Cole Macedo at Ocean Speedway. (Joe Shivak photo)
WATSONVILLE, Calif. — Cole Macedo only led two laps Friday night at Ocean Speedway, but it was the most important two laps.
The Lemoore, California driver won the season opener for the Taco Bravo Sprint Cars by defeating Chase Johnson in a green and white checkered finish in the 30-lap feature.
Johnson, driving the No. 28 Sean Quinn Motorsports, finished second ahead of polesitter Dylan Bloomfield. Rounding out the top 5 were Mitchell Faccinto and Bud Kaeding. Macedo, at Tarlton Motorsports No. 21T, started eighth in the 22-car field.
Bloomfield and Dominic Scelzi started on the front row as Scelzi quickly took the lead over the novice driver. Scelzi, closely followed by Johnson, was soon struggling with lapped cars.
On lap 16 the face of the race changed dramatically when Scelzi got into two far closer cars and accidentally ran into the rear of one of the cars he lapped, causing the leader to spin. Johnson managed to avoid the incident, but Justin Sanders, who finished third, became involved.
Both Scelzi and Sanders had to retire and hand the lead to Johnson.
Johnson’s white-blue-red No. 28 retained the lead, even through a cautionary delay on lap 19 due to a Kurt Nelson spin. On lap 22, Macedo moved up to second place while Kaeding worked his way up to 5th place.
With just two laps to go, the race changed again as Jeremy Chisum spun at turn four, setting up a two-lap shootout. Macedo drove hard into the first turn and slipped past the inside of Johnson as the two sped down the backstretch on the quarter-mile stretch of the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds. Macedo got the win.
Feature finish (30 rounds)
Cole Macedo, Chase Johnson, Dylan Bloomfield, Mitchell Faccinto, Bud Kaeding, Tanner Carrick, Gauge Garcia, Ricky Sanders, Chris Nelson, Michael Pombo, Bradley Dillard, John Clark, Caleb Debem, Travis Labat, Jason Chisum, Mariah Ede, Jeremy Chisum , Kurt Nelson, Dominic Scelzi, Justin Sanders, Geoffrey Grimm, Ryan Rocha
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