Fall Final News: Results and Video

Sorry for doing this entry almost a week after the original Fall Final events took place. Things were just hectic around the house and we've had problems last weekend. But after recovering from the mental craziness, I'm ready to dish the dirt. And of course, your dirt includes the Fall Final Saturday results. There will be more afterwards -- perhaps later today -- but let's get to the top story: The Whelen Modified Tour and their qualifying session. We started the day off strong as Todd Szegedy ran through every sort of obstacle provided and earned himself a pole position. His time was 18.091, breaking the previous track record set by Mike Ewanitsko during the 2001 Fall Final. (His time? 18.102.) When the top ten cars redrew, Szegedy still found himself starting first, although he will be taking the green flag alongside Tony Hirschman. The next four rows are as follows:

Row Two: Ed Flemke and Donny Lia
Row Three: Dick Houlihan and Ted Christopher
Row Four: Mike Stefanik and Reggie Ruggiero
Row Five: Chuck Hossfeld and Jimmy Blewett

Stupid thing won't let me put the rows in a list.)

Next came a barrage of qualifying events for the Stafford divisions. Five of the events ran caution free, including both from the DARE Stocks. The only event that dramatically produced the most carnage was the second Late Model heat. One minor accident (no caution kind of minor) sent Jim Peterson, championship contender, to the Late Model 16 feature. But we'll put the 16 aside for now, as the first actual feature of the afternoon was about to take the green flag. For the final time this season, we've got coverage of the DARE Stocks.

Before the green even flew, however, a few cars dropped off the track like flies. One possiblity (and probably the most logical) might have been the fact that it was colder than usual for a finale weekend, but nonetheless, you had a few people drop out of the race earlier than expected. With that taken care of, the green was finally brought out, signaling the start of the final 15-lap feature and the crowning of a new DARE Stock champion in Norm Sears. (With a full 50 point lead over second place, everyone was certain nothing was going to happen to Sears inbetween the 22nd and the 30th.) Now then, from the opening lap to lap-13, things were pretty smooth. But then, two cautions occured. The first one was on lap-14 when Melissa Blowers and Tim LeDuc spun in turn three. Then on the restart, there was a two car accident and spin in turn two and the beginning of the backstretch. (Those cars were not named, only due to the fact that they left the scene before I could catch numbers. With that all set, the final two laps were smooth sailing for Vince Gambacorta. He picked up the win with Sears in second, Rob Lawrence third, and Dan Flannery fourth. Like previously mentioned, Sears clinched the championship by just starting the feature.

After the SK Lights had an interesting qualifying heat and the two last chance qualifiers were run (Late Model 16 was won by Jay Stuart and the 21 Means 21 was won by Bo Gunning), we came down to the Limited Late Model feature. 20-laps of chaos. Oh, what fun this was! Big time fun started on lap-4 when George Nocera spun in turn two, bringing out the first of five yellow flags in the event. Now if you thought the dramatics from Nocera were done, then... Well, not really. He spun in the exact same spot in turn two on lap-7. Now we fast forward to three laps later, and we see Michael Chaves and Pete Cayer spinning in turn four, bringing out caution flag number three. The lap-10 action didn't end there, however, because there was a false start. The final yellow was on lap-14, when Cayer spun for the second time in the race -- this time, however, he spun in turn one. Now there was a six lap sprint to the finish with Kevin Gambacorta trying to take the championship over Nocera, who had spun twice in the same spot and had raced his way back up into the top-four cars when the checkered flag signaled the end of the race. Corky Hinze took his first win of the season, followed by Bill Davis, Nocera, and Charlie Newman. Two points separated Gambacorta from Nocera, but the two points were in favor of Gambacorta. For the second time that day, it was a celebration in Victory Lane for the family from Ellington. (Well, three. Vince won the Paradiso-Muska DARE Stock Shootout not too long after.)

Sunday's events were rained out, so now the remaining three divisions and Whelen Modified Tour will all crown champions on October 28th. (That's a Saturday. Mark your calendars like I did.) The Stafford website has a video from YouTube -- downloaded by MarcandBryon -- which can be found below.



Other than that, I think I'll see you on the 28th.