The debut of the new Legends of 99 series took place on Saturday, April 20, at Stockton 99 Speedway in California. Wyatt Sansom drove the feature victory.
Read the race story below by Noah Reed, published by the track (Legends race story extracted from the complete night’s action story for publishing on LN).
Last but certainly not least was the inaugural race for the new Legends of 99 series. A field of 17 of the best cars and drivers took to the speedway for 35 action packed laps. The race fans at Stockton got a wild show with five cautions and a back and forth battle for the race win.
Starting on the pole was Stocktons own, Kayci Phillips. She started on the inside of row one with Zach Sansom of Linden to her outside. Row two was the other Sansom brother, Wyatt. He lined up with Jim Clark of Acampo. Right off the start, Zach Sansom made his presence known as he surged to the top spot. His brother Wyatt weaved by Phillips on the inside for second.
Then on lap 6, the first yellow flag flew for CJ Dizney stalling off of turn four. This trapped the Madera driver one lap down and kept him out of the race for the win. One the ensuing restart, Wyatt Sansom took his turn at the lead with a pass on the outside line. Five laps later, the Lincoln native Tiffany Enriquez lost control in turn three. This bunched the pack back together for another restart.
This time, Zach got the better launch from second and wrestled the lead away from Wyatt. The next ten laps went by incident free allowing the top two to pull out to a half straightway lead. Ultimately that did not last as Clark made contact with Dizney, sending Clark spinning into turn one.
Another restart followed by a quick yellow for Clark in trouble again in turns one and two set up for yet another Sansom battle with 12 to go. After three attempts a clean restart, the pack finally got settled and Wyatt swiped the lead from Zach yet again.
Wyatt seemingly had the race under control until Clayton Travels got turned around coming off of turn four. This set up a single file restart with five laps left to race. After a clean start, Wyatt held the lead with his brother in hot pursuit. Coming to the checkers, Zach gave it one last shot to take the lead, putting the bumper to Wyatt.
Both drivers held the pedal down and made it through turn one, but Zach wiggled and was forced to drop back after getting into Wyatt. As Zach backsild, Wyatt drives away to claim the win in the first ever Legends of 99 class main event. The contact opened the door for Jason Gilbert of Danville to take a peek inside for second place. Gilbert had quietly moved up front throughout the race. He came all the way from seventh to the podium and came up just shy of second as Zach held him off coming to the finish line.
As the team celebrated, it was all smiles for the Sansom brothers. They raced one another hard, but clean and asserted themselves as the team to beat in 2024. Gilbert made his name known with the charge to third while Phillips came home fourth. Valley Springs driver Donnie Darter kept his car clean all night and he rounded out the top five.
