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Matt Peterson Wins First Career Main Event on Opening Night of 61st Gold Cup presented by Chuck Patterson Ram Trucks

CHICO, CA (9-3-14) - On a night where some of the best drivers on the West Coast came to play, it was Cinderella Story, Matt Peterson from Wilton, CA picking up his first career Winged Sprint Car Victory during the Civil War Sprint Car Series presented by Flowmaster A-Main. Matt showed a lot of emotion in victory lane, even pulling off a victory lane dance to rival that of Darrell Waltrip. "I always said I would win my first Civil War race here in Chico, and I did it! This one is for you Stephen Allard, love you brother!" stated and emotionally charged Peterson in Victory Lane. It's not often you see a driver pick up his first career win at Gold Cup, but we saw just that tonight.

Steven Tiner led the field down to the green flag by virtue of winning the six lap Trophy Dash, but it was Andy Forsberg who would lead the first lap. Forsberg would pace the field until lap eleven when Mason Moore would drive by four cars in one lap to challenge Forsberg for the lead. The two battled side by side for a lap until Mason finally cleared Forsberg. At that point it looked as though Moore had it in the bag. Matt Peterson though, had other ideas. Peterson would drive around the outside of Bud Kaeding for third in turn one. Two laps later he would make the same move around Forsberg. Once Peterson got to second it became a two horse race between himself and Moore. On lap 24 Peterson dove to the inside of Moore to battle for the lead. The two would make contact however, nearly causing Peterson to flip, and causing top wing damage to his car as well. Both drivers continued on with Peterson continuing to track down Moore.

On lap 27, Matt made his move. Going into turn three Matt drove hard to the outside of Mason into turn three, and was able to make it stick coming off of turn four. With only two laps to go Peterson would then pull away from the field en route to his first career Winged Sprint Car Victory. Mason Moore would hang on to finish a heartbreaking second. Andy Forsberg was able to maintain a third place finish. While Rico Abreu and Bud Kaeding rounded out the top five. Rico Abreu set the fastest lap in qualifying with a time of 11.881. Heat race action saw Steven Tiner, Matt Peterson, Bud Kaeding, and Justin Sanders win each of their respective races.

Fast Time: Rico Abreu - 11.881
Heat Race #1 - Steven Tiner, Andy Forsberg, Dominic Scelzi, Abreu, Andy Gregg
Heat Race #2 - Matt Peterson, Roger Crockett, Mason Moore, Greg DeCaires, Alissa Geving
Heat Race #3 - Bud Kaeding, Michael Ing, Shane Golobic, Mike Monohan, Jimmy Trulli
Heat Race #4 - Justin Sanders, Carson Macedo, Kyle Hirst, Chase Johnson, John Michael Bunch
Dash - Tiner, Forsberg, Peterson, Kaeding, Sanders, DeCaires, Abreu, Moore
C-Main - Clayton Snow, Justyn Cox, Seth Nunes, Brett Rollag, Brandon Dozier, Nick McColloch, Ivan Worden, Herman Klein
B-Main - Croft, Becker, Bunch, Copeland, Gregg, Droivold, Parker, Cox, Trulli, Duff, D. Golobic, Snow, Smith, Ko. Shaw, Geving
A-Main - Peterson, Moore, Forsberg, Abreu, Kaeding, Hirst, Golobic, DeCaires, Becker, Tiner, Scelzi, Sanders, Gregg, Copeland, Macedo

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