TULARE, Calif. — Dominic Scelzi won another Kings of Thunder 360 sprint car feature at the Tulare Thunderbowl Raceway on Friday night.Â
The Fresno, Calif., native added the Brain and Chris Faria Memorial trophy to his storybook season in a 30-lap contest.
Young and upcoming Joey Ancona held off a closing Sean Becker to round out the podium. Tucker Worth and Brooklyn Holland completed the top five on a night where the temperatures were still in the 90s at the drop of the green flag.
The 17-car field got off to a wild start as polesitter Landon Hurst caught a rut and it sent him high flying toward the notorious Thunderbowl wall. Somehow everyone missed Hurst’s airshow as the full field entered the first turn.Â
Outside front row starter Kaleb Montgomery wasted little time setting a fast pace on a track which was beginning to slick off. Meanwhile Scelzi had moved up to the third spot by the third lap after starting eighth. On the next lap a determined Scelzi picked off Ancona for second.
Sean Becker who started a row behind Scelzi had moved up to the fifth spot by lap seven. The fast-moving Montgomery quickly caught lapped traffic and up to that point he had mastered the back markers with loosing much speed or lead margin. It was appearing Scelzi would need a caution to catch the leader. Montgomery was setting a rapid pace, so much so that his right rear bounced off the second turn outer wall but that didn’t seem to slow him down.
The caution Scelzi needed came out on lap 19 and unfortunately it was for Montgomery who made contact trying to lap Grant Champlin as they entered low in the first turn. Both cars slid up to the outside wall where they were run into by Reece Goetz.
Scelzi inherited the lead as Montgomery’s car was towed back to the pits with front end damaged ending what was looking like a runaway win.
Once restarted Scelzi maintained an uncatchable pace and cruised to the win. Â
Both Scelzi and Becker had just come off doing double duty in the King of West 410 feature, a race which Scelzi won.
The finish:
Dominic Scelzi, Joey Ancona, Sean Becker, Tucker Worth, Brooklyn Holland, Keith Day Jr., Grant Champlin, Steven Kent, Grant Duinkerken, Zane Blanchard, Bryce Eames, Reece Goetz, Connor Dannell, Travis Coelho, Kaleb Montgomery, Landon Hurst    Â
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