Opening Night and End of Month Entry List

Again, pardon the lateness of this entry. I only have my forgetful habit and the fact that it's 82 degrees as I'm starting to write in the living room. So with that said, let's get to the action from the May 4th program. It was the first Friday night program of the 2007 Stafford Motor Speedway season, and our usual five track divisions were on hand. We started with the Late Model 16 last chance qualifier, and we also opened with a caution. On the opening lap of the event, Doug Blowers spun on the frontstretch. His night would just get worse after that. Lap 7 would provide us our second caution of the event when David St. Amant spun somewhere in the middle of the third and fourth turns. Blowers's cautionfest would continue on lap 9 when he spun once again, this time in turn two. Three laps later, Blowers brought out the yellow for the third time in the event after spinning in turn one. NASCAR officials had enough of this and decided to have him park the car after his three mishaps. The night would be over for the #2, but at the front of the field, Corey Hutchings's night would continue on when he picked up the win. Mike Quintiliano, Tom Fearn, and Don Acker, Jr rounded out the numbers on the board.

Then we went to the first of our regularly scheduled features of the evening, featuring the entry level DARE Stocks. This race would be caution free from start to finish, although there was a lot of action at the front of the field. Jesse Hinze and Robert Thompson fought lap after lap for the lead, and it eventually came down to a last-lap dash between the two of them and Norm Sears, especially when Sears went three wide to move around Hinze for second. Though in the end, Sears could not catch up to Thompson, and he took down the win. Sears, Hinze, and Barry Fluckiger were the rest of the top four. But our friends in technical inspection shook the top four even more when both Thompson (illegal rims) and Hinze (car too light) were disqualified. This gave Sears the win, with Fluckiger, Rob Lawrence, and Matt Chiarizio the new top four.

Crews would bring out the war wagons, tires, and other necessarities when the SK Modifieds took to the track for their feature. Boy, I thought half of the field would be left standing when the race actually ended. On lap 2, Richie Pallai, Jr apparently stalled in turns three and four, bringing out the first caution. Two laps later, Zach Sylvester and Bo Gunning would spin starting on the backstretch and around the start of the turn three area. The field would be caution free until lap 11 when Woody Pitkat, Eric Berndt, Jimmy Smith, and Jeff Johnson create an accident in turn one. Brad Hietala would spin in turn three on lap 18, bringing the caution out once again. Then we had a string of green flag laps... Until lap 27, when Jeff Malave, Pitkat, Sylvester, and Willie Hardie wrecked on the backstretch. This would nearly set up a three lap dash to the finish. Key word there is "nearly", because the restart on lap 27 was a false restart and they had to redo it. In the end, the last laps would go without problems. Frank Ruocco held off all challenges by Todd Owen in the first twenty laps and Kerry Malone to win his first feature of the season. Malone would finish second, followed by Owen and Keith Rocco.

Then we had the SK Lights, who put on the wreckfest of the night. Not even halfway through the opening lap of the race, there was an accident in turn two involving Brit Andersen, Kyle Spencer, Raymond Grassetti, and Wayne Robillard. They went three laps without wrecking each other until lap 4 when Michael Lane and Chris Bakaj were in an accident on the backstretch. The very next lap, a bunch of cars came together. Again, this was on the backstretch. Then they were fine, but only for the next eleven laps. That's when more cautions occured. On lap 16, Spencer spins in turn four. When the field attempted a restart, it didn't work out. At least five cars, including Grassetti, Matt Gallo, David Webb, Fred Nees, Jr, and Mark Bakaj were involved in a frontstretch incident. Before things were all said and done, the next lap proved costly for Lane, Gallo, Rich Hammann, and Scott Nordman piled up around the turn two area. NASCAR officials had enough of the wreckfest, so they threw a yellow-checkers on the field. At the front of the group was Glen Reen, and he was followed (slowly) to the line by Chris Matthews, Mike Sweeney, Jr, and Josh Sylvester.

After the crash session had come to a close, the rest of the program went fairly smoothly. When the Late Models ran their feature, there happened to be one and only one caution in the entire event. Woody Pitkat's night continued to fall down the drain after he spun in turn four on lap 5. In the front of the field, however, Scott Foster, Jr was able to get around Ed Ricard on about the seventh lap, and he fought off Jim Peterson and Ryan Posocco to claim the victory. Following Foster, Peterson, and Posocco at the line was Tom Butler.

The final feature of the evening happened to be the Limited Late Models. Just like the DARE Stocks, that race was complete green flag racing straight through. At the beginning, it appeared as though Sean Foster would make it a daily double in victory lane, but Andrew Durand had other plans. He moved past Foster around lap 13 and had a commanding lead when he scored the win. Foster followed in second, and rounding out the top four were Rick Lanagan and Joey Ferrigno.

Checking the report on the Weather Channel website, we are looking at scattered thunderstorms for tomorrow night. This is 30 and 40 percents, so nothing can be postponed as of yet. I will come back tomorrow with a better forecast for you all to see.

Oh, by the way... On the last weekend of May, the Whelen Modified Tour returns to Stafford for the Connecticut Classic 150. I am providing the entry list for you guys now so I don't forget later on. Until tomorrow when I come back with your updated forecast, stay safe.