CHICO, Calif. – Tanner Carrick started from the pole and never looked back en route to victory in Friday night’s 30-lap 360 sprint car season opener at Silver Dollar Speedway.
Carrick, who is racing full time with Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports in national midgets this year, held off hard charges from both Shane Golobic and Tony Gualda during the main event to notch his second career victory at the high-banked, quarter-mile oval.
A new wrinkle in the race format saw Friday night’s heat race winners make up the first two rows of the feature lineup, with the top six qualifiers lining up from fifth to 10th by their finishing order from the eight-lap dash race, which took place prior to the B-main.
As the night’s first heat winner, that gave Carrick the top starting position, and he took full advantage of it when the green flag waved by jetting out to a big lead early on.
From there, both Gualda – and Golobic after he took over the runner-up spot on lap 23 – threw everything they had at the 17-year-old California hotshoe, to no avail.
Golobic settled for second in the end, .454 of a second back, with Gualda completing the podium. Justyn Cox and Sean Becker finished fourth and fifth, respectively.
Kalib Henry, Geoff Ensign, Colby Copeland, Rico Abreu and Michael Ing were the rest of the top-10 finishers.
Carrick, Gualda and Abreu were the night’s three heat winners and, as such, started first through third when the feature got underway. Shane Golobic won the fast qualifiers’ dash and rolled off fifth under the new format.
Casey McClain wired the 12-lap B-main, needed with 28 cars in attendance Friday night.
Andrew Peckham (Sport Mods) and Kyle Allen (Hobby Stocks) also won features in their respective classes during the racing program.
Friday night’s race was the fourth attempt at getting the weekly racing season underway at Silver Dollar Speedway, after rainouts claimed the first three tries.
The finish:
Tanner Carrick, Shane Golobic, Tony Gualda, Justyn Cox, Sean Becker, Kalib Henry, Geoff Ensign, Colby Copeland, Rico Abreu, Michael Ing, John Clark, Cody Hodgson, Casey McClain, Blake Carrick, Ryan Souza, Brandon Powell, Angelo Cornet, Andy Forsberg, Kyle Offill, Eli Deshales, Korey Lovell, Jake Wheeler.