Champion Story: DARE Stocks

The final story devoted to the 2008 track champions is up today. This one is about the DARE Stock champion, Norm Sears.

He began by winning the first two races of the season and creating a comfortable sized lead. But the lead was cut into after he finished 18th and 10th in the two races afterward. In true champion fashion, Sears ended up finishing no lower than 8th in 12 of the last 14 races to claim his third straight DARE Stock championship with a margin of only eight points.

Only two other people had won three straight championships previous to Sears -- Phil Rondeau and Ryan Posocco.

But Sears is looking forward to trying for a fourth. In '09, however, he'll be pushing for a Limited Late Model title.

Champion Story: Limited Late Models

The stories just keep on coming as attention is shifted to today's champion story. It's the story of Bill Davis, this year's Limited Late Model champion.

After winning at the Spring Sizzler, momentum was key. Save for two weeks where flat tires and mechanical problems lingered, strong finishes prevailed. Yet with Sean Foster also ran strong throughout the season. But a June 20 incident spaced Davis from Foster (Davis won that; Foster finished off of the board), and when Foster's luck continued to spiral the week afterward, Davis's momentum picked up with a third place finish. Foster finished on the podium six times in the last seven races, but Davis also had good runs week after week, leading Davis to celebrate at the end of the final feature.

Champion Story: SK Lights

The latest edition of the 2008 champion stories is out with the story on Joe Allegro, Jr, who won the SK Light championship this season.

His run started out on the poor side, after coming in last place in the Spring Sizzler event. And after three more finishes towards the end of the field, Allegro was 86 points behind the points leader only four races into the season.

It wasn't until the fifth race until his luck turned around. After finishing second in the fifth race, he never finished out of the top-10 for the rest of the season. He didn't hold possession of the points lead until the final weekend. And with everyone else in the title hunt having problems, it sealed the deal.

Overall, not bad for someone who hadn't won a race all year.

Champion Story: Late Models

I'm guessing that these shouldn't be classified as either a "press release" or a "quick story" but rather both of them.

Either way, the champion stories continue with this piece on Ryan Posocco's run for his fourth career Late Model championship.

Remarkable -- Posocco wound up off of the podium three times all season and won a division-high seven races.

More championship stories coming soon, I guess. Stay tuned.

Champion Story: SK Modifieds

Don't know if this would classify as a "press release" or a "quick story", but there is a link to a piece about Keith Rocco winning the SK Modified championship a little less than two weeks ago. Because news is obviously slow around these here parts, I'll take all of the releases that I can get and link you to them as the winter progresses.

Enjoy the contents of the link, which is found right here.

Rules and Banquets

A few things for your Thursday evening:

Rules are now out for the rest of Stafford's divisions. Apparently, they weren't as hyped up like the Limited Late Models since the LLMs were the only ones to have their own press release.

Here are the links for the rest of the rulebooks:

+ SK Modifieds
+ Late Models
+ SK Lights
+ DARE Stocks

Also, if you're looking for the award banquet form, you can find it right here. You must RSVP by Halloween, or you have no shot of attending.

Other than that, I've got nothing else for you. Light news tonight, and more news when I see it. (Or when I find something interesting to talk about.)

Off Topic: Aren't Bloggers Media?

The end of the racing season means that it's time to be on the downlow here. But here at VFT1, the winter just doesn't mean that stories about racing will be seen. No, this is when I start something new. I'm going off topic every once in a blue moon with stories that are true and I need to vent about them. (Or if they have some sort of relevance to the author of this blog.)

We'll start with this gem that came up through the internet this weekend:

A (former?) blogger for the NHL's Edmonton Oilers recently had his press credentials yanked from him since he was doing a live blog instead of the real reason as to why he showed up at the game in the first place. He was there to cover the game from the press box collect quotes at the end of the game from the team, but when the PR guys caught him live blogging instead of doing his "job", he was told to cease operations of said live blog.

The guy goes on to explain that the PR guys told him that he was no longer allowed to roam the press box, and that he'd be escorted straight out of the building if he didn't have a job to do. He continues to apologize to the PR guys, and it seemed to head straight downhill from there. The final word was that the Oilers don't like bloggers in their press box and they would not be welcome up there any time soon. The guy who was in dutch to begin with isn't going to be allowed back.

Oh, and if you wanted to know how much press this has gotten, it's gotten quite a lot of responses. For the record, these are all hockey sites. And there are many more where those came from.

I'm not going to point fingers at anyone or anything yet, but I'm guessing that running a live blog for a game is just a quick way of actually covering the game. Heck, my notes (which are for my blog), ultimately led into a helpful tool for the reason as to why I had press credentials at the track this season... Working for Long Island Motorsports. If I ended up buying a laptop before the end of the season, hooking it up to the outlets in the SMS press box, and started to work on my blog instead of an article for the site, would I have gotten my credentials revoked then and there? It goes unanswered until I end up trying something like that. (I probably never will. I'm el cheapo anyway.)

Ah, the joys of having an organization out there that believes that bloggers are just petty and obnoxious. Yeah, right.

Saw This Coming? Penalty in LLMs.

In the middle of all of the news that I've been printing, I forgot to mention this story. I'm not even sure how I'm supposed to discuss this one, because... Well, I'm not sure what words can describe it.

At some point in time after the Limited Late Model race on Saturday -- I'm assuming it was all done on that Saturday -- officials apparently found numerous things wrong with the car of David Capriati (which on the police blotter is marked down as "blatant disregard for SMS's technical rules").

So, what happened? A lot.

To start with, gone are all of the championship points he earned during the season. And with the points go the awards and monies won and earned as well. And the result of all of this? Indefinite suspension.

I'm not even sure what the "blatant disregard" was to begin with, so I'm staying away from finger pointing and the such.

EDIT: More on this story by Shawn Courchesne over on his blog.

2008 Champ Goes WMT

I take it that the command to start engines for a Whelen Modified Tour race wasn't good enough for Keith Rocco.

He adds his name onto what is the largest entry list of the season for Thompson, joining 41 other drivers at the World Series of Speedway Racing this weekend. He'll drive the #00 machine owned by Joe Brady.

This is confirmed through both The Republican out of Springfield and Thompson's WMT entry list.

The End of the Road. Results of Fall Final Weekend.

Two weeks ultimately separated the final Friday night of racing and the Fall Final because of rain and other scheduling conflicts, meaning that racing season was going to end later than usual. (The last time rain pushed the Fall Final back into the matter of mid or late October? 2006.) In store for two days of action were: Two sets of time trials, five weekly divisions going out for qualifying heats, five final features for the five weekly divisions, two main events, and one All-Star race to close out what was truly a memorable season at Stafford.

Saturday afternoon was strictly qualifying (and some features). The cars of the Camping World East Series time trialed first, and it was Brian Ickler who set the fast time there. Not only did Ickler set the fastest time, but he also set the track record at Stafford with a lap time of 19.376 seconds. Then it was time for Whelen Modified Tour time trials, and the fastest driver there was Mike Stefanik, who clocked in a lap time of 18.158 seconds.

And after the qualfiying heats for the five weekly divisions, it was time to run some features. Winners from the features run on Saturday were Kyle Casagrande in the DARE Stocks, Chris Bakaj in the SK Lights, and Sean Foster in the Limited Late Models. The championships went to Norm Sears in the DARE Stocks, while Joe Allegro, Jr in the SK Lights, and Bill Davis in the Limited Late Models. The last race was the Paradiso-Muska DARE Stock shootout, where Sears came back from the tail end of the field to win.

Then it was Sunday, and racing started at around high noon with the Camping World East Series event. Eight cautions set up something that was nothing like what has been seen all season at Stafford, but it was something that could be talked about for quite some time. The final restart took place on lap-143, and one of the most dramatic finishes took place. Brian Ickler spun while coming to take the green flag, giving the lead to Ted Christopher before the field came to the start/finish line. Coming off of turn four to take the white flag, Peyton Sellers appeared to give a tap to the back bumper of Christopher's car and sent him spinning and facing the other way coming out of the turn. The yellow/checker came out, and Sellers thought he had won the race. It took a few minutes for CWES officials to determine that Sellers had indeed won the race. DEI teammates Trevor Bayne and Jesus Hernandez finished second and third respectively, while Austin Dillon finished fourth.

After the confusion and chaos with the CWES race, it was time for the SK Modified race. And it seemed as though the tradition of what was usually a bashfest would continue into the final weekend of play. And with two guys officially in contention to win the championship in Keith Rocco and Ted Christopher, would either driver fall into unlucky hands? If so, when? Those questions would be answered before the race was over, and in suprising fashion. It would all begin with Curt Brainard taking the lead when the race began, but it would be Richie Pallai, Jr taking the lead from Brainard on the second lap. A few cautions passed before Pallai would eventually lose the lead to Rocco on a restart. On the next lap, it would be Christopher who would pass Rocco for the lead. Again, more cautions, and still Christopher out front. But with only three laps to go, something would go wrong with Christopher's car, and he would slow down on the backstretch and ultimately spin before making it to pit road with three laps to go. This gave the lead to Woody Pitkat and, because of the fact that the car of Christopher was indeed broken, the opportunity to clinch the championship to Rocco. Although Pitkat was able to hold off Rocco over the final few laps, it would be Rocco taking the 2008 SK Modified championship. On the board, the top-four spots belonged to Pitkat, Rocco, Jeff Baral, and Brainard.

The next-to-last event on the schedule of the Whelen Modified Tour rolled off the grid next, with the championship still up for grabs there as of the start of the race. After the redraw on Saturday, it was Mike Stefanik and Ted Christopher sharing the front row. And for most of the race, it was Stefanik out in front (sans a pit stop under yellow in which two people on the lead lap didn't pit on, giving Rob Summers the lead; and one lap where Ryan Preece was trying to battle for the lead as well). Over the final few laps, it was a challenge from Matt Hirschman, but Stefanik held off the challenge to take down his first win of the season and the 20th all time at the half-mile. Rounding out the rest of the top-four were Hirschman, Chuck Hossfeld, and Todd Szegedy.

2008 at Stafford ended with the Late Model race which saw two leaders and only one caution; the caution being early in the race. Scott Cook pulled out in front when the green first came out, but he would give up the lead to Ryan Posocco on lap-10. It would feel like Posocco was in another time zone when he started to increase his lead over the final 20 laps of the event. His seventh win of the season came when he crossed the start/finish line over seven seconds in front of Jim Mavlouganes. Tom Butler finished third, while Joe Rzeszutek came in fourth. Posocco was able to officially celebrate the championship he had won during the final Friday night event of the season, as he clinched the championship back in September.

It starts up again in late April when the Spring Sizzler rolls into town. It's been one rollercoaster ride. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Next month, I'll make an entry about the banquet that'll take place in the middle of November (I think I read the 14th or something), and then a whole bunch of winter entries will also come. So for the final time, stay safe and I'll see you again in April of 2009.

This Kind of Thing is Always Painful to Write About.

This may be the toughest thing I have ever had to write in my life.

This story starts on July 21, 2008. I woke up that morning to my alarm clock as usual, and then proceeded to hop online for a little bit, as usual. But when I looked at my e-mail, it wasn't usual. I had gotten an e-mail from Mike Fields of Long Island Motorsports only mere minutes after I had gotten up for the day, asking for me to call him about my blog. He mentioned in both the e-mail and the phone call that I had placed the very next day that he had gotten word about my blog through Deane Mercier.

After a good talk with Mike, I accepted the task of writing for Long Island Motorsports, covering Stafford and writing up weekly stories. That Friday night, the night of the SK Modified 150, I found myself in the press box for the first time in my lifetime, speaking to Deane in person at some point in time before qualifying. Sure, it was a "get to know you" kind of thing, and it wasn't a long talk, but I met him and we talked and I quickly apologized for stranding a friend outside of the box.

He said that I could go in and out whenever I pleased, and I was on my way.

Unfortunately for myself, I had only talked to him possibly one or two more times after that first meeting; and when I look back at it, I now regret my decisions for not getting up to the press box on a weekly basis.

Today, the racing world learned that Deane had passed away on Monday.

Sure, I had only talked to him in a business perspective in regards to working for Long Island Motorsports. But during those few conversations I had, I came to find out that he was a very nice gentleman.

I'm sorry for not saying a lot for this. My mind is clearly elsewhere tonight. I think I'm speaking for a lot of people, however, when I say that the track's going to miss Deane when the Fall Final gets here this weekend. It won't be the same when you don't hear him on the PA system, chatting it up with Ben and Matt inbetween cautions.

Yet Another CWES Entry

We've got another name for the Camping World East Series entry list for this weekend's Fall Final.

The third name to jump in on the action in the month is Kevin Swindell, the 19-year-old son of Sammy Swindell, who is a three-time World of Outlaws champion.

This will be the second CWES race of Swindell's season. He raced in the event at Mansfield, Ohio back in August, starting seventh and finishing 13th. The car he will be racing in is a Gillette/Evernham Motorsports entry.

The press release this came from also talks about the other two drivers who had filed entries earlier this month (TC and Pitkat).

Who Wants to Race on a Monday?

Really, does this feel a little bit like the Sprint Cup or something? Took a glance at the homepage of the Stafford Speedway site to find this welcoming me there on a Monday evening:

No lie. That part in red there just looks weird. Doubly so if it actually happens. I've been to the track once on a Monday for the kart series thing in the '07 season, and to go to the track on a Monday to see this whole thing wrapped up might top that feeling.

Columbus Day may be one of the busiest days of the month for me... As a runner-up to the Monday that follows it.

More Triple Duty

The number of SK Modified drivers who are attempting to pull of the task of triple duty has doubled.

As of Friday, another driver has taken on the challenge.

Ted Christopher has become the latest entrant to pilot a Camping World East Series machine for the race on Fall Final weekend. He will be teaming up with Ted Marsh, who is no stranger to victory lane at the half mile.

In the one CWES race that Christopher had won back in 2000, he had been driving a car that was Marsh owned.

Are we going to see anybody else who may step up to the triple duty challenge?

Triple Duty

Here's an "almost a week away" story for you... Woody Pitkat's going to attempt triple duty at the Fall Final.

According to a press release released today (10/2), the Camping World East Series car that Pitkat will be running in was the same car he had raced in at Irwindale late last season, owned by Mike Olsen. Recently, both car and driver were at Stafford for a testing session.

Sponsorship was not hard to obtain: The Davidson Company and ECI/Cliff Nelson Motorsports agreed to help out. (Per the release.)