“Double Down” Willie
Croft Wins July 4th Special at Chico
By: Troy
Hennig
(Chico,
CA 7-04-04)…
“Double Down” Willie Croft of Sacramento
won the 25 lap 410 sprint car main event at John Padjen’s Silver Dollar
Speedway on Sunday night, July 4th.
Whether he is sitting at a black jack table in Reno
or inside a race car, “Double Down” Willie Croft is as cool of a customer as
you’ll ever see. Croft dominated the
race and won the popular victory in front of 4, 300 fans who packed the
grandstand and bleachers of Silver Dollar Speedway. The 35m sprint car that Willie drives is
owned by Tom Fisher and Kyle Main of Grass
Valley
who spent all week putting together a brand new sprint car for Croft to race
with. Croft took the lead away from
Gerrold Hopping on lap eight and led the final 17 laps for the victory. It was the team’s second victory of the year
at Chico
while it marked Croft’s third win of the year as a driver. Also winning during the nights racing action
were Mike Sohnrey in the dirt modifieds and Jim Neher in the pure stocks. A total of 31 sprint cars, 21 pure stocks and
14 modifieds helped celebrate American with racing and fireworks at the Silver
Dollar Fairgrounds.
A strong
start by Carl Enns gave him the lead of the 20 car sprint car feature event. Enns led the first six laps until Gerrold
Hopping made a nice move to the inside and grabbed the lead. Croft followed suite and was now in second. On lap seven Croft
made his bid for the lead and was the official new leader on lap eight when Chico’s
John Gray came to a stop in turn two.
Gray had moved into the top five until the spin. With Croft as the new leader he quickly left
the rest of the competition behind.
Hopping, Enns and Kyle Hirst were having a heck of a battle along with
Blake Robertson. On lap 16, Robertson
entered turn three on the top and drifted off the edge as he lost valuable
track position. The next lap Jason
Statler did the same thing; however, Statler would crawl to a stop and bring
out the yellow. As Statler stopped in
turn two, Robertson spun off turn four and each would restart in the back. The race restarted with six to go and there
was nobody who could touch Croft. He and
his team had dialed in the brand new sprint car to perfection and picked up the
much needed victory. Enns drove as fine
of a race that we’ve seen him run at Chico
and finished second. Shain Matthews
scored an impressive third place finish with help from Brian Cannon as his new
crew chief. Rookie phenomenal driver
Kyle Hirst picked up another top five by placing fourth. Hopping scored his best finish to date as he
came across in fifth.
Earlier
this week Mike Sohnrey added a baby boy to his family as Mason Sohnrey was born
at nearby Enloe
Hospital. So Sohnrey went out and dedicated this race
to his new born son and won the 20 lap non- stop dirt modified main event. Sohnrey, who has struggled
the last two months at the track, dominated the racing action and held a
comfortable lead over Ryan McDaniel at the finish. McDaniel was able to close in on Sohnrey the
final five laps but there was too much distance between the two. Following the top two of Sohnrey and McDaniel
were Matt Micheli, Randy McDaniel and Travis Peery. Tonight’s win was number two on the year for
Sohnrey.
Paradise
driver Jim Neher led all 20 laps in the pure stock main event. It was his first win of the season. Neher held off great challenges from Jim
Thomas and Joe Flower. Also in the mix
was current point’s leader Andy Aust. Hard charging Wes Dinsmore made a run to
the front but made contact with another driver that ultimately cost him many
positions in the end and in fact, had to be towed off the track after the
checkered. It was a tough way to end the
night as he was celebrating his 15th wedding anniversary with his
wife at the track. Up front Neher was
untouchable and had a couple car lengths on second place finishing Jim Thomas
and third place Joe Flower.
A 12 lap B
main event was run and Beau Perkins was the winner. A lap one wreck took out five cars including
pole sitter Pete Johnston and second row starting Stuart Krum. Finishing second was Danny Ochs, Bernie Sloop
was third and Heat Hall earned the fourth and final transfer spot.
Sprint car
heat races were won by second year driver Matt Shelton in heat one. Blake Robertson came from row three to win
heat two. Sean Becker won heat three and
Willie Croft won heat four after starting outside row three.
Jim Tomas,
Wes Dinsmore and Chris Warner won the three pure heats.
Mike
Sohnrey completed a lean sweep by wining heat on of the modified division. Heat two went to Mike Haemmig of Grass
Valley.
The night
started off with a bang as San Jose
stud driver Jason Statler broke the regular season track record with an
11.504. He broke the mark just set by
Andy Forsberg on June 11 with an 11.684.
Statler is now the second fastest driver to hold a qualifying mark in
the sprint car division at Chico. Jeff Shepard holds the all-time mark at an
11.477.
Results
Sprint Cars
Fast Time: Jason Statler: 11.504
Heat 1: Matt Shelton, Statler, Shain Matthews, Mark
Abouzeid, Robert Stice
Heat 2: Blake Robertson, Eddy Lewis, Steve Ferhman, Kyle
Hirst, Travis Moore
Heat 3: Sean Becker, John Gray, Carl Enns, Brian Boswell,
Pete Johnston
Heat 4: Willie Croft, Tim Gibbons, Gerrold Hopping, Tommy
Fogarty, Heat Hall
B Main: Beau Perkins, Danny Ochs, Bernie Sloop, Hall, Stice,
Brandon Dozier, Tim Barnes, Claudia Hughes, Kevin Sharrah, Johnston, Daniel
Becker, Stuart Krum, Dave James
A Main: Croft,
Enns, Matthews, Hirst, Hopping, Becker, Perkins, Gray, Abouzeid, Shelton,
Robertson, Boswell, Statler, Sloop, Lewis