|
|
|
07/25/2012 |
|
DEFENDING
WHELEN MODIFIED TOUR CHAMPION RONNIE SILK
LOOKING FOR GOOD FINISH IN STAFFORD 150 |
|
 As
the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour heads to Stafford
Motor Speedway on August 3rd for the 22nd Annual
Stafford 150, defending champion Ronnie Silk is
looking to keep pace with Doug Coby in the chase for
this year’s championship. While Silk has posted five
top-5 finishes in the first six races of the season,
Coby and his team have been even better with top-8
finishes in all 6 races thus far. With the Tour
making a stop at Riverhead before they return to
Stafford, Silk is currently 17 points behind Coby,
but he and his Ed Partridge owned T.S. Haulers, Inc.
team are determined to keep the pressure on by
running up front and winning races.
“That’s just the way it works,” said Silk. “It’s not
easy, if it was the whole field would be in the
points battle. Doug and his guys have been doing a
great job. They’ve had a really good car at every
race and Doug has done a great job driving. We can’t
control anything that Doug and his guys do, so we
just have to try our best to win as many of these
races as we can or come away with a top-5 finish. If
you can do that, things normally work out. You have
to take it one race at a time. If you want to be
there at the end of the year for the points, you
have to finish up front every race.
Doug has been doing really well but we’ve put
pressure on ourselves to go out and have a shot at
winning every race. Our strategy isn’t going to
change much, we’re going to try to be fast and win
races. We haven’t quite got our cars where we want
them, there’s quite a bit of room for improvement on
our end as a team. We’re going to keep working on it
and keep on trying the best we can.”
With Silk looking to keep the pressure on Coby and
his team in the race for the championship, Stafford
is a track where Silk can do that. While Coby has
won the first two races of the season at Stafford,
Silk is the only other driver to have top-5
finishes, a third and a fourth place finish, in each
of the first two Stafford races with. Silk says
there is more to get out of his car and he feels
confident about his chances in the Stafford 150.
“I feel good about our chances,” said Silk. “Fourth
and third are pretty good finishes and we haven’t
had the car the way we needed to have it at
Stafford. To come out of there with a fourth and a
third were pretty good days for us. We’re trying a
little bit of different stuff, which hopefully will
work for us. I’m pretty confident we’ll go there and
have a good shot at winning.”
One of the different things that Silk and his team
will try at Stafford will be under the hood of his
#6 machine. Silk and his team used the Whelen
Modified Tour Spec Engine for the first time this
season two weeks ago at Loudon and they qualified on
the pole and finished .003 seconds behind Mike
Stefanik in a photo finish for the win. Corey LaJoie
had a spec engine in his car for the CARQUEST
Tech-Net Spring Sizzler in April at Stafford and
LaJoie qualified second and ran with the leaders
before suspension problems sidelined him halfway
through the race.
“I think we’re going to run our spec engine the rest
of the season except for Riverhead,” said Silk. “It
worked good for us at Loudon, it’s definitely a more
affordable engine, and it makes sense for my car
owner Ed Partridge to run it. Loudon was the first
time we ran it and it worked real well there so
we’re going to stick with it. Ed has had one for
about 5 years now and we’ve run it on and off and
we’ve kind of had questions about it. We’re going to
see if it’s the way for us to go or not. It is a bit
of a gamble, we’ve run well with our built engines.
When you’re a team that runs up front most of the
time on a consistent basis, it’s never a good time
to try anything so we might as well give it a shot
now. It’s worked out for us pretty well so far and
hopefully it will keep on working out.”
With one pole position already under his belt with
the spec engine under his hood, Silk will be looking
to put his car up front again during qualifying for
the Stafford 150.
“Qualifying will be important, but not quite as
important as the 125 in years past where nobody pits
and everyone was on the same strategy,” said Silk.
“In the 150, if you have a bad qualifying run but
you have a good car, you can do some different
things to get around it. You can short pit and then
wait for everyone else to pit and then be ahead of
them, but I still think it’s a lot easier to have a
good day if you start up front.”
In the 10 NASCAR WMT races held at Stafford since
the 2010 season, the farthest back a winner has
started was Bobby Santos, III, who started 10th when
he won the 2010 CARQUEST Fall Final 150. In 2011,
all four Stafford race winners started 3rd or higher
and Coby has started 7th and 5th in his two Stafford
wins this season. A good qualifying effort will put
Silk one step closer to putting his car in victory
lane at the end of 150 laps, which is just what he
has in mind as he fights for the championship.
“The championship is our goal, but it’s still way
too early,” said Silk. “We’re not chasing points
right now, you can really drive yourself crazy
thinking about nothing but points. We’re trying to
win, to run up front, and with a couple of races to
go we’ll start worrying about points. We obviously
don’t want to do anything stupid and knock ourselves
out of the points chase, right now we’re worried
about winning.”
Tickets for the 22nd Annual Stafford 150 are
available and on sale now at the Speedway Box
Office. Tickets are priced at $33.00 for adult
general admission tickets, $5.00 for children ages
6-14, and children ages 5 and under are admitted
free of charge when accompanied by an adult.
Reserved seating will be priced at $35.00 for all
ages. All ticket prices include 10% CT Admission
Tax. As always, Stafford Motor Speedway offers free
parking with overnight parking available.
For more information, contact the Stafford Motor
Speedway track office at
860-684-2783 or visit us on the web at
www.staffordspeedway.com. |
|
Source: Scott Running / Stafford Motor Speedway
Posted: July
25, 2012 |
|
|
