Half of the battle at the Gold Cup Race of Champions is to have a strong qualifying night and be in a good position for the finale to be in contention for the $50,000 top prize. For the second consecutive year, Jason Meyers put himself in a great position, winning on a preliminary night of the famed event at Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico, California.
Meyers lined up third and took the lead from Sammy Swindell on the ninth lap in heavy lapped traffic and would pace the field for the remaining 22 circuits en route to his second win of the season at the ¼-mile bullring.
“This feels great,” said Meyers. “Out of any track in the country, we have probably won more races here than any other track. This place has been good to me. It’s neat for me to win here in front of so many sponsors and family and friends. I’ve been racing here for so many years and there are such great fans here that have cheered us on over the years. To come home and win in front of them is awesome.”
The race began with Swindell leading the field into turns one and two. Meyers took the second spot from Peter Murphy on the low side of turn one on the opening lap. Swindell began to pull away on the third lap as the leaders closed in on lapped traffic. Meyers closed in on Swindell on the fifth lap as the latter was having trouble getting off turn four. On the sixth lap, Meyers was right on Swindell and stayed right with him for the next two laps and went low in turns one and two on the ninth lap as Swindell was caught up behind a couple of lapped cars.
Meyers began to pull away near the halfway point of the race as he worked through traffic. The red flag flew on the 17th circuit for a Steve Kinser flip. On the restart, Danny Lasoski took the second spot from Swindell and began to track down Meyers.
Lasoski continued to keep pace with Meyers as the pair closed in on lapped traffic, though the caution flew on the 21st lap. With six laps to go, Lasoski closed right back in on Meyers as they again approached traffic. Lasoski went low in turns one and two and shot to the lead on the 26th lap, only to have a red flag fly, negating the pass since the lap was not completed.
“We got a gift tonight,” noted the winner. “It looked like Danny (Lasoski) was really good around the bottom. I was kind of waiting on the top and waiting for someone to come around me on the top. I saw that some guys had made some moves up through the field and I thought that was where they were doing it. We set our car up loose to be good in traffic and we were good in traffic, but we only had traffic for the first half of the race. We had a good race car and hopefully that pays off on Saturday night.”
On the final restart with four laps to go, Lasoski looked high in turns one and two, nearly getting even with Meyers. He tried the same move the next lap to no avail and wound up having Swindell battle him for second over the last few laps. Meyers ended up pulling away and wound up taking the checked flag by nearly two seconds in the GLR Investments KPC.
Meyers began the night by turning in the ninth-fastest lap in time trials and followed that up with a win in the first heat. Couple with his win, he was one of the high point earners as total points earned in each of the two qualifying nights will determine the starting field for the 40-lap main event on Saturday night.
“We’ll just watch and see what the track does,” explained Meyers when asked what it will take to win the finale. “We’ll wait and see what they for us on Saturday and make our decisions as the night goes on.”
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