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Lambert Takes Gold at Pacific Sprint Cup

CHICO, CA - Since his first series victory early in the season at Petaluma, Scooter Lambert of Foothill Farms, California had somewhat returned to a dry spell status in the way of victories. That all changed, however, Wednesday night when Lambert put all of his "should have been" victories behind him and took the gold in the 1999 Hoosier Racing Tires, California Sprint Car Civil War Race Series Pacific Sprint Cup at John Padjen's Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico, California.

This event is the final segment of the 1999 Silver Dollar Speedway championship point racing campaign and is only open to the top 22-drivers in the current division point standings.

The No. 1C of Scooter Lambert takes the gold at the opening night of Gold Cup - Race of Champions.

"This is a big win for us, a real big win, " said Lambert, who's last victory came during the third round of Civil War competition at Petaluma. "The middle part of the year has just been terrible for us. We've had one problem after another and I think we finally got everything back together. This is definitely a step in the right direction again." After finishing third in his heat race, Lambert started the 30-lap feature event in the third position on the inside of the second row behind pole sitter Mike Monahan of Sparks, Nevada and Damion Gardner of Concord. At the waving of the green flag, it was Monahan who took command of the 20-car field as he powered ahead of Gardner to take the point entering the first set of turns.

Although Monahan wasted little time in working his way to a healthy lead, Lambert began to close in on the leader shortly after the waving of the green. After passing Gardner on the opening lap, Lambert began closing in on the leader as early as the third circuit. On the seventh circuit, lapped traffic became a factor which allow Lambert to decrease the gap between he and Monahan even more so and permitted fourth place starter Roger Crockett of Rio Linda to advance into the hunt as well as he muscled his way into the third position on the ninth lap.

On the 13th lap the first yellow flag of the event came out when Marc Zieske of Oroville stalled on the back stretch. On the ensuing restart, Lambert stayed within inches of Monahan's rear bumper for the entire opening lap before moving to the low side of the fourth turn where he hugged the infield berm and slid up beneath Monahan to steal the lead.

Once Lambert made his successful pass, he wasted no time whatsoever in distancing himself from the field as Monahan, Crockett and Gardner dueled for the next three positions. Following a restart on the 15th lap, Gardner overtook Monahan for the second position and Crockett followed suit, moving in front of Monahan for the third position on the back stretch of the same lap, however, as a yellow flag came out for a stalled Kyle Schild on the high side of turn two, Crockett's efforts fell short as the restart placed him back into the fourth position.

When the green flag came out again it was immediately followed by a red when Bryan Bullard and Craig Dilliard tangled in the first and second turn. The incident sent both drivers upside down with little damage, permitting both to return to the grid for the restart which then saw Gardner lose control in the fourth turn and slide sideways in front of oncoming traffic. While the incident saw Gardner escape with no damage, the ensuing traffic jam sent Billy Wallace of Grass Valley upside down against the turn four wall. After replacing his top wing and a drive link, Wallace returned for the remaining nine-laps which saw Lambert continue to dominate the front position while Monahan, Crockett and Jim Vanlare of Windsor dueled for the next three positions. On the second to last lap, Crockett moved into the second position but with only one lap remaining, had far too little time to close in on Lambert's healthy lead. At the finish line Lambert picked up the $3000 win followed by Crockett, Monahan, VanLare, Mike Wasina Jr. and series point leader David Robinson Jr. of Sacramento who started 10th.

"I had a stumble in the motor at the lower rpm's and as long as I caught him (Monahan) just right I was able to keep pushing him in the corner," said Lambert. "Finally I was able to pressure him to point where he slid up a little bit and I caught him just right and got by him."

In preliminary action on Wednesday, heat race victories went to Mike Benson, Colby Weisz, Rich Tiner and Marc Zieske. The B-main event was won by VanLare who was followed into the feature by Kevin Lovell, Bobby McMahan and Ron McBride. During qualifying, Roger Crockett set a new track record with a 12:01 second lap to earn the Al's Grading and Paving fast time award.

The California Sprint Car Civil War Race Series will continue next Saturday night for the 12th round of competition at Twin Cities Speedway in Marysville followed by the series finale at Placerville Speedway on October 2.

Gold Cup Daily News
Published daily during the annual Gold Cup Race of Champions in Chico, CA
Published by John Padjen Motorsports
Design and Production - Bill Sullivan
Assistants/Contributors - Troy Hennig, Dennis Gage, Richard Day, WoO
Photographs supplied by Aron Jones, JohnPadjenMotorsports.com

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