Fifteen-year-old Zach Zimmerly tallies career best runner-up finish with Golden State Challenge 410 Series at Santa Maria Speedway
By Gary Thomas
Santa Maria, CA – May 3, 2010…After having possible top-five runs thwarted the past couple weeks due to separate accidents 15-year-old Zach Zimmerly came back strong this past Saturday night and raced to a career best second place finish with the Golden State Challenge 410 Sprint Car Series at the Santa Maria Speedway.
The previous week in Watsonville had seen Zimmerly battle for the lead on the opening lap of the feature with 13-time King of California Brent Kaeding, until getting upside down after riding over a wheel while sitting in the fifth position.
This most recent Saturday he put that behind him and started from the front row in the main event for the first time in his GSC career, before trailing veteran Tommy Tarlton across the line and finishing just ahead of Peter Murphy to earn his first ever podium finish with the traveling 410 series. "This is pretty cool to come out here and run second tonight with GSC in my first weekend of racing at Santa Maria," Zimmerly said on the front stretch after the feature. "I want to thank my whole family, Duke and Scott McMillen, Jonathan Allard, the Christian Stover Foundation and all of our sponsors and everyone that supports this team."
The two-night Doug Fort Memorial at Santa Maria Speedway began on Friday with an Ocean Sprint Car Series presented by Taco Bravo event, where the Vancouver, Washington driver brought home a ninth place finish in the feature during what was his first 360 sprint car start of the year.
Coming back on Saturday the track surface started out extremely greasy, making it difficult for drivers to get all 850 hp down to the speedway. Coming out ninth in the qualifying order Zimmerly would cut the eighth fastest lap of the session aboard the Christian Stover Foundation, Butler Built Performance, McMillen Motorsports No. 94 A.R.T. He then started from the second row in his heat race and scored a fourth place result at the finish to move him into the dash for the fourth consecutive week.
The luck of the draw for the dash then saw Zimmerly earn a front row starting spot, which he parlayed into a second place effort that also put him on the front row for the 30-lap Golden State Challenge Series main event. When the green lights came on in the feature the youngster would settled into second aboard the Level One Concrete, Douglas Wheel Technologies, Miller&Zimmerly Holdings No. 94 mount. With traffic coming into play quickly and the track staying very wet, it made things interesting getting through the thick pack of cars. Zimmerly ran comfortably in second for much of the race and then held off a strong late-race challenge from Murphy to cross the stripe with a runner-up finish at the conclusion.
"It was a lot of fun racing through traffic tonight in the main event and early on I felt like I was a bit quicker than Tarlton, but he got through the slower cars pretty good and it never really gave us a shot," Zimmerly said. "We had Christian Stover's old 410 motor in the car tonight so it's really awesome to get up here on the front stretch with it in the car. We've been really fast all year, but have had some bad luck at times so I'm definitely happy to get a great finish and now we'll go on to Chico and see if we can get a win there."
Next up for Zimmerly and the McMillen Motorsports No. 94 team will be a double-header weekend at the famed Silver Dollar Speedway quarter-mile bullring. On Friday night it will be a regular 410 weekly point show and then on Saturday the Golden State Challenge Sprint Car Series will be in action for the 20th annual Dave Bradway Jr. Memorial.
The Dave Bradway Jr. Memorial pays tribute to fallen race car driver Dave Bradway Jr., who lost his life in a sprint car crash at Skagit Speedway's Dirt Cup in 1987. The event has become the biggest night of racing for the Golden State Challenge Series and packs extra money and goodies up for grabs all evening long. For detailed info on the big event this coming week stay tuned to http://www.goldenstatechallengeseries.com and http://www.silverdollarspeedway.com
Zimmerly is also looking for additional sponsors to help support his racing endeavors and for anyone that would like to get on board please contact Zach at zachzimmerlyracing94@gmail.com
For more news and info on 15-year-old Zach Zimmerly please visit http://www.zachzimmerly.com and don't forget to follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/ZZR94
After scoring a second place finish with the Golden State Challenge Series at Santa Maria Speedway Vancouver, Washington's Zach Zimmerly will now head for two big night's of racing at Chico's Silver Dollar Speedway this weekend. The 15-year-old will be looking for his first career GSC victory on Saturday when the tour is on hand for the 20th annual Dave Bradway Jr. Memorial. Photo by Steve Lamothe of http://www.stevesracingphotos.com
- Gary Thomas on May 03, 2010
- Article Date: 5/3/2010