By Ben Deatherage
PRICE, Utah (Sept. 27, 2024) – Taking advantage of a late restart, defending Friesen Performance IMCA Modified national champion Chaz Baca powered his way to first place and stayed ahead of all other contenders to pick up the victory at Desert Thunder Raceway’s Castle Country Clash.
During the Friday night main event, Wyatt Howard had a speedy race car and led most of the race. A late race stoppage with a handful of laps remaining brought about an exciting restart. Baca drag raced the leader on the backstretch, took the lead on the 17th circuit and didn’t look back once ahead of the field.
Regan Tafoya, the winner on Thursday, worked his way into second place while Kelly Smith completed third place on the podium.
Five other IMCA Speedway Motors Weekly Racing divisions were on tap, including the IMCA Sunoco Hobby Stocks, Friesen Performance IMCA Northern SportMods, IMCA Sunoco Stock Cars, Stealth Racing IMCA STARS Mod Lites and Mach-1 IMCA Sport Compacts.
Payce Herrera, Scott Hardman, Mitchell Ferguson, Dillion Thomas and Cody Poll collected the victories.
Herrera picked up from where he had left off the night before as he led the entire distance in the Hobby Stock finale.
Going from fourth to the lead on the first lap, it turned out that the only thing that slowed down the 16-year-old pilot from Price was three yellow flags, which demolished the huge leads he had successfully constructed.
New Mexico’s Kyler Duggins was the runner-up while Hunter Ferrell from Colorado won the dogfight for third.
Waylon Hale got a great start in the Northern SportMod feature. Hale and Kade Dimick separated from the main body as the race stayed green and got into heavy traffic.
Unfortunately, a lapped car got out of shape and collected Hale, and Dimick made heavy contact that would end his night while Hale had to go to the back of the field. Hardman would take over the role of the leader.
The Green River driver reigned supreme from the restart to the finish and collected the second victory of the season.
The House of Spangler battled it out for second, with Aaron beating his son Camron to the wire for the runner-up spot.
Thursday night winner Beau Hutchison and Brad Ostler battled in the early goings of the Stock Car main. Hutchison led the field for the first few laps in the Dillion Lawrence provided mount before being overtaken by Ostler.
Ostler started to creep away from the field as Hutchison and Ferguson went after each other for second place. Ferguson obtained the runner-up spot and eventually reeled in the leader. Putting together a strong run, the Queen Creek, Ariz., challenger methodically worked the inside line, overtook the leader, and won his first race of the season.
Allen Bradley moved into second late in the contest with Ostler ending the night third.
Thomas was another driver to go back-to-back in the first two nights of the tripleheader weekend for the Mod Lites. Obtaining the lead from Ross Ham on the third trip around the 3/8-mile oval, the Price native had no issues leading the rest of the distance to win his second race in the class this season.
Dillyun Bowden finished second with Ham completing the podium in third.
Observing the IMCA Sport Compacts box score would show you that the Green River, Wy., driver Poll led the entire distance. However, he was under pressure the whole time and had no room for error from Thursday night winner Travis Bott. Bott did his best to find a route around Poll, but Poll was just so consistent and carried so much speed as he earned his seventh win of 2024.
Bott was a close second, with third going to Jackson Shiew.
IMCA TV affiliate A.A. Productions broadcast the event.
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