On heels of good qualifying and dash, McFadden picks up win at 49er Gold Rush Classic for second High Limit win of season
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Eric Thomspon (Shamboozled.com)
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Placerville-When you want to win on a very hard short track, it takes a great night all the way through.
In the 49er Gold Rush Classic at Placerville Speedway, James McFadden was able to take the lead early and win Kubota High Limit Racing’s first-ever race in Hangtown.
McFadden began the night by being the second-fastest in group B qualifying, which gave him the fourth starting spot in the second heat. From there, he moved up a spot to third and locked himself into the dash.
In the dash, McFadden took the lead from Zeb Wise to start on pole for the main event. He went around Wise on the second lap of the seven-lap dash for the pole.
Once the main event came, McFadden led wire to wire to secure the win. Of course, this win has been coming for a long time. Last season, with the World of Outlaws, the Australian driver led 19 laps but didn’t come away with the victory. Instead, teammate Buddy Kofoid was victorious.
“To get a win in California with the High Limit, obviously tough competition, local Californians, and then, you know, half the High Limit guys are California too,” McFadden said of breaking through and getting the win after a long time of being close in Placerville. “So to win against all those guys here is really, what really good for our team. Pumped for Dennis and Theresa and pumped for our team.”
McFadden was even happier to bring the win home for his owners. Dennis and Theresa Roth are the long-time owners of the famed West Coast sprint car team. He also takes home the $12,000 to win payday, which also featured each team getting $1200 to start.
“I think winning at home is more special than winning anywhere else,” McFadden said of winning for his California-based team in their home state. “So yeah, I’m hoping that Dennis and Theresa enjoyed that as much as I did, and I’m just privileged enough that I get to drive that car, and obviously such an iconic car, and to win in California for him is special.”
One thing that the 35-year-old driver had to battle with early and often in the main event was thick lap traffic. With the season’s biggest High Limit Racing field at 28 cars on the quarter-mile clay oval, he found himself in lap traffic at lap 4 of the main event.
“Yeah, we just got a really good start,” McFadden explained of his start in the main event that led him to victory. “The outside was probably the preferable place to start and just try to be patient in traffic and not make too many mistakes. It was hard back there. They were kind of everywhere. So, yeah, we just picked him off and got him front.”
Justin Sanders finished second in the race. This was a nice bounce-back performance for Sanders after being wrecked out of the main event the night before at Kings Speedway in Hanford.
“Yeah, it was a good night,” Sanders said. “Built this car. Got about four hours of sleep last night. Had to go unload our junked race car and get this one together. So, you know, it wasn’t even all the way finished when we got here. No seat belts in it, a couple of miscellaneous things. You know, we had, we had a little, a couple little issues to work out, but we got it worked out.
“So it was good,” he continued. “It hot-lapped pretty good. Had to tune on the motor a little bit.”
Besides the solid finish, this continues a career year for the driver from Aromas, California. So far on the High Limit West Coast swing, Sanders has made the main event in both races and finished towards the back of the pack. With a second in the Gold Rush Classic, he gets his best finish with High Limit so far.
He is also the NARC King of the West point leader and got off to a great start in the 360 Sprint Car Challenge Tour by winning the first 5 races of the season.
“Yeah, definitely had a good year,” Sanders added. “Didn’t start off very good, and was a little discouraging at first a couple of races, its first two races, but it really, you know, really picked up after that.”
Finishing third in the race was Corey Day. He was the only one of the top 5 drivers in points to have a good night and make up some ground on guys at the top of the standings.
He also brought some local experience to the race having raced Placerville in a midget for many years and in a NARC Sprint Car.
“I think local knowledge played into it, just knowing that the track was going to change a lot,” Day said. “That was probably the wettest Placerville I’ve ever ran in a sprint car here. I’ve ran midgets here, and it’s been, you know, it’s November, so it’s been pretty wet.”
Speaking of local knowledge. This is what longtime Placerville driver Andy Forsberg has being the winningest driver in the track’s history. He was able to use this to finish fourth in his debut with High Limit Racing.
“It’s always helpful to have knowledge, right?” Forsberg said after his fourth-place finish. “So qualifying, good started off the night, and we kind of knew what we could get away with going out later and qualifying, and really that set us up for the rest of the night. You know, starting up front in the heat race, winning the heat puts you in the dash.”
Forsberg used a good qualifying time and heat race to lock into the dash where he finished fourth.
This was a tough day for many of the full-time High Rollers. Rico Abreu had to make his way in through the B Main. Tyler Courtney, Parker Price-Miller, Spencer Bayston, and Chris Windom all took provisionals to get into the main event. In a lap 31 incident, points leader Brad Sweet was collected with Zeb Wise to all but put an end to both of their strong nights. Sweet still holds a 96-point lead over Courtney for the season.
Up next for Kubota High Limit Racing is Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico for the 70th Gold Cup Race of Champions next Thursday through Saturday. All the races will be broadcast on FloRacing.