Coming after his busiest week of the 2024 season, Eddie Tafoya Jr. will return to action this Saturday night, June 15th, with the Ultimate Sprint Car Series presented by Inland Rigging at the Santa Maria Speedway. It will be the first race at the track in nearly two years. At the track’s last race on August 6th, 2022, Tafoya finished eighth in the Avanti Windows and Doors USAC/CRA main event.
8A857D4F-3EC5-4928-9A91-8BAEC6276E77.jpgEddie Tafoya Jr. placed fourth in last week’s USAC/CRA Series main event. A.J. Johnson P1/Racing Images.
Tafoya, who calls Chino Hills, California home, got off to an inauspicious start to the 2024 campaign. It was not of his own doing, he just seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Finally, his fortune has changed. He enters this Saturday’s event coming off his most impressive race of the year when he came from seventh on the start to place fourth in the main last Saturday in the USAC/CRA race at Kevin Harvick’s Kern Raceway. The exciting result came after he qualified fourth fastest and placed seventh in his heat.
The inspiring night at Kern saw Tafoya record his fourth straight USAC/CRA Series top-10 finish. It also allowed him to climb higher in the championship point standings. He is now ranked eighth and is only 52 points out of fifth.
“Yeah, for sure, we just have to keep doing what we are doing,” Tafoya said after his best finish of 2024. “We have to make sure we can do everything on our part. A lot of the stuff that has been going on this year has been out of our hands. We cannot get down on ourselves. We have just got to keep plugging and keep trying. Things have been going better, and I think we are definitely headed in the right direction.”
“It is definitely a lot of work to show up and only get three laps in like we have at a lot of races this year,” the friendly driver said when asked about the frustration of being taken out at races. “Like I said, we just have to keep plugging away and keep trying. Last weekend, we were really close. It gets the juices back flowing.”
Tafoya is also eighth in the USCS standings going into this week’s historic, grand re-opening race at Santa Maria. Besides his eighth-place result two years ago. His other post-Covid finish at the track was a sixth on July 3rd, 2021.
“I really have no idea,” Tafoya commented on what he expected Saturday’s track to be like. “We have been away from there for so long. Usually, that track is pretty unpredictable in the first place. We will have to see when we get there, I guess. I really do not have a lot of experience there. So, it is hard for me to really like it or dislike it. I am just happy to go racing anywhere.”
After racing at Bloomington, Indiana, on the seventh, Tafoya had to fly back to So Cal in the morning to race last Saturday at Kern. He was in the “Hoosier State” to contest four nights of sprint car racing on the same card as USAC’s Indiana Midget Week. Unfortunately, the first race at the Circle City Raceway in Indianapolis was rained out on June 4th. Twenty-four hours later, on Wednesday the 5th, Tafoya and the team journeyed south to the Lawrenceburg Speedway. On a track that had been reconfigured since he was last there, Tafoya set the fastest lap in qualifying at 14.632. Later that night, he started 12th in the main event and drove forward to finish eighth.
On Thursday, June 6th, Tafoya headed to the Lincoln Park Speedway in Putnamville, Indiana. A seventh-place finish in his heat saw him relegated to the B Main, where he started fifth and ended up second. That secured his ticket into the A Main event, where he started 19th and moved all the way up to the 12th place spot before the Checkers ended the race. At his last race in the Midwest, the 26-year-old placed eighth in his heat at Bloomington. That again saw him head to the B Main. He started 15th and passed 9 cars in just 12 laps to finish 6th. However, that left him just shy of a transfer to the A Main before heading to the airport.
The gates for Saturday’s grand reopening of Santa Maria Speedway will open at 4:00 p.m. Qualifying will begin at 5:00 p.m., and the first race will be at 6:00. Adult tickets are $25.00. Seniors and military get in for $23.00. For kids 6-12, it is only $5.00, and children 5 and under are free. The track is located at 1900 Hutton Road in Nipomo.
Friendly Tafoya is always happy to meet the fans in the pits after every race. He will sign autographs, pose for photos, and sell his beautiful 2024 team shirts. For fans who cannot attend the races, the team shirts are available at www.specialty-fasteners.com.
Fans can follow Tafoya on Instagram @eddietafoya51.
Tafoya and the #51T team would like to thank Specialty Fasteners, Inland Rigging, BR Motorsports, King Racing Products, Gasper Transportation, CMI Precision Machining, Owen’s Insurance Services, Keen Concrete, DRC Chassis, and Rider Racing Engines for supporting its racing program.
Eddie Tafoya PR
- Fast Flowdynamics Team Ready for Usac/Cra Race at Perris on Saturday - June 22, 2024
- Michael Christopher, Jr. Wins CBYD Senator’s Cup, Saunders, Hovey, Paradis, & Hydar Score June 21 Weekly Feature Wins at Stafford Motor Speedway - June 22, 2024
- Hull, Tanner Capture Flat Track Wins as USA TODAY 301 Weekend Begins at “The Magic Mile” - June 22, 2024