Tour Boys Back in Town

Oh, I'm so sorry this is done the day before our next event, but I've been busy preparing for a visit from my aunt and cousins who are coming up from Florida. My room has been a disaster zone for so long, and I had to get it cleaned up so my brother could camp in with me while our company sleeps in his. So with that said, let's get this entry started.

As you may already know, last Friday night saw the second of four appearances of the Whelen Modified Tour run rampant all over the half mile. And, as usual, we had our five weekly divisions in action as well. Because this was a Friday night event for the Tour Modifieds, our usual customers had no qualifying races to run. Everyone made it into the show. Speaking of the Tour, there were time trials to have. And your fast timer was Tony Hirschman, coming in with a time of 18.147 seconds.

With that order of business done and out of the way, we came to the portion of the evening where the first weekly feature would appear on the track. On this night, we started with the SK Lights. Now, they're known for running 20-lap features on a daily basis. But starting this week, and combined with all of the cautionfests they've had this year alone, track management decided to shorten their races by five laps. So with their first 15-lap race ahead of them, the Lights took the green flag to begin the evening. The first caution occured on lap 5 when David Webb spun on the frontstretch, while Ray Griffen, Jr and Kyle Spencer got together in turns one and two. There may have been others who were involved in this incident. Three laps later, there was a four car accident in turn two. Involved in this were Heather DesRochers, Joe Allegro, Jr, Josh Sylvester, and Kyler Cafro. I think they had a thing with threes, because after a three lap green flag period, we had a third caution. This time, the cars of Brit Andersen, George Nocera, Jr, Raymond Grassetti, and Scott Nordman provided us with a turn one accident. Now with the final yellow out of the way, the Lights could finish the final four laps without interruption. At the front of the field, however, it was a two car battle for the win. Glen Reen tried to get around Chris Matthews using just about all he could use, but it was no match. Matthews collected his third win of the season, followed by Reen, Matt Gallo, and Rich Hammann.

Next, we brought out the older siblings to the SK Lights... The SK Modifieds. They had a fairly clean race, with only two cautions throughout the entire session. Five laps in, Jim Larsen clipped the wall good enough to bring out the yellow, and we wouldn't see another caution until lap 38, when Jeff Johnson spun in turn two. Other than that, the fans saw a good battle for the lead and win. Bo Gunning and Curt Brainard fought for a good portion of the race until Ted Christopher overpowered Brainard and started to work on Gunning. But Gunning had too much for both contenders and claimed the victory. Christopher, Brainard, and Todd Owen rounded out the top-four.

In the Limited Late Models, tempers started to flare up a little. It was seven laps before they had their first caution, with David Capriati and Lori-Jo Rzeszutek spun in turn four. On the very next lap, Charlie Newman also spun, again in the turns three and four area. And two laps after that, there was a three car incident on the frontstrech, including Glenn Bartkowski, Michael Chaves, and Paul Conte. Things seemed to be fine here, but the caviar dreams seemed to disappear on lap 19. Andrew Durand had been leading at the time, and Rick Lanagan was trying to take the lead away from him. Unfortunately, he had made contact with Durand, sending Durand spinning in the middle of turns one and two. Lanagan was black flagged for overaggression on the race track, causing both first and second to move to the end of the pack. The new leader was Michael Nadeau, and he would lead the rest of the way to claim his first win of the season. The rest of the top-four were Sean Foster, Bill Davis, and Joey Ferrigno.

Then we came to the Late Models. Things didn't look too good and were bound to be like what had happened two weeks ago when an eight-car melee occured in turn one on the original drop of the green flag. Wiping the slate clean, we were destined to redo the start... Which, of course, didn't fare too well either as a false start bunched everyone up for a third try. And since that's usually a charm, we got the race underway. They were only green for nine laps as Tom Butler spun in turn one to bring out the yellow for the third time in the race. Luckily for the field (and perhaps the fans as well), every lap between laps 10 and 24 were green. On lap 25, there was a piece of debris on the backstretch -- right across from where I sit on a weekly basis. When the field was given the green flag on the restart, well... There was a second false start. So once again, the field was bunched back up. Luckily, this race had intentions of being a good one from the start, and it certainly proved so. On this night, we had a new Late Model all-time winner, and that would have been Jim Peterson. This was his 24th win of his career, and he was followed to the line by Mark Lewis, Woody Pitkat, and Jim Mavoulganes.

Now we came to the focal point of the evening: The Whelen Modified Tour's Connecticut Classic 150. Without going into too much detail (and like the last time the Tour was at Stafford, I didn't take notes because of possible confusion), I can tell you that the first half of the race was a fairly clean one. After that, it started to get a bit hectic. From what I can tell you, Donny Lia picked up his second win of the season and made it two in a row at the half-mile, with James Civali, Eddie Flemke, Jr, Zach Sylvester, and Todd Szegedy rounding out the top-five.

Finally, we come to the DARE Stocks. Now knock on wood, but for the past three events, they've raced caution free races. Could they add another 15 laps onto that streak? Not quite. They only managed five laps under green before the first incident occured. Jeff Jolly caused an accident in turns one and two, which brought the final caution-free lap total to fifty laps in four events. But the caution periods wouldn't end there, and they wouldn't be that easy to clean up, either. On lap 14, the car of Kyle Nosal spun on the frontstretch, bringing out another caution. But what he didn't know was that Barry Fluckiger was fast approaching. Without notice, Fluckiger nailed Nosal's car on the passenger's side, leaving both cars totaled. Officials at this point had no choice but to end the race under a red-checker combination. This meant that Steve Berardi would win the race, slowly followed by Dan Flannery, Carla Botticello, and Todd LaPorta.

Now that it's taken me a whole three hours to finish this, and seeing that it will be Friday morning in about 36 minutes, let me tell you that I will not be at the track tomorrow as my brother has a banquet for school. In the event that rain does not interfere with the program, I will bring you a quick entry sometime Saturday -- if I am not disrupted by our company who is about 70 miles from Washington, DC. With that said, have a safe tomorrow, and I will hope to be with you in two weeks as the Busch East Series makes its one and only visit to Stafford. Remember, gas pedal's on the right...