Page 15 - 2021CalSpeedMagazineAug

Denis Shakhovskii led the field away for the B-Main, the quest for the A-Main transfer, and controlled the top spot for the majority of the race. Behind him was SE title contender, Joey Andrews, in the opening laps from P2, but eventually the pressure came from ambitious and former winner Carl Zhu. Zhu was hoping to bounce back from a penalty in the Heats, and that he did. He worked himself up from 6th to take over the top spot with only a couple laps to go. Zhu held onto the win, with Denis settling for second, .672 seconds astern at the checkers.
Leading things off in the A-Main, after his best ever qualifying effort and first career Heat win, would be Frank Chen. He initially led a pack of wolves into the first corner, Michael Martin, Evan Lawrence and Ivan Martinez surrounding him. The point leader took things over right from the start, and led the opening 3/4 of the race with Martin and Martinez, with Jeremy Aldridge joining the fray as well. At this point, Martinez was fourth and off the back of the top 3 by about a second, but that is when the fighting began to start. Martin made the move for the lead on lap 8, and through the infighting of that lap, Martinez bumped up from 4th to 2nd, while Lawrence slid back behind his group. This essentially made it a 2-horse race at the front, but the 2019 winner did not have plans to stay in 2nd, he made the move on the final lap to claim his second Classico win in 3 years. Martin settled for 2nd, and Lawrence beat Aldridge for 3rd.