Green Comes Up With Early Wedding Present

Oak Hills’ Tony Green, in his last race before his marriage next Sunday, battled the entire length of the 75-lap Jani-King Super Late Model series feature race but held on for the victory Saturday night in front of 4,872 at Irwindale Speedway.

Green, who won his second consecutive race and third this season, held off a surprising Kazuto Yanagawa and Tommy Fry, with Ben Walker and Rip Michels rounding out the top five.

In the 30-lap Vista Paint Super Stock feature race, Will Cottrell broke the four-race winning streak of Darren Cheek, holding off Andrew Phipps and Julianne Seeley for his first victory this season. Cheek finished in seventh place.

Greg Tucker benefited from a late crash to take the 30-lap Modified 4’s Feature race, and 16-year-old Ricky Wildman won his second race this year in taking the 35-lap King Taco Legends Series feature race. Aaron Staudinger took the 30-lap American Race Truck series feature.

Tony Solorzano

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Costa Mesa Speedway motorcycle races are usually won at the start, and usually won from the inside starting gate. But with a reconfigured track, the one-eighth of a mile dirt oval played into Josh Larsen’s luck.

Larsen, the defending points champion, started from Gate 4, carried more speed through Turn 1 on the start, and went on to win the season-opener at the Orange County Fairgrounds.

“My luck is that I always draw the outside starting positions, which most of the time is a bad spot to be,” Larsen said. “Tonight it played into my favor for once.”

Larsen swept past Costa Mesa Speedway national champion Chris Manchester, who started from Gate 1 and had to make a harder turn into Turn 1. After Larsen got past, Manchester and the rest of the field was finished.

Manchester, who reached the scratch main via the last-chance qualifier, finished second, ahead of Bakersfield’s Randy DiFrancesco, Foresthill’s Bart Bast and Brea’s Shawn McConnell.

In the eight-lap handicap main, Ojai’s Eddie Castro won by going from third to first with an outside pass of Shaun Harmatiuk and Bast, who were battling each other for the lead. Bast finished second, followed by McConnell and Larsen.

Martin Henderson