Lewis scores at South Sound - By Bobby Gerould – July 16, 2004 – Tenino, WA. …Beautiful weather and 28 United States Auto Club Western States sprint cars invaded South Sound Speedway Friday night. At the conclusion of the 40-lap feature event Michael Lewis, the defending series champion stood in the winner’s circle after a non-stop drive on the 3/8’s-mile paved oval.

"To come here to tonight and win is great", said Lewis to RSBN.net’s Larry Jobe. "Lapped traffic here is hard; I almost had to get a little rude. I thought at any time the lead could go away. It is easy to overshoot the corner, and I was committed to the bottom but we were tight which made it difficult."

17 year-old Michael Trimble shared the front row with Chad Nichols for race number five in the fifteen event 2004 series. Trimble jumped into turn one with lead but drifted high and surrendered his advantage to Nichols. Nichols lead was short-lived as Lewis made a move on lap two in turn one to quickly snare the point. From that moment, Lewis dominated, lapping up to ninth place in the caution free event. Driving one of three Western Speed Racing sprinters entered, Lewis was nothing short of amazing, splitting cars, and driving away from Nichols and the rest of the field.

Lewis had an extremely close call on lap 21 when Greg Anderson slipped sideways in turn three directly in front of Lewis’ Eagle / Wes-Mar #40. Lewis checked up, and although Nichols closed in on his rear nerf, Lewis was able to hold the lead.

Nichols finished as the runner-up with Trimble ending up third. Tony Hunt started fifth and finished fourth, with Greg Taylor rounding out the top-five. 21 year-old lady racer, Destiney Hays of Oroville, CA. recovered from a heat race incident to garner the hard-charger award. In her fifth start on pavement, Hays started 22^nd and finished 13^th without the aid of a caution flag.

Robert Beck, Alan Goetz, and Rick Brown were heat winners. Brian McClish won the B-Main. Greg Taylor was the quick-qualifier.

Sprint car qualifying:

Heat #1 – 10 Laps. 1. Brown, 2. Walker, 3. Hendrix, 4. Bumgarner, 5. Taylor, 6. McClish, 7. Anderson, 8. Petersen

Heat #2 – 10 Laps. – 1. Goetz, 2. Nichols, 3. Deaver, 4. Newman, 5. Hunt, 6. Thomas, 7. Hogg, 8. Geisler

Heat #3 – 10 laps – 1. Beck, 2. Roberts, 3. Dubois, 4. Murgoitio, 5. Lewis, 6. Trimble, 7. Mitchell, 8. Hays

Semi: 1. McClish, 2. Geisler, 3. Trimble, 4. Anderson, 5. Thomas, 6. Hays, 7. Mitchell

FEATURE: (40 laps) 1. Michael Lewis, 2. Chad Nichols, 3. Michael

Trimble, 4. Tony Hunt, 5. Greg Taylor, 6. Brian McClish, 7. Craig Deaver,

8. Mike Murgoitio, 9. Brad Bumgarner, 10. Axel Walker, 11. Michael Newman,

12. Randy DuBois, 13. Destiney Hays, 14. Mike Roberts, 15. Brian Geiszler,

16. Rick brown, 17. Robert Beck, 18. Shauna Hogg, 19. Tony Thomas, 20.

Allen Goetz, 21. Greg Anderson, 22. Rick Hendrix, 23. Marvin Mitchell. NT

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FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Lap 1 Nichols, Laps 2-40 Lewis.