STOCKTON — In front of one of the largest crowds of the season, Oakdale veteran Blaine Rocha showed his resiliency after he rebounded from an early-race miscue to capture the Spears SRL Southwest Tour Series Late Models “JM Environmental Wild West Shootout There’s Gonna Be Some Rockin’ 127” at the Stockton 99 Speedway on Saturday night.
“I was at a wedding today and never even had a chance to practice,” Rocha said. “I showed up 10 minutes before qualifying and still qualified second, but the car was just on rails tonight. It was lights out.”
Ripon’s Eric “Bubba” Nascimento and Rocha led the 11-car field to the opening green flag, where Nascimento promptly jumped into the lead. Rocha immediately began probing for a way to get around the 2020 track champion, but he got a little too aggressive in doing so and punched Nascimento’s right rear end coming out of Turn 2 on lap six, sending them both into a spin, as the oncoming field scattered to avoid them..
Both cars retreated to the infield pits, although Rocha got the worst of their encounter, tearing up his front bumper and bodywork. After making some hasty repairs, both were able to return to the race at the back of the field, while three-time series champion Jacob Gomes, of Manteca, and 2024 SRL points leader Buddy Shepherd of Bakersfield inherited the front row.
“It was a dumb mistake and I thought we were screwed, but the guys worked hard to tape it up and get it back together,” Rocha said.
When the race resumed, Gomes quickly moved to the front and stayed there until a caution popped out on lap 41 for debris on the track. Shepherd was able to use the inside line on the restart to inch ahead of Gomes, and as the pair rolled out of Turn 4, Gomes tried to cross back under Shepherd for inside position. Unfortunately, he ran out of room and tapped Shepherd in the left rear, which sent him around in a cloud of smoke on the front straight.
“He didn’t give an inch and I didn’t give an inch and we touched, so it was just good, hard racing,” Gomes explained after the race. “We kind of gave it up early when I got into him (Shepherd), and after that, we just did the best we could with what we had.”
With Gomes and Shepherd rotating to the back of the pack, Napa’s Dylan Zampa and Rocha, who had quietly worked his way back through the field, now took over the front row. Rocha took full advantage of opportunity as he bolted out to the lead on the restart, and despite what was left of his front bumper and bodywork being held together by massive amounts of duct tape, he would never relinquish it over the final 85 laps.
“The restart was big. I knew we had a good enough car to win, if I could just get it back to the front,” Rocha said.
Rocha was never seriously challenged over the final portion of the race, as Zampa spent the final 25 laps desperately fending off Gomes, who repeatedly tapped his bumper trying to get him loose without success.
“The car kept getting more and more snug towards the end, so I ended up just racing defensively to hold off Jacob,” Zampa said. “We just didn’t have enough car left to catch Rocha. He was too good.”
With clear sailing and no late race cautions to contend with, Rocha crossed the finish line about a half dozen car lengths ahead of Zampa and Gomes, while a frustrated Nascimento and Roseville’s Eric Schmidt rounded out the top five.
“With five laps to go, I had flashbacks to Kern Raceway, where I lost in the final laps with a flat tire. I was praying there would be no more yellows,” said an exhausted Rocha after picking his first victory of the season. “It is great to get the monkey off our back. We finally got it to the end, and there is no better place to do it than my home track in Stockton.”
Shepherd nursed his car across the line to finish seventh behind Granite Bay’s John Moore, and as a result, saw his 35-point lead in the SRL standings over Rocha at the start of the night shrink to a single point heading into the season finale at Kern Raceway in Bakersfield on Saturday, Oct. 26.
On lap 13, it was déjà vu all over again when Cancilla attempted to go under Beeler and clipped him in the left rear, which sent both of them into a spin and out of contention.
Trailing just behind them, Zampa was able to zigzag around the mess and take over the lead when the race resumed. Stockton’s JoJo Stearns spent the remainder of the race trying to track him down, but it was to no avail, and he was forced to settle for second place ahead of Salida’s Hans Beeler.
“My hat is off to my crew. They worked their butts off all week putting this thing together,” Zampa said. “JoJo was really fast and I knew I needed to get to the front, stay in clean air and put in solid laps to bring it home.”
With a 10-car invert and less than a half second separating the 18-car field, which had to be pared down from the 26 on hand with a B main, the 40-lap NorCal Legends main promised to be an exciting race, and it more than lived up to the billing with several multi-lap side-by-side battles and four-wide racing exiting the corners throughout the event.
With multiple cars nipping at his heels, Madera’s CJ Dizney served as the bell cow for the opening laps before finally succumbing to Galt’s Travis McCullough on lap eight following a prolonged three-lap door to door fight. McCullough held on to the top spot until lap 24 when Eureka’s Brandon White, who had somehow tacked his way up through the compressed field from his mid-pack starting spot, slipped by him.
White spent the final 12 laps fighting off repeated challenges by Ukiah’s Cole Brown and Tracy’s Brenden Ruzbarsky. On the final lap, with victory in sight, a back marker spun out, but much to the relief of White, the flagman brought out the checkered-yellow to lock down the very hard earned and satisfying victory.
“I am completely out of breath. That was a hectic, intense race. It was crazy out there, but our car was lightning fast,” White said, as he celebrated the season-championship clinching win. “Consistency got us this championship, and I couldn’t be happier.”
Shauna Hogg of Fair Oaks held off Rocklin’s Tony Hunt in wire-to-wire fashion for a career first victory in the 25-lap NCMA race, and Miranda’s Wade Eldredge turned back Ukiah’s Mike Peterson to win the 20-lap Pro-4 Modified main.
The Stockton 99 Speedway will conclude the 2024 season with a pair of “double points” Championship Night events on Saturday, Oct. 12, which will feature the Pro Late Models, and on Saturday, Oct. 19, with the Stockton Late Models headlining the action.
Monster Truck Madness returns to the Stockton Dirt Track, located at the San Joaquin Fairgrounds, on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 4 and 5.
