YAKIMA, Washington — Owen Riddle has been a track champion four times over at Yakima Speedway, but, has always searched for a way to win one of the track's two coveted events-The Apple Cup and Fall Classic. On Sunday Riddle broke through with a strong performance as the Naches, Wash native held the hard charging Garrett Evans and 2011 Fall Classic champion Naima Lang.
Riddle had built a sizable lead only to see smoke begin to show from out the back of his Horseshoe Bend Quarry Ford Fusion.
“I was getting a bit worried there at the end,” Riddle said from victory circle. “I knew we could hold Garrett off there at the end but it was tough.”
Evans has been to many races over his career with over 350 feature wins. Smoke from the leader was nothing new for the four-time NASCAR champion.
“We weren't getting anything on the car so I knew it was alright,”
Evans explained. “It was a good run for us and we had a good race with (Lang).”
Lang was philosophical with his outcome in the Apple Cup.
“We just didn't quite have it today,” he said. “We gave Garrett a good run there and are happy to be up here (in victory circle) with this finish. We'll be back down here to Yakima for some more racing and see what we can do in those races.”
A strong field of Matco Tools West Coast Street Stock Series drivers took their green flag vying for Apple Cup glory. With 60 laps of action the division provided action throughout the main event with early leader Andy Stibel and Bryon Goetz making contact that forced Goetz to the rear of the field with Stibel suffering damage to the right-front portion of his bodywork. Stibel stayed at the front of the pack while Rich Peters worked his way through traffic and overtook the lead in the late stages of the event.
Peters recovered from damage suffered during Saturday's heat racing action showing that his No. 14 Chevrolet was none the worse for wear when it counted..
“I have to thank my crew for getting the car back together,” Peters said. “That (Saturday's incident) was a hard shot off (turn) 2 and we worked hard to get the car back to where we had.”
Other winners in the 46th Annual Apple Cup presented by Columbia Asphalt included Rob Allen, Rick McNeil and Buck Noel Jr.
Noel claimed a $1000 bonus for his Apple Cup and showed that as the defending champion of the Burger Ranch Sportsman division he be the man to beat in 2012.
Allen set fast time in Saturday's qualifying and worked his way through traffic based on an inverted starting field to claim his first Apple Cup victory.
McNeil had one of the fastest Columbia River Legends Series cars of the weekend and stormed through a strong field of cars only to see Yakima's Garrett Sisk make a late race charge to his back bumper. Sisk pressed McNeil on the white-flag lap but came up just a car length short at the checkered flag.
Yakima Speedway returns to action on April 28 with the racing in the Pure Stock, Hornet, Mini-Stock, Bump-to-Pass and Sportsman divisions.
For more information log onto yakimaspeedway.us or the tracks page on Facebook. For ticket and other information call the Speedway Hotline at (509) 248-0647.
46th Annual Apple Cup Results-
Columbia River Legends Series
1) Rick McNeil
2) Garrett Sisk
3) Jim Langdon
4) Duane Swanson
5) Randy Schaff
6) Chance Overholt
7) Jeff Sisk
8) Andon Allen
9) Randy Beddow
10) Jesse Branham
11) Jon Vangessen
12) Bill Kik
13) Chanse Page
14) Jose Zamudio
15) Lloyd Bigler
16) Josh Aguirre
17) Simon Buchan
18) Eric Shover
H&H Furniture Pure Stocks
1) Rob Allen
2) Jeff Wilkinson
3) Chris Marang
4) Chris Richter
5) Kyle Wade
6) Harold Emmons
7) Chris Morrison
8) Cody Denton
9) Pepe Rojas
10) James Harris
11) Joe Estep
12) Mike Denton
13) Daniel Coble
Burger Ranch Sportsman
1) Buck Noel Jr.
2) Lucas Valdez
3) Jack Anderson
4) Jerry Walker Jr.
5) Chris VanAmburg
6) Jeff Mullins
7) Kyler Conduff
8) Ed St. Mary
9) Don Klang
10) Allen Reid
11) Tom Wentz
12) Ron Morton
13) Terry Cook
14) Morgan Morrison
15) Garrett Sisk
16) Jimmy Zorrozua
17) Kevin Bull
Matco Tools West Coast Street Stock Series Finishing Order
1) Rich Peters
2) Kim Wennerberg
3) Ron Stewart
4) Zach Beaman
5) Bryon Goetz
6) Josh Childress
7) Andy Stibel
8) Todd Connell
9) Andy Beaman
10) Steve Woods
11) Kelly Hellewell
12) Darren Goetz
13) Bart Hector Jr.
14) Gary Flammang
15) Terry Cook
16) Randy Pugh
17) Barry Mueller
18) Brad Morrison
19) Bill Rutherford
20) Mel Patnode
21) Chris Hart
22) Josh Ingram
23) Rick Villyard
24) John Fortenberry
46th Annual Apple Cup presented by Columbia Asphalt Starting Finishing Order
1) Owen Riddle
2) Garrett Evans
3) Naima Lang
4) JC Wofford
5) Jon Hubbert
6) Taylor Riddle
7) Rick Suran
8) Mike Longton
9) Dave Smick
10) Christopher Kalsch
11) Erick Hargraves
12) Bart Hector Sr.
13) Dan Obrist
14) Brian Levant
15) Alex Kerslake
16) Brent Harris
17) Shane Mitchell
18) Pete Harding
DNS- Jesse Brown
Giles Thornton
Mitch Kleyn
