[5]; 5. 17B-Bill Balog[6]; 6. 15-Donny Schatz[12]; 7. 1S-Logan Schuchart[10]; 8. 23-Garet Williamson[13]; 9. 7S-Chris Windom[2]; 10. 99-Skylar Gee[9]; 11. 55-Hunter Schuerenberg[11]; 12. 2C-Cole Macedo[19]; 13. 24T-Christopher Thram[15]; 14. 6-Zach Hampton[7]; 15. 74N-Luke Nellis[17]; 16. 87A-Austin Hartmann[16]; 17. 14-Brooke Tatnell[18]; 18. 18-Giovanni Scelzi[4]; 19. 1K-Kelby Watt[20]; 20. 91-Reed Allex[21]; 21. 28M-Conner Morrell[14]; 22. 55A-Brandon Allen[22]
