SPOKANE, Wash. — Trevor Cristiani scored his second career Northwest Super Late Model Series victory on Saturday night, winning the “Liberty Launch Academy 125” at Findlay Stadium Stateline Speedway.
The 2019 series champion drove from eighth place to the lead by lap 44 and never looked back, holding off a late race charge from Jason O’Neil to score the $3,000 victory. The win was a long-time coming for the Idaho driver.
“I’ve been working really, really hard in the shop with some credit to some people for some help and guidance”, Cristiani exclaimed. “It feels really good when you work hard, and it starts paying off and you start seeing results. We have been consistently faster, but we couldn’t seem to put the whole thing together.
“Tonight, we were still off just a little bit on the long run, but there have definitely been big gains and I think we have a lot more positive things coming in our future here.”
Cristiani started the evening by earning the AFCO Racing/Longacre Racing Products Fast Time Award, with a blistering lap of 13.200 seconds on the one-fourth-mile oval. O’Neil was second-quick.
Plybon got a good initial start on his way to the lead, with Gibson advancing to second by the lap four caution for Chris Kellogg in the turn four wall. The ensuing restart found Plybon and Gibson battling side-by-side, as Gibson edged ahead in the upper groove to lead lap-seven, finally clearing Plybon on lap-eight.
Meanwhile, Cristiani was making his way to the front, moving by O’Neil for fourth by lap 14. Six laps later, Cristiani passed Goetz and a move by the former champion quickly followed. By lap 25, Cristiani passed Plybon and took up the chase of Gibson, who had separated himself from the field.
By lap 42, Cristiani had chased his teammate down and began pressuring for the lead. It took only two laps for Cristiani grab the top spot and lead the field to a yellow at the halfway mark.
The restart saw Cristiani to the lead, with O’Neil pressuring Gibson for the runner-up position. On lap 70, O’Neil was finally able to get under Gibson for second place with Goetz and championship leader Anderson also pressuring Gibson for third.
As Goetz hounded Gibson, Anderson was able to trap the youngest series winner under Gibson and make the move to fourth.
After a caution on lap 88, Cristiani was able to reestablish the lead. The final restart found Cristiani out to the lead, but O’Neil stayed within striking distance. As the laps wound down, O’Neil began to close on the bumper of the leader. With four to go, Gibson was within a half car length of Cristiani, but a slight bobble in turn four gave the leader a two-car advantage.
On the final lap, O’Neil drove it deep into turn three, but spun in an attempt to get inside Cristiani. As the field crossed the finish line, Cristiani led Anderson, Gibson, a charging Mike Doss and Evan Goetz, with O’Neil falling to 11th at the conclusion.
After the event, Cristiani recalled his rapid ascension to the front, after drawing the number eight pill.
“This track, fortunately, seems to have two and maybe three grooves, so I wasn’t worried at all about going to the outside and trying to make some headway, while the tires were fresh, and the track was a little bit cooler. Fortunately, things just worked out,” Cristiani said. “I think people were trying to conserve a lot. I was trying to conserve but get up there without overdoing it. We found ourselves up there in the top-five pretty quick and then we were trying to be patient. It just worked out really well, and we got to the lead and didn’t look back.”
Anderson had another solid effort and added to his championship lead with a second-place finish. The Rookie-of-the-Year candidate was disappointed not to win, but happy with the team’s advancement towards the championship.
“Obviously, we want to win, so we are a little disappointed with that, but second-place never hurts, and it was a great point night for us. I think we extended our lead, so I’m happy about that, and I hope we can continue,” Anderson said. “The track was really weird tonight, with the outside the most dominant. So, I feel like we didn’t adjust for an outside lane night and unfortunately, we just got a little tight there at the end.”
For the second race in-a-row, Gibson scored his best career finish, finishing third.
The finish:
Feature: 1. Trevor Cristiani, 2. Kaiden Anderson, 3. Nick Gibson, 4. Mike Doss, 5. Evan Goetz, 6. Corey Allard, 7. Haeden Plybon, 8. Dave Garber, 9. Ken Bonney, 10. Kasey Kleyn, 11. Jason O’Neil, 12. Chris Kalsch, 13. Andy Beaman, 14. Jess Havens, 15. Braeden Havens, 16. Mitch Kleyn, 17. Max Schroeder, 18. Chris Kellogg, DNS. T.J. Monroe