Early Irwindale Crash Helps Price’s Chances

A collision involving Irwindale Speedway super late model division leader Van Knill and Kevin Thompson helped give Mike Price the victory in the feature race Saturday night.

Knill was judged to be at fault for the collision on the first lap of the heat race and was ordered to start 24th in the 26-car field for the scheduled 50-lap feature race on the half-mile track.

Thompson and David Ross, whose cars were also involved in the collision, were forced to borrow cars from other teams and started 25th and 26th.

Dan Moore led for the first 11 laps. Price, who started on the pole, took the lead on the 12th lap and kept it.

Moore was second, 1.382 seconds behind.

“We’ve been working real hard and it finally paid off,” said Price, who had finished ninth, eighth, fourth and 27th in the year’s first four races. “We had a real good car tonight.”