Wake Me Up When September Ends

Well, guess what? The Fall Final at the Stafford Motor Speedway has come and gone. That means that the weekly visits to the track are over for the year. It also means that this is the last entry I'm going to do before I take the offseason to do entries as there's news afoot. I should keep the notebook filled with all of the notes I have through the season (pre and during), and as the winter progresses, I should take plenty of notes about what goes on. But before I'm nose deep in said notebook, I should at least open it up to the page where I have the notes saved for the weekend in question. It was the last weekend of the month of September, and it was unseasonably warm. (Heck, it still is unseasonably warm. You do not have 80s in early October!) So what happened as the Fall Final concluded the '07 season? Let's take one more trip down memory lane.

Whelen Modified Tour: On Saturday, it was Eric Beers taking the Bud Pole Award with a time of 18.267 seconds. On Sunday, it was a former champion who came out with the win, while a new champion was crowned with only one event to go. Mike Stefanik took down the win, which was his first of the season. The rest of the board was as follows: Tony Hirschman, Ted Christopher, and Matt Hirschman. As for the championship in '08, it was all Donny Lia. After coming across the line in seventh, he was able to secure enough points so that Todd Szegedy, who is second in the points, would not be able to earn enough points to claim the champoinship. It is Lia's first championship of his career.

SK Modifieds: The battle between the two points leaders, Woody Pitkat and Ted Christopher, came down to the wire. And it took all 50 laps for the battle to end. The third lap of the event was when the lead change that would win it all took place, and that lead was Pitkat's. But it didn't matter if Pitkat finished in the top-three. It all fell on the shoulders of Christopher, and with a second place finish, Christopher would win the championship. The rest of the top-four (at the time) were Ken Barry and Brad Hietala. In post race technical inspection, however, Barry would be disqualified for having illegal heads on his Modified.

Late Models: It was basically a story of polar opposites. One was having a really good race and was inching closer and closer to winning the championship in the Late Model division at all three tracks; the other was trying to give the fans one last hurrah before taking one last trip down to the Carolinas. The final outcome of a 40-lap feature was one to be desired. Five lead changes later, it was Dillon Moltz, the youngest person to win at the half-mile in the track's long and historic history, winning his second career Late Model win at Stafford. Following him was Tom Fearn, Corey Hutchings, and Wayne Coury, Jr. The second place finish from Hutchings secured his chances of taking the Late Model title in '07, with Jim Peterson having bad luck at the worst of times.

SK Lights: Two entries ago, I mentioned how it was Chris Matthews who won the championship with only two events to spare. Both the event for the final Friday night and the Fall Final would be run for fun, and this race was actually one of the cleaner races of the season. There were only three cautions, with two of them coming on lap-8, but other than that, it was pretty exciting as well. On the final lap, in the final turn, it all came down to two drivers: Matthews and Josh Sylvester. Sylvester had the lead coming into turn four, but he drifted up to the top of the track, giving Matthews the opportunity to go by him and win his sixth win of the season. Sylvester finished second, followed by Kyler Cafro and George Nocera.

Limited Late Models: This was the second division that was to be run for fun on the weekend, as during the last Friday night event, Sean Foster "quietly crashed" his way to a championship. So knowing that this was to be a race that wasn't even a "race", per se, how would the drivers react? Try having them put on a show on the last lap. It was dramatic. Foster and Bill Davis had been battling side by side for the lead until they got into the first and second turns. Foster sort of drifted up the track, letting Rick Lanagan take advantage of the situation. Lanagan moved past both Foster and Davis and had the lead all the way until the start/finish line. It was Lanagan's eighth win of the season, giving him the most wins out of anyone in the division and tying him for the lead in all of the divisions with Woody Pitkat. The board finished off with Foster, Andrew Durand (driving Joey Ferrigno's #87), and Davis.

DARE Stocks: Being the only division that had to decide its champion on Saturday, the DARE Stocks would have to let one final 15-lap feature decide it all for them. Now, it was supposed to come down to three people... Norm Sears, Carla Botticello, Dan Flannery, and Bill Dunn. Unfortunately, four became three last week as the car of Dunn was involved in a not-so-lovely accident back on lap-7 of the final Friday night event, putting his hopes of winning a DARE Stock championship on the backburner. So now, it was Sears and Botticello ready to battle it out for the championship. Sears was seeking his second championship in a row, while Botticello was trying to become the first female DARE Stock champion and the second female champion in the history of the track. Flannery, on the other hand, was just trying to get his first championship in general. Although it was three cautions long, it wound up being a night that both Tom Stirk and Sears would never forget. Stirk battled with John Kasper for the first half of the race, passing Kasper after Kasper passed him, but after he took over the lead, he had to battle with Flannery for the win. Stirk was able to overpower Flannery and take his first win of the season, with Flannery, Sears, and Jeff Jolly finishing off the board. And the winner of the championship? It was deja vu for Sears, who was able to win the championship in '07 with a third place finish. This season was no different, and once again, third was the ticket choice for him.

Meanwhile, it was Willie Hardie who picked up the win in the SK Modified 21 Means 21 LCQ. He took the lead from Richie Pallai, Jr on the seventh lap of the event and went the rest of the distance in a caution-free mini-feature. Pallai, Ken Barry, and Jeff Baral finished out the board. And Tom Stirk made it two for two on Saturday has he won the Paradiso-Muska DARE Stock Shootout, as that went green to checkered. Dan Flannery, Don Wood, and Norm Sears rounded out the board for that event.

That's all there is. There isn't any more. This is usually the part of the blog where I tell you about the upcoming event of the week, but seeing as there's not an upcoming event of the week to be found, I guess I should say that hockey season in Hartford starts up on Saturday night as Hartford takes on Bridgeport and I know a few of the Stafford drivers attend hockey games there. (At least one. I haven't seen more on a regular basis.) The next time I will be doing one of these weekly reviews will be at the end of April or at the start of May, depending on when the '08 edition of the Spring Sizzler is. Until we meet again, this time, for one of the special entries... I shall hopefully see you around. Gas pedal's on the right...