By
PLACERVILLE,
CA (6-24-06) – Auburn
resident Andy Forsberg continued his streak of success at Placerville Speedway
Saturday night, winning the fourth round of the Hoosier Racing Tires Civil War
Sprint Car Series. The victory was Forsberg’s fourth victory of the year at the
foothill speedway and his second win in the traveling Civil War series where
the former two-time champion leads the point standings.
Under triple digit temperatures, a
total of 41 cars competed in Saturday’s event, which paid out over $14,000 in
winnings and more than an additional $3,000 in contingency awards. For Forsberg
the victory was worth additional championship points towards his point lead as
he chases a third driving championship in the series this season.
“I can’t believe how great this
season has started off for us,” said Forsberg. “Things have just been going our
way since we started and tonight were another example of it. There was a lot of
lapped traffic to work through tonight and like I’ve said before when that’s
the case sometimes your better to be a little more lucky than good out there.”
After locking a starting spot in the
30-lap feature with a third place finish in the opening heat race, Forsberg
started the money race on the outside of the second row behind Grass Valley’s
Mark Hall, Scott Kinney of Sacramento and pole sitter Chad Roil of Roseville.
When the green flag dropped the driver also known as “Mr. Excitement” went into
action and began working his way to the front.
While Kinney faded back two
positions, Forsberg passed Hall in the opening laps and pulled beside Riolo to challenge for the lead. Both Riolo
and Forsberg raced side by side in a nail biting battle for the lead, swapping
the top position several times in the first four laps. Forsberg was able to break
free of Riolo on lap five with a lead that grew
stronger when Hall spun in the fourth turn a few positions back and forced much
of the field to slow down to avoid a collision while Forsberg and Riolo distanced themselves from the pack.
With just seven laps complete,
Forsberg worked his way into lapped traffic with Riolo
in pursuit. Before the event was half over, Riolo was
being challenged by
At the 25 lap mark, Sweet overtook Riolo for second place and was joined in the top three by
former champion Roger Crockett of
When the checkered flag flew on the
race that ran nearly non-stop with the exception of one caution flag, Forsberg
was the first to the checkered flag and was followed by Sweet, Crockett and Trulli. Riolo rounded out the top
five at the finish line.
“Lapped traffic was a really big
part of this race tonight, going almost non-stop like we did,” said Forsberg.
“There was a few times there I had to slow down and I was sure they were going
to catch up with me while I was getting around the lapped cars. On a track like
this lapped traffic is a regular thing and you have to
be patient to get around them because they are racing for position too. I’m not
a driver that expects a lapped car to just move out of my way, it’s part of racing to drive around it.”
In preliminary action on Saturday
the caution flag flew many times, including several red flags. Roll over
victims for the night included Matt Petty of Jackson, Shawn Whitney of Camino,
Mike Monahan of
The B-feature was won by Colby Weisz of Colfax who finished ahead of Klein and Sweet. Brad
Bumgarner of
Saturday night was the first event
utilizing the state of the art electronic scoring system that has undergone
weeks of testing at Placerville Speedway. The system worked successfully and is
a great addition to the facility, adding instant results and accuracy to
scoring and results. The system will be used in every event in the future and
as of this time all open wheel divisions are required to mount transponders in
their cars to compete.
For complete results of Saturday’s race and information on any of the upcoming Civil War
Series events and complete point standings, log on to
www.johnpadjenmotorsports.com, the official website for the Civil War Series.