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After an exciting weekend celebrating the Great American Race (Indy 500), the mixed league drivers paid tribute to the true roots of oval racing – Sprintcars “The Greatest Show on Dirt!” 800hp-Methanol powered V8’s matched with fat tyre stagger and ridiculous downforce would prove to take drivers out of their comfort zones (even if they only had to turn left). 

Heats 1 & 2 (15 laps)

Qualifying would be quick, just two hot laps to determine the grid for the first two 15 lap heats. Michael Palladino only needed one to take the inside front row.
Race one demonstrated the importance of practice in coming to grips with these unforgiving monsters. Big guns – Iain Salteri, Jeremy Pernesz and David Lord managed to climb the outside barrier early. Michael takes race one over Ross Rizzo.
Race Two – The rolling starts were tempting drivers to bunch up much more than comfortably against their rivals and lead to some chaotic moments. That did not bother Michael much, keeping his head down and claiming win number two.

Heats 3, 4 & 5 (20 laps)

After a brief lecture to settle down on the formation and starts, drivers dived into another set of hotlaps. The track developed some grooves which appeared to favour using the low line. Iain held the inside and the lead initially, but Michael managed to take advantage of a wobble and take another win. Starting to see a pattern?
Inevitably, contact continued throughout the field and tempers were starting to flare. Michael finds some of the trouble, whilst Jeremy finally avoids it to take his first win of the night!
The final heat managed to produce some much cleaner racing and Michael added another win’s worth of points to his remarkable score.

Feature Race (60 laps)

The nights points were tallied and produced a reverse grid for the 60 lap feature race. Fans and Racecentre officials were on their feet as they rolled around to take the green flag on a slick surface. Michael and Jeremy get tangled early and get acrobatic down the straight. Jason Brooks was unlucky to collect the rolling cars on his way through. Iain unfortunately has an unassisted roll from a solid lead. Ross controlled the pace and slicing through lap traffic. By this point, Michael had recovered and shadowing Ross’s every move. The pair pushed the pace to a new level and found themselves 2 laps over the rest of the competition. The story of the Calistoga Classic was the car mastery demonstrated by Michael compared to his rivals.


Feature Race Podium;
1. Michael Palladino
2. Ross Rizzo
3. David Lord