Working Towards the Top
Last weekend we were able to finish off the month of April on a good note, and sing into May whistling a better tune. With a “Fast Time”, a “Top 5”, and a “Top 3”, a win would have helped us hit for the cycle. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case but we’ll take it anyway!

The arrival of Matt Brown on Wednesday, our good friend from Perth, WA, Australia, increased our two car effort to a three car California Driven Performance/Stallard Chassis team for the first three weeks of May. With myself, rookie Matt Salmon, and Aussie champ Matt Brown, we were bound to make a great presence with three fast, sharp looking race cars. Friday night started off with our “Fast Time” honor in the Super 600 class at Plaza Park Raceway, while Matt Brown scratched the Top 20 surface on his first official California laps at the famed 1/5th mile. A heat race transfer sent us to the main to sit on the pole of the 30 lap, 22 car main event, while Matt Brown won B-main #2 also transferring into the main.

From the start off the main event we jumped out to an early lead, claiming the first half of the race until a caution mid way through. With Mitchell Faccinto in tow, we ended up giving up the lead to the always fast champion from Handford, CA after a restart in the second half. From there we would slowly decline with carburetor issues, falling back to 4th position where we would finish the 30 lap A-main event. The 2009 Plaza Park & Lemoore Raceway Champion Faccinto would go on to win, followed by Pace Chassis house driver Ryan Reeves, and USAC sprint car driver Richard Vanderweerd. The 4th place salvage was acceptable considering the caliberof the 36 Super 600’s entered Friday night…
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Saturday brought us a new day, and a clean slate at Lemoore Raceway. Again our trio of Stallard’s headed south to Lemoore, CA to the KE Promotions venue. With 28 cars entered in the Multi 600 class, we were up against more stiff competition. Matt Brown found home on the wider, more open race track and had solid runs in both his heat races to lock himself into the A-Main event. Strong runs in both of our heats put us 4th in points after the heats, but with an invert of the top 8, we found ourselves starting 5th in the 22 car, 30 lap main event. As the night went on the race track smoothed out and became very racy with lots of racing room for the main event. Long story short, we worked hard to find our way into 2nd, almost getting close enough to sniff the win in the end. Matt Brown was able to get good racing laps after having electrical failures Friday night, and Matt Salmon got lots of learning laps both nights. We definitely know Matt Salmon will be in contention to run up front in this tough California 600 scene soon enough…

Once again without the decision making of my crew chief, my dad, Mark Hagopian, and the help of Gene Crumb and Sean Saechao it would be a lot more difficult to run the way we have been. Our 2010 Stallard, once again, handled flawlessly; and our Cycle Tune Yamaha ran great. Thanks to the support of our family; my mom, grandparents, and aunt and uncle; a huge thank you to Kyle Evans and his family for allowing my grandparents to use their suite Saturday as well…

Next up is Plaza Park Raceway once again in Visalia, CA this Friday night the 7th, with Lemoore Raceway the following day....