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McMahan comes home to take Friday night preliminary feature

Friday, September 05 Results
Qualifying Results

CHICO, CA (09-05-03) - Its safe to say that Paul McMahan cut his teeth in the sport of sprint car racing in Chico, California. A native of Elk Grove he spent many of his younger years competing on the banks of Silver Dollar Speedway with the likes of Greg DeCaires in the traveling Northern Auto Racing Club before moving to nearby Oroville where he made Silver Dollar Speedway his home track for weekly point racing when his schedule allowed.

Paul McMahan returned to his old stomping grounds Friday night to win the Gold Cup preliminary feature at Silver Dollar Speedway. Photo by Bill Sullivan.

Friday night Paul McMahan had the opportunity he has long awaited, he returned to his home track where the fans adore him and applaud his presence. To top it off he battled with his formal friendly rival DeCaires to post the victory for the second 30-lap preliminary event of the 50th Anniversary Gold Cup Race of Champions.

"This is the greatest thing, to come back here and win this," said McMahan. "My whole California swing has, well lets me honest, it just sucked for me. But thanks to Vivarin, Selma Shell, David Helm, Sonny Kratzer and everybody on this team for their support in a tough season for us. I really want to thank the fans for coming out tonight, its fun to be back here."

McMahan took the green flag racing into the first set of turns with Jason Myers of Clovis in a side by side battle for the early lead which was claimed by Myers as he drove low into the first set of turns. McMahan made an early attempt at the lead, pulling beside Myers in the next turn to no avail but that would not be the last time McMahan would see the view from the front position.

With only two laps complete DeCaires came into the picture when he drove his Redi-Green Motorsports #1K low into the third and fourth turns to grab the bridesmaid position from McMahan and the two traded the position for the next two laps with DeCaires taking control of the battle by the fifth lap before passing Myers for the lead with an inside pass on the back straight during the sixth lap.

"When Greg passed me I said to myself 'that sumbitch is leading this deal now," mused McMahan much to the pleasure of the crown. "Then I got a good run up on the top and he ended up on the bottom and ended up kind of missing it a couple of times. Once I got back past him I knew I had to drive low or he would have drove right past me again."

After redeeming second place from Myers on the 16th lap, McMahan chased down DeCaires through multiple caution flags until the 20th lap when he took the lead back from DeCaires. DeCaires, a 1990 Silver Dollar Speedway champion, answered back one lap later, stealing the lead back by driving low in turns one and two. The ensuing dogfight between McMahan and DeCaires look like a scene from the past as they kept the crowd on the edge of their seats for the waning laps.

It was on the 24th lap that McMahan sealed the deal with a high pass on DeCaires in the fourth turn. For the remaining six laps, McMahan protected his position within lapped traffic and and took the checkered flag with a two to three car length advantage over DeCaires who finished second ahead of former Gold Cup winners and WoO champion Danny Lasoski. Lasoski started fifth in the field and moved into the top five on the fifth lap to eventually overtake Myers who changed motors just before qualifying and finished the event fourth ahead of Sammy Swindell, Jonathan Allard, Tim Kaeding and Brad Furr.

Overall Saturday Meyers led the first five laps of the Friday's feature. DeCaires led laps 6 through 19 and 21-23 while McMahan led the laps that counted the most with the top spot on lap 20 followed by leading laps 24-30.

In preliminary events on Friday heat races were won by track regulars Ryan Flynn, Jonathan Allard, John Gray as well as Garrett Ishi.. The C-main event was claimed by Beau Perkins who finished ahead of Kevin Lovell, Robert Stice and Jeff Parady.

The B-main was claimed by local favorite Sean Becker with Brent Kaeding in his wake. Billy Wallace placed third followed by Peter Murphy. One lap into this event the red flag came out when Gerold Hopping and Dave Angus tangled in the third turn. As Hopping spun another incident broke out in turn four with Danny Ochs and Matt Shelton colliding resulting in Ochs flipping to bring out the red flag.

Qualifying had Sammy Swindell clocking quick time with a 12:191 on the quarter mile. A total of 45 cars entered the event Friday night. Early point tallies show that despite the win McMahan will start seventh in the feature do to his eighth place qualifying time combined with fourth place finish in the heat race and a win in the second dash of the evening.

The 50th Anniversary of the Gold Cup Race of Champions concludes tonight with all competitors returning for feature events consisting of an f,e,d ,c and B mains leading up to the big 40-lap race for the gold. For further information on this event please check out www.johnpadjenmotorsports.com.

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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