Vidovich was on the lead for 155 of the 200 laps in the King Taco 200. Photo by Anne Cypress.
(Irwindale) – The annual Independence Day celebration came a night early in Irwindale as an estimated crowd of 6,500 were on hand for two heart-stopping races and a fantastic fireworks show.
Auggie Vidovich drove into the winner’s circle for the main event of the King Taco 200 and Rob Johnson Jr went on to victory on a last lap pass to secure High Point Racing’s second consecutive Firecracker 75.
AUTO CLUB LATE MODELS – 75 LAPS
The fireworks began early on Toyota Speedway at Irwindale’s huge Independence Day spectacular as Rod Johnson Jr took advantage of Mike Johnson’s slide job out of turn two on the final lap to win the Auto Club Late Model Firecracker 75.
For most of the race it appeared that Mike Johnson had the better of Rod Johnson Jr as he was able to hold him off on the 71st lap when they made contact out of turn four.
In a wild final lap, Mike Johnson took the lead at the stripe only to lose it when he got loose in the middle of turns one and two. This allowed Rod Johnson to get by on the low side of turn two and get the lead.
Coming out of turn two, Mike Johnson was hit by Brandon Davis after Mike attempted to check up and not take the field out when his car nearly spun. Instead, Davis’s top-ten finish ended up being a 14th place finish and Mike Johnson nursed home a fifth-place finish with blown tires.
The largest beneficiary of the wreck was Nick Joanides who was low on power most of the night and inherited second place when Mike Johnson and Davis collected each other. Joanides good fortune was further magnified by the fact his point lead went from being down two points to still having a four point lead in the standings.
SRL series regular Derek Thorn invaded the speedway and had a solid third place finish. Thorn will be here racing the Spears SRL race on July 14th where he is currently in second. In the last few weeks Thorn has seen considerable track time at TS@I.
K&N FILTERS WEST SERIES KING TACO 200 – 200 LAPS
Vidovich (#59) & Blake Koch (#21) battle for the lead. Photo by Anne Cypress.
Local race car owners James and Terri Cass have been trying to win the K&N Filters West Racing Series event for a few years.
Tonight, their hard work and dedication to racing paid off with a monumental victory in the King Taco 200 when Auggie Vidovich drove the #59 TCR, Babycancer.org and midvalleysports.com race car to a convincing six-second victory.
Vidovich completely dominated the 200 lap race after taking over the lead on the 42nd lap. After starting in sixth to begin the race, Vidovich maneuvered his car to second place when race leader Greg Pursley blew a tire coming out of turn two.
Pursley’s bad luck continued at Toyota Speedway at Irwindale as he lost a commanding lead and would not be out the rest of the evening after his hard hit in turn two. In January during the Showdown, Pursley ended up spinning out and took out several good cars in the process.
It wasn’t always as easy as it sounded for Vidovich who had to endure a 10-minute competition break at 100 laps and a red-flag stop on the 123rd lap when local drivers Brandon Davis and Justin Johnson collected each other heading into turn one.
Vidovich jumped back into the lead on the 127th lap re-start and was pulling clear from Brennan Newberry and Blake Koch who battled for second.
Only what could be described as a phantom caution was thrown on the 145th lap that halted Vidovich’s progress to a larger lead on Koch and Newberry. When the green flag was thrown on the 161st lap Vidovich continued his dominance.
While Vidovich was heading to his first ever K&N Filters West race win, Newberry was looking as though he would have a career high second place finish only to slow to a crawl with one lap remaining. Koch took advantage of Newberry’s unfortunate incident to gain second place over a hard-charging Brett Thompson.
Team Cass Racing’s other entrant #50 race car of Chris Johnson finished fifth to end a Star – Spangled Banner night for the family.
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