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Pure "Excitement"; Forsberg wins the Cup
Micheli wins Dirt Modified Feature and earns Y2K championship
by Bill Sullivan

Wednesday, September 13 Results
CSCCWS Qualifying CSCCWS Sprints Dirt Modifieds

No. 92 Andy Forsberg becomes the 4th different winner of the this special event.

With $15,000 up for grabs the competition for Wednesday’s event was far from lackluster and when the checkered flag waved Andy Forsberg lived up to his name of Mr.Excitement and picked up the $3000 victory and became the fourth different driver to win this prestigious event.

After claiming third place in his heat race, Forsberg started the 30-lap feature on the pole with Kevin Lovell of Yuba City on the outside. At the waving of the green flag both Forsberg and Lovell entered the first set of turns equally aggressive and continued their side by side battle until Lovell drifted off of the fourth turn and fell back several positions just prior to completion of the first lap.

Once Lovell fell out of contention, Forsberg accelerated to a lead of several car lengths as Roger Crockett of Rio Linda assumed the bridesmaid position and was rapidly closing in on Forsberg’s lead. As early as the seventh lap, Forsberg was already approaching lapped traffic with Crockett just inches behind waiting for the slightest mistake.

On the tenth circuit, Forsberg managed to increase his lead when Crockett slowed while lapping Reno driver Mike Monahan in the fourth turn. Although Forsberg increased his advantage by several car lengths, Crockett quickly redeemed himself and was once again within striking distance of Forsberg by the 14th lap.

Running a near quarter-track ahead of the field, Forsberg and Crockett raced nose to tail for the waning laps of this event that ran non-stop from green flag to checkered. At the finish line it was Forsberg edging Crockett with Grass Valley driver Billy Wallace finishing third ahead of Elk Grove’s Johnny Rodriguez and Jim VanLare of Santa Rosa.

“I knew he was right there and I knew he was capable of getting by me, he’s gotten by me on the last lap more times than I can count,” said Forsberg. “The first time I looked up at the scoreboard we already had 19 laps down and I told myself just 11 more laps. The track was fast tonight so the lapped cars were running as fast as I was. If I could pick one race to win all year this would be the one, this is a big one for us.”

In preliminary action on Saturday, Crockett led all 12-laps of the B-main event. Sporting a new paint scheme on his Brian Crockett owned Stealth, Crockett, the evening’s fast qualifier, muscled off of the pole position at the waving of the green flag, advancing ahead of Yuba City driver Korey Lovell, Billy Wallace and Johnny Rodriguez. While Crockett ran out in front and worked his way into lapped traffic as early as the six-lap mark, Rodriguez and Wallace battled for the third spot with Rodriguez overtaking Wallace on the second lap. The top four positions went unchanged for the remainder of the race with Crockett picking up the win followed by Lovell, Rodriguez and Wallace.

In other preliminary competition, heat races went trouble-free with few cautions. Colby Weisz of Colfax picked up the victory in the first 10-lap qualifier. Mark Tabor Jr. of Reno, Nevada won the second heat of the evening with Placerville’s Jim Trulli and Chico’s Jonathan Allard winning heats three and four. In qualifying Wednesday,. Crockett posted fast time with a 12:.478.

No. 911 Matt Micheli gets the win and the added bonus of the championship.

The Pacific Sprint Cars were joined Wednesday by the Dirt Modifieds as they competed in their final event of the season in the third annual “Dirt Modified Cup. In this event Brian Wright of Cameron Park took the initial lead and maintained it until the 12th lap when point leader Matt Micheli of Live Oak made an outside pass in the second turn to steal the lead.

Once in front, Micheli stretched his lead to several car lengths over Wright who was overtaken by defending race champion Randy McDaniel from Marysville. With McDaniel on the move in second place, Micheli’s lead quickly diminished until the 19th lap when McDaniel fell victim to a collision with backmarker John Sloan in the fourth turn. The incident sent McDaniel to the pit area with damage and placed Richard Brace Jr. of Auburn in second place for the six laps remaining. In the final two laps, Brace closed to within inches of Micheli but it was Micheli in front when the checkered flag waved as he claimed the $800 win and the 2000 track championship.

Wednesday’s event kicked off four-big days of racing at Silver Dollar Speedway. Thursday the Pennzoil World of Outlaws will invade the quarter-mile oval for the first of two preliminary programs all leading up to Saturday’s Gold Cup Race of Champions which pays $20,000 to win.