Latest news with #Perris
CBS News
22-07-2025
- CBS News
5 arrested in connection with 2007 cold case murder and robbery in Riverside County
Five people have been arrested in connection with a murder and robbery in Riverside County back in 2007, a case that had gone cold until early this year. The original incident happened back on June 13, 2007 a little before midnight, at which point Riverside County Sheriff's Department deputies were dispatched to a home in the 19000 block of Mariposa Avenue in Mead Valley, close to Perris, according to a press release from the department. Upon arrival, deputies found 51-year-old Andres Valdes suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was declared dead at the scene. Several other victims were also found with minor injuries after they were assaulted, deputies said. "Deputies learned that several masked suspects entered the property with the intent of committing a robbery," said RSO's release. "Valdes became involved in a physical altercation with the suspects when one of the suspects shot and killed him." Since then, all leads were exhausted and no details were able to warrant enough information for arrests in the case, deputies said. In February 2025, Central Homicide Unit investigators began to review the case, which was reopened. Several suspects were identified as being involved in the murder and robbery, which led to the five arrests in recent months. Two Riverside men, 37-year-old Kenneth Tucker and 36-year-old Deshawn Hill, were arrested in early-July, both of whom were booked for murder. On July 14, authorities arrested 37-year-old Dennis Haynes in Phoenix, Arizona and 37-year-old Kenneth Haynes in Beaumont, Texas, both on murder warrants. One week later, 37-year-old Kenneth Crutchfield was arrested on a murder warrant in Belton Texas. All three will be extradited to Riverside County, deputies said. The investigation remains ongoing and no further information was provided. Anyone who knows more is asked to contact RSO's Central Homicide Unit at (951) 955-2777.
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
KB Home Announces the Grand Opening of Its Newest Community Within the Desirable Park West Master Plan in Perris, California
Lenox at Park West offers personalized, new homes with planned on-site amenities and close to outdoor recreation, priced from the low $500,000s. PERRIS, Calif., July 18, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--KB Home (NYSE: KBH), one of the largest and most trusted homebuilders in the U.S., today announced the grand opening of Lenox, a new community within the sought-after Park West master plan. The new community is situated in Perris, California, which blends cultural heritage, scenic views and a family friendly atmosphere. The new homes are designed for the way people live today, with popular features like modern kitchens overlooking large great rooms, bedroom suites with walk-in closets, and ample storage space. Lenox at Park West offers a wide selection of one- and two-story floor plans that feature up to five bedrooms and three-and-a-half baths. Homeowners will appreciate the planned on-site amenities, which include a park with a children's playground, dog park, walking paths and sports fields and courts. What sets KB Home apart is the company's focus on building strong, personal relationships with every customer, so they have a real partner in the homebuying process. Every KB home is uniquely built for each customer, so no two KB homes are the same. Homebuyers have the ability to personalize their new home, from floor plans to exterior styles to where they live in the community. Their home comes to life in the KB Home Design Studio, a one-of-a-kind experience where customers get both expert advice and the opportunity to select from a wide range of design choices that fit their style and their budget. Reflecting the company's commitment to creating an exceptional homebuying experience, KB Home is the #1 customer-ranked national homebuilder based on homebuyer satisfaction surveys from a leading third-party review site. "We are pleased to offer Southern California homebuyers a new community in a desirable Perris master plan," said Erick Montano, President of KB Home's Inland Empire division. "Homeowners will appreciate Lenox at Park West's planned on-site amenities, which include a park with a children's playground, dog park, walking paths and sports fields and courts. The new community is also just a short drive to Lake Perris, which features swimming, boating and fishing. At KB Home, we're here to help you achieve your dream with a personalized new home built uniquely for you and your life." Innovative design plays an essential role in every home KB builds. The company's floor plans inspire contemporary living, with a focus on roomy, light-filled spaces that have easy indoor/outdoor flow. KB homes are engineered to be highly energy and water efficient and include features that support healthier indoor environments. They are also designed to be ENERGY STAR® certified — a standard that fewer than 12% of new homes nationwide meet — offering greater comfort, well-being and utility cost savings than new homes without certification. Lenox at Park West is in a commuter-friendly location that offers homebuyers an exceptional lifestyle. The new community is situated at the corner of East Nuevo Road and Evans Road, close to Interstate 215, Highway 74 and Metrolink® rail service and providing easy access to the area's major employers, including Riverside University Health System, Kaiser Permanente® and March Air Reserve Base. Lenox at Park West is near downtown Riverside, which offers a rich mix of cultural landmarks, family friendly activities and vibrant shopping, dining and entertainment. The new neighborhood is also minutes away from swimming, boating and fishing at Lake Perris and a short drive to Palm Springs, which features world-class resorts and year-round outdoor recreation, including golfing, hiking and biking. The Lenox at Park West sales office and model homes are open for walk-in visits and private in-person tours by appointment. Homebuyers also have the flexibility to arrange a live video tour with a sales counselor. Pricing begins from the low $500,000s. For more information on KB Home, call 888-KB-HOMES or visit About KB Home KB Home is one of the largest and most trusted homebuilders in the United States. We operate in 49 markets, have built nearly 700,000 quality homes in our more than 65-year history, and are honored to be the #1 customer-ranked national homebuilder based on third-party buyer surveys. What sets KB Home apart is building strong, personal relationships with every customer and creating an exceptional experience that offers our homebuyers the ability to personalize their home based on what they value at a price they can afford. As the industry leader in sustainability, KB Home has achieved one of the highest residential energy-efficiency ratings and delivered more ENERGY STAR® certified homes than any other builder, helping to lower the total cost of homeownership. For more information, visit View source version on Contacts Craig LeMessurier, KB Home925-580-1583clemessurier@ Sign in to access your portfolio
Business Insider
15-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
WeWork's former top lawyer is building an 'AI-native' law firm. Her model for client cost savings? TurboTax.
Jen Berrent helped WeWork navigate a thicket of leases and lawsuits. Now, she's building a new kind of law firm using artificial intelligence to gut Big Law's gravy train. Founded by two former general counsels and backed by $4 million in venture funding, Covenant is betting that private markets are ready for a software-first approach to legal advice. Its tools use large language models to root through hundreds of pages of legal documents, raise red flags, and suggest stronger terms that are tailored to the investor's own playbook. In the world of venture capital and other private funds, investors still pay law firms to tell them where and how to park their money. Endowments, pensions, and other institutional allocators rely on white-shoe lawyers to review limited partner agreements (LPAs), the legal backbone of a private investment fund. In theory, the bigger the law firm, the better the insight because it has seen more deals. But prestige doesn't come cheap, and neither does the billable hour. Covenant is selling directly to institutional investors, not law firms, with the hope of cutting straight to the client and their bottom line. Just as TurboTax made many Americans question whether they really needed an accountant, Covenent aims to give private market investors a reason to ask whether Big Law's invoices are still worth it. The company tells Business Insider it's raised $4 million in a seed round led by Flybridge Capital Partners, with Neil Barsky, a former journalist and hedge fund manager, participating. ReWork Through the late aughts, Berrent was chief legal officer and co-president at WeWork, where she walked one of the trickiest tightropes in corporate law: counseling a high-flying, often chaotic startup and its mercurial founder, Adam Neumann. In 2019, former employees told Business Insider that Berrent was the person who tamed the chaos and protected the company as crisis after crisis unfolded. She left WeWork in 2020. At first, Berrent set out to build a tool to help founders negotiate legal contracts. But she and Richard Perris, Covenant's cofounder and president, realized that opportunity was limited. Term sheets, offer letters, and non-disclosure agreements are relatively short, standardized, and not all that complex. The bigger pain, Perris says, lives in private fund docs: LPAs and side letters, which carve out specific terms for specific investors. Their high-stakes fine print demands hours of expensive lawyer time. That's where large language models, Perris says, could "come in and crush this problem." But before Covenant had a product or revenue, Flybridge made "a bet on Jen," says Jesse Middleton, who helped scale WeWork as an operator before becoming an investor at Flybridge. Over the past 18 months, Berrent says Covenant has brought on around 45 customers, including endowments, foundations, pension plans, funds of funds, and sovereign wealth funds. She declined to name any clients, but says monthly transaction volume has grown 50% since January. Law Firm 2.0 Covenant is part of a new wave of law firms with the skeleton of a tech company and legal services layered on like tissue. Zach Posner, a venture capitalist who correctly called the legal tech boom in 2019, calls this category Law Firm 2.0. His fund is launching an accelerator to back the companies that compete head-on with law firms. Zach Abramowitz, a consultant who advises law firms and legal departments on which software to buy, says he expects to see star attorneys peeling off from big firms to start their own tech-enabled practices. To Abramowitz, the real upside isn't in building the next legal-tech unicorn like Harvey or Ironclad. It's in the long tail — what he describes as the Shopify phase of legal tech. Just as Amazon and Shopify unlocked a wave of entrepreneurs who built their own stores on top of those platforms, Abramowitz believes artificial intelligence will enable a surge of "bionic boutiques" that can generate significantly more revenue per lawyer. "That's a much bigger opportunity," he said, "that inures to the benefit of more people." Covenant joins a growing list of software companies with big backers and even bigger promises to strip the drudgery from legal work. But murmurs of a legal tech bubble are growing louder, especially as flashy tools like Harvey and Legora jockey for relevance in a still-cautious market. For now, Covenant doesn't compete directly with those platforms, which sell into law firms and corporate legal departments. Instead, it occupies a lane closer to contract review tools like Luminance and Spellbook, which are also built for lawyers, not private market investors. To Berrent, the key distinction is that Covenant is selling legal services to customers who typically hire Big Law to do this work. Berrent says she sees the next big opportunity not in AI for law firms, but in entirely new firms built around the tech. Call it counsel-as-a-service. "Uber didn't sell software to taxi companies," she said. Instead, it redefined how people think about getting from point A to B. That's the kind of shift she's after.
Business Insider
15-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
WeWork's former top lawyer wants to do with fund docs what TurboTax did for tax prep. Big Law should be nervous.
Jen Berrent helped WeWork navigate a thicket of leases and lawsuits. Now, she's building a new kind of law firm using artificial intelligence to gut Big Law's gravy train. Founded by two former general counsels and backed by $4 million in venture funding, Covenant is betting that private markets are ready for a software-first approach to legal advice. Its tools use large language models to root through hundreds of pages of legal documents, raise red flags, and suggest stronger terms that are tailored to the investor's own playbook. In the world of venture capital and other private funds, investors still pay law firms to tell them where and how to park their money. Endowments, pensions, and other institutional allocators rely on white-shoe lawyers to review limited partner agreements (LPAs), the legal backbone of a private investment fund. In theory, the bigger the law firm, the better the insight because it has seen more deals. But prestige doesn't come cheap, and neither does the billable hour. Covenant is selling directly to institutional investors, not law firms, with the hope of cutting straight to the client and their bottom line. Just as Turbotax made many Americans question whether they really needed an accountant, Covenent aims to give private market investors a reason to ask whether Big Law's invoices are still worth it. The company tells Business Insider it's raised $4 million in a seed round led by Flybridge Capital Partners, with Neil Barsky, a former journalist and hedge fund manager, participating. ReWork Through the late aughts, Berrent was chief legal officer and co-president at WeWork, where she walked one of the trickiest tightropes in corporate law: counseling a high-flying, often chaotic startup and its mercurial founder, Adam Neumann. In 2019, former employees told Business Insider that Berrent was the person who tamed the chaos and protected the company as crisis after crisis unfolded. She left WeWork in 2020. At first, Berrent set out to build a tool to help founders negotiate legal contracts. But she and Richard Perris, Covenant's cofounder and president, realized that opportunity was limited. Term sheets, offer letters, and non-disclosure agreements are relatively short, standardized, and not all that complex. The bigger pain, Perris says, lives in private fund docs: LPAs and side letters, which carve out specific terms for specific investors. Their high-stakes fine print demands hours of expensive lawyer time. That's where large language models, Perris says, could "come in and crush this problem." But before Covenant had a product or revenue, Flybridge made "a bet on Jen," says Jesse Middleton, who helped scale WeWork as an operator before becoming an investor at Flybridge. Over the past 18 months, Berrent says Covenant has brought on around 45 customers, including endowments, foundations, pension plans, funds of funds, and sovereign wealth funds. She declined to name any clients, but says monthly transaction volume has grown 50% since January. Law Firm 2.0 Covenant is part of a new wave of law firms with the skeleton of a tech company and legal services layered on like tissue. Zach Posner, a venture capitalist who correctly called the legal tech boom in 2019, calls this category Law Firm 2.0. His fund is launching an accelerator to back the companies that compete head-on with law firms. Zach Abramowitz, a consultant who advises law firms and legal departments on which software to buy, says he expects to see star attorneys peeling off from big firms to start their own tech-enabled practices. To Abramowitz, the real upside isn't in building the next legal-tech unicorn like Harvey or Ironclad. It's in the long tail — what he describes as the Shopify phase of legal tech. Just as Amazon and Shopify unlocked a wave of entrepreneurs who built their own stores on top of those platforms, Abramowitz believes artificial intelligence will enable a surge of "bionic boutiques" that can generate significantly more revenue per lawyer. "That's a much bigger opportunity," he said, "that inures to the benefit of more people." Covenant joins a growing list of software companies with big backers and even bigger promises to strip the drudgery from legal work. But murmurs of a legal tech bubble are growing louder, especially as flashy tools like Harvey and Legora jockey for relevance in a still-cautious market. For now, Covenant doesn't compete directly with those platforms, which sell into law firms and corporate legal departments. Instead, it occupies a lane closer to contract review tools like Luminance and Spellbook, which are also built for lawyers, not private market investors. To Berrent, the key distinction is that Covenant is selling legal services to customers who typically hire Big Law to do this work. Berrent says she sees the next big opportunity not in AI for law firms, but in entirely new firms built around the tech. Call it counsel-as-a-service. "Uber didn't sell software to taxi companies," she said. Instead, it redefined how people think about getting from point A to B. That's the kind of shift she's after.
Yahoo
07-07-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Tiny cars, big stakes: These remote control racers aren't hobbyists. They're pros
RC cars fly through the air after a jump during the annual Dirt Nitro Challenge in Perris, Calif., March 9, 2025. The neon yellow race car whipped around the corner, gunning it in a bid to lose the dragster on its tail. Mistiming a turn, it ricocheted off a dirt mound and landed on its back, swaying side to side, like an overturned beetle. Advertisement Just then, a marshal scrambled onto the track, flipped the car over and relaunched it through his legs. But such are the benefits of servicing cars the size of toasters. Morning heats were underway at the 26th annual Dirt Nitro Challenge in Perris, where more than 200 hobbyists gathered to race their remote-controlled vehicles in friendly competition. For a couple dozen elite RC racers, the stakes were higher. These drivers are professionals who, like NASCAR drivers, travel the country from race to race, pit crews in tow and sponsors footing the bill. But there the echoes of NASCAR end. While the amateurs pushed 40 mph on the 1/8 scale model racetrack, that Sunday morning in March, the pros waited in the pits, supergluing new treads on their tires. Advertisement A pro racer at 13 Ryan Cavalieri, a top-25 globally ranked RC driver, is a 38-year-old Huntington Beach native who grew up going to the since-shuttered SoCal RC Raceway with his father, now his pit crew chief. By 13, he was sponsored by a major racing company, and by 18, he nabbed his first national title. Since then, he's supported himself, his wife and two daughters through RC racing. Granted, it's not Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s salary — the top 1% of RC racers typically max out around $150K a year — but it's enough that he doesn't have to work another job. 'I didn't ever think of it as something I would still do now,' Cavalieri said. An aerial view of the race track during the annual Dirt Nitro Challenge. Surrounding the track are tents and trailers housing the different RC racing teams. Drivers stand on a platform overlooking the race track as they pilot their gas-powered and electric cars, using devices mounted with a wheel for steering and a trigger for speed. On straightaways, the pros can hit 60-plus miles per hour. Advertisement Races run from a few minutes for lower heats to nearly an hour at the highest competitive tier. Whoever completes the most laps in a given period of time wins. The dirt track is flat in parts but also has motocross-style whoops (a series of short hills) and rhythm sections (jumps of varying sizes and spacing) designed to shake up the race. Where more conservative racers opt for single or double jumps over the mounds, the most seasoned go for triples. Cavalieri had qualified the day before for what's called the B-Main final — a class below where he usually competes. To bump up, he said, he had to finish second or higher in the afternoon race. 'Podium would be nice,' Cavalieri said as he scrubbed dirt off his tires. On the fold-up table before him, his nitrogen gas-powered buggy was suspended in auto-shop fashion. Next to it, a paper coffee cup held scrap parts. Advertisement To Cavalieri's right, Joseph Quagraine, a Finnish racer and designer for Mayako, a maker of RC vehicles, crafted a snarky post for Instagram. He was ragging on a former teammate who blamed a morning pileup on a Mayako racer. The Finn also was offering Cavalieri moral support. He bet $100 on Cavalieri getting bumped to the Nitro Buggy A-Main, plus $500 on him beating the favorite, Ryan Maifield. A nearby driver chuckled at the parlay. 'What?" Cavalieri teased, "You don't believe in me?' He then readjusted his Prada sunglasses. A husband-and-wife team Adam Drake was 12 years old when he picked up an RC magazine in a middle school aide's office. After that, he began regularly commuting from his family's home in South Carolina to the nearest RC track in Savannah, Ga. Advertisement At 21, he moved to California, widely known at the time as 'the Mecca of RC,' Drake said. Adam Drake cleans the body of his RC car during the annual Dirt Nitro Challenge. In the late 1990s, a number of RC manufacturers — Traxxas, Team Losi, Team Associated — expanded their operations in Southern California to address growing demand for 'ready-to-run' RC cars, said Theo Captanis, owner of Pacific Coast Hobbies in Lomita. These preassembled vehicles were the easiest way for the general public to get involved in the RC hobby. At the same time, the number of sponsored racers surged, and Drake competed in a pool of pros who went on to become legends in the sport. But even at his peak, the Midwesterner knew he needed to be more valuable to RC companies than as a driver. So he delved into the engineering side of the industry, and he's worked double-duty ever since — going on to co-found The Drake Racing engine service with his wife and fellow racer Ronda Drake in 2018. Advertisement Though Adam would race that afternoon, Ronda skipped competing in the Dirt Nitro Challenge this year because the course leaned a bit beginner-friendly for her taste. She's been racing since she was 10 years old, competing against grown men who complained about a girl always getting in their way. 'I even had one guy tell me I should be at home washing dishes,' Ronda said. Over the years, she learned to service her own cars and spent every minute she could on the racetrack. In high school, she switched to homeschooling to free up more time to practice. Ronda wanted to be excellent, not to make a statement or become a feminist icon, she said, but because she loved to race. And she liked to win. Adam Drake, left, and his wife, Ronda, pose for a portrait during the annual Dirt Nitro Challenge. Back in the pit room, Ronda was reminiscing about the time she bumped her way up five classes to an A-Main when a father-son duo came in for car repair. Ronda sprang up from her seat to help, Adam following closely behind. Advertisement The couple planned to reopen a long-dormant RC raceway near their home in Beaumont in Riverside County. There, they would host affordable races aimed at getting new people in the door, and helping amateurs to elevate their skills. 'Right now, there's so many big races,' Adam said. 'So many of the tracks and organizers, they just want to have these huge events, because that's where the money is. For us, we want to have fun, enjoyable events, where it's more than just a race.' Not 'just a toy car' In the dirt lot behind the pit rooms, Ryan Maifield was stationed at the company tent for Tekno, an RC manufacturer, his shaggy beard and worn-in sneakers belying his global RC stardom. Advertisement Coming into the Dirt Nitro Challenge, the Arizona-born Maifield was neck-and-neck with frequent competitor Dakota Phend for the top U.S. driver slot. At 38, Maifield has raced for longer than Phend, 28, has been alive. While racers and their crews flitted about the Tekno tent, Maifield worked quietly from a half-obscured corner, tweaking his car after a trial run. His tools sprawled across the table and onto the floor, as though rummaged through by a band of wood rats. To the untrained eye, Maifield's candy cane-colored buggy is 'just a toy car,' he said, but to a pro racer it's a way to make a living, pieced together from race winnings and sponsorships. Sponsors want their racers at their best, he added, 'so you don't have time to work another job.' Advertisement Squealing engines Back at the track, a line of spectators hollered, "Cavy!" as Cavalieri took the lead in his afternoon race. Their gruff cheers mismatched the high-pitched hum of the buggies. If Indy cars could suck helium from a balloon, this is what they'd sound like. In the first half of the race, Cavalieri battled to stay ahead of Walker Spinrad, a recent Tekno signee whose driving grew wilder as his veteran competitor hit his stride. Behind the leaders, cars collided in pileups that would have made headlines at Daytona. Joseph Quagraine waits for a signal from his driver, Ryan Cavalieri to put their RC car down during the annual Dirt Nitro Challenge. Drivers look on as they race their RC cars during the annual Dirt Nitro Challenge. Ryan Cavalieri, fourth from the right, is second in the race. Twice, Cavalieri pitted to refuel, his father rapidly squeezing gas from a fuel bottle that just as easily could have held drinking water. Each stop lasted mere seconds, then the racer was off again. Advertisement In the end, he took second place. Although the runner-up finish was all Cavalieri needed to advance, he hadn't even reached the pits by the time he started recounting his mistakes. In the pits, Quagraine approached Cavalieri. 'Should I advise on certain lines?' Quagraine ventured, his voice uncharacteristically even. Cavalieri snipped rubber from a fresh set of tires, the RC-equivalent of adjusting tire pressure on a race car. The cover of Adam Drake's RC car during the annual Dirt Nitro Challenge. Ryan Maifield puts super glue on tires while making adjustments to his RC car between races during the annual Dirt Nitro Challenge. After running through his problem areas with Quagraine, the duo wordlessly passed parts back and forth, as though programmed in sync. A little after 5 p.m., Cavalieri popped open the Panda Express container that had sat untouched since lunch. Advertisement 'Nothing to lose,' the racer thought out loud as the evening final neared. And punctuating his comment with an F-bomb, he noted he was "right — last." A self-proclaimed RC 'nerd' From the outside, the Team Associated trailer looked like a glorified tin can, but inside it was furnished with crisp white shelving and a treasure trove of motor parts. Spencer Rivkin ducked his head as he stepped inside and pulled a chassis off a rack. An hour or so ago, he finished last in the Electric Truck A-Main race, but he wore no dejection on his face. Spencer Rivkin poses for a portrait with his RC car during the annual Dirt Nitro Challenge. Rivkin, a self-proclaimed RC 'nerd,' received his first RC car on his 9th birthday. His parents split up around that time, he said, and racing kept him out of trouble. Advertisement By age 13, he was racing competitively, and by 15, he had a slew of sponsors including industry big names like Team Associated and JConcepts. Two years ago, at age 24, he bought his first home in Arizona. 'Doing this saved my life,' he said. 'I just wish more people knew about it.' An RC car completes a jump on the track during the annual Dirt Nitro Challenge. While a warm pink still lingered above the horizon, the floodlights switched on, illuminating patches of freshly watered dirt. (Tracks are watered intermittently to provide RC cars more grip, and to improve visibility for racers and spectators.) Around the track, cigarette smoke mingled with the tang of burnt rubber so that it was hard to distinguish the two. Advertisement By the time the sun fully set, more than 12 hours after the first race, the day's dry heat was replaced by desert chill. Frogs croaked from nearby waterholes, joining the chorus of spectators who hollered as the announcer introduced their favorite racers — along with their laundry lists of sponsors. As their names were called, some racers gave a polite wave to the crowd, while others muttered into the headsets they use to talk to their pit crews. Meanwhile, the crowd sent the wave four times around the track. Amid all the fanfare, it was easy to forget these were toy cars. The final race The championship race finally arrived and the drivers' pit crew chiefs lined up, buggies in hand, by qualifying position, with Phend leading the pack and Cavalieri bringing up the rear. Pit crew members launch their team's RC cars at the start of a race during the annual Dirt Nitro Challenge. 'Those are our gladiators who are going to do battle here,' announcer Scotty Ernst bellowed into the microphone. Advertisement Then they were off. As the cars zoomed around the track, spectators squinted to decipher whose ride was whose. Some pulled up the live stream of the race on their phones to double-check. Early into the 45-minute event, most drivers maintained their qualifying positions, with Phend and Maifield shuffling between the first and second slots. Rivkin kept close behind, and on one turn bumped a competing buggy back into an upright position after a clash. 'Very good sportsmanship there for Rivkin,' Ernst said. Rivkin later said he didn't remember the run-in. Fans react as they watch RC cars race down the track during the annual Dirt Nitro Challenge. More buggies ended up on their sides or backs, the result of collisions or bad landings in the whoops section. Marshals dashed on the track to the rescue. One had to perform a double leap and pirouette to avoid the leaders. Advertisement At one point, Phend's buggy did a front-flip over a pipe serving as a racetrack barrier. Across the track, another car landed atop a rock, igniting a barely visible spark. It was still anyone's game. That is, until race leader Mason Fuller pitted at the last minute, giving Maifield several seconds over the pack. Quagraine was glad to have backed out of his earlier bet on Cavalieri, who finished well in back. An RC car flips over after failing a turn on the track during the annual Dirt Nitro Challenge. As Maifield flew through the finish line, the cheers were surprisingly tame, so it wasn't clear the race had ended at all. The 45-minute affair and night's easy atmosphere seemed to have lulled a handful to sleep. Advertisement But when the rest of the lot rolled in, and a trio of podium girls in snug red dresses and four-inch heels arrived for the awards ceremony, the buzz was back. As race host Joey Christensen read off the names of the top three finishers — Maifield, Fuller and Phend — the crowd members craned their necks, knowing what was coming. On cue, the three racers lunged for their congratulatory champagne, shook the bottles and doused each other in bubbly. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
