PETALUMA, Calif. — Chase Johnson brought the house down at Petaluma Speedway Saturday night with an impressive NARC 410 Sprint Car Series victory at the Salute To Baylands Raceway Park.
Johnson won his first series race since 2019 after powering his way to the front on lap 19 of the 30-lap headliner aboard the potent Toyota of Marin, Walnut Creek and Sunnyvale/Price Family Dealerships No. 24 Maxim.
“I tell you what, there’s nothing better than winning in front of you fans,” said Johnson. “I travel all across the country racing cars, and to do it in front of the home fans, there’s nothing like it.
“I just really wanted to win,” he continued. “I was waiting for traffic, I love traffic here, but clean air is what you need with these cars, and that helped us out a ton. As I said, it’s so awesome to be here, and I’m blessed for this opportunity.”
Polesitter Dominic Scelzi set the tone of the main event on the initial green flag. Two caution periods slowed the field down in the first five laps of the race, but once the field came back to green, Scelzi was electric on the restarts.
The driver of the Scelzi Motorsports/Whipple Superchargers No. 41 Maxim set a wicked pace and reached lapped traffic first as a long green flag run developed, which got the entire field elbows deep with slower cars.
Slowly but methodically, the ninth starting Johnson began to reel in Scelzi. Johnson would pounce on the two-time defending series champion with only 11 laps remaining to secure the coveted top spot. The only thing to slow him down would be one more caution flag.
However, Johnson answered the call with the back of the running order one last time to secure his third NARC 410 Sprint Car Series win, all of which came at Petaluma.
Justin Sanders, who also earned the ARP Fast Qualifier award, was the runner-up in the Demo Mittry-fielded Farmer’s Brewing/North County Plastering No. 2x Maxim.
“I tried making something happen on the top,” explained Sanders. “I got next to Dominic on the restart and tried to keep up there, but I stayed up there too long. When (Chase) got by me, it looked like a slot car. It would have taken something miraculous to get around him.”
Despite dropping out of the top five briefly, Corey Day roared back in the Jason Meyers Racing-owned Meyers Constructors/Four C’s Construction No. 14 KPC, to finish third.
The finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 24-Chase Johnson [9]; 2. 2X-Justin Sanders [3]; 3. 14-Corey Day [4]; 4. 7B-Sean Becker [5]; 5. 83V-Dylan Bloomfield [2]; 6. 42X-Justyn Cox [14]; 7. 26-Billy Aton [7]; 8. 69-Bud Kaeding [11]; 9. 12J-John Clark [10]; 10. 115-Nick Parker [8]; 11. 2R-Richard Brace Jr. [17]; 12. 551-Angelique Bell [18]; 13. 93-Stephen Ingraham [6]; 14. 41-Dominic Scelzi [1]; 15. 92-Andy Forsberg [15]; 16. 7H-Jake Haulot [11]; 17. 4-Burt Foland Jr. [16]; 18. 51-Gary Paulson [15]