BAKERSFIELD, California -- Series points leader Eric Richardson, and Rich Pak Motorsports, combined hard charging with yellow flag track position improvements to win his third NASCAR Late Model main event, June 11th, at Bakersfield's Mesa Marin Raceway. The event, presented my Melos Gas and Gear, was part of a twin main event feature. Cody Pruitt, (see related story), won the second feature.
For the longest time in this race it appeared that Fullerton's Candance Muzny, the only lady in a field of 18 men, was going to take the boys to school and win her first feature at Mesa Marin. Coming off of the pole position, she led the first 28 laps of the race before Richardson made his winning move.
Richardson started eighth in the field and charged his way into the top five by lap six. He was in fourth by the 15th circuit and soon after a poignant yellow flag greatly improved his track position. On lap 22 the Ford of Chris Smith, who was running second at the time, went sideways in turn four and slammed into the wall. Richardson barely missed hitting him. NASCAR officials felt that Mike Alexander had a part in the Smith accident and sent him to the tail end of the lead lap. That moved Richardson to second right behind Muzny with a restart pending.
The green flag flew again on lap 26 and it took Richardson two more laps before he made an inside move on Muzny to take the lead going into turn one. A fraction of a second later the field was frozen with the final yellow flag of the race due to a reported oil line failure on Glen Burke's Chevrolet which caused his engine compartment to burst into flames. The result was a heavy line of oil on the track from turn one to turn three.
In an effort to retake the lead, there was some reported contact between the two cars of Muzny and Richardson. Muzny spun her Chevrolet in turn two and ended a very strong performance.
The race went back to green flag status on lap 38, following the oil clean up process, and Richardson made quick work of winding down the final laps. His Cousin, Brian Richardson, and Rich Pak Motorsports teammate took second while Kyle McDermott, Cody Pruitt and Josh Horn completed the top five.
After parking his Richland Chevrolet-Green Frog Markets Monte Carlo in Mesa Marin's victory lane a very delighted Richardson said "we have a great crew right now and they're working hard right now to get us dialed in for the second race."
Commenting on the Lap 22 Chris Smith accident, that he barely missed, Richardson said, "that was really close. Sometimes during those things you have to completely rely on your spotter and I did. Shane Thompson is great."
On the subject of the contact, which led to Muzny’s spin, Richardson said, "Candance Muzny drove a great race and led most of the thing. She came down from the top to the bottom and cut us off."
