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08/04/2012 |
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NASCAR WHELEN
MODIFIED TOUR - STAFFORD 150
Stafford
Motor Speedway
by
Polly Reid |
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 Coming
in for fresh tires was the game plan but as the race
unfolded, including a long green final run, Doug
Coby stayed where he was, in the lead bringing home
the Wayne Darling owned, Reynolds Auto Wrecking
/Furnace & Duct sponsored Chevrolet across the line
for a dominating win in the NASCAR Whelen Modified
Tour 22nd Annual Stafford 150 at Stafford Motor
Speedway.
The victory marks Coby’s sixth career win, his third
win in a row at Stafford. The Milford, CT driver now
has four NWMT wins this year.
Sharing the podium, Jimmy Blewett crossed for second
with Todd Szegedy third. Eric Beers fourth, Ted
Christopher fifth, pole winner Ryan Preece, Jon
McKennedy, Woody Pitkat, Eric Goodale and Justin
Bonsignore in a back-up car completed the top ten.
Pole award winner and early leader Ryan Preece in
the Flamingo Motorsports Ford was in charge at the
drop of the green with Eric Beers quickly lining up
behind Preece with Bobby Santos and Eric Goodale in
the hunt. Coby sat just out of the top five,
qualifying sixth on the grid. The first caution on
lap 17 crowed the field together again and as Preece
and Beers battled side by side for five laps, it was
Beers inching ahead to become the new leader on lap
23. Coby, fourth on the restart, moved into third
and when the next caution waved at lap 29, Coby used
his lane to move into second by lap 40, his sights
set on Beers.
The game changer came was on lap 44, a caution came
then a red flag for an incident in turn three where
Steve Masse and Rich Pallai tangled. While the
guardrail was being repaired, the field was stopped
on the backstretch for 15 minutes. Rolling again,
the pits opened on lap 47- when leader Beers came
down for fresh tires, more than half the field
followed including all the front runners, except for
Coby who inherited the lead and Ted Christopher.
Preece came down pit row but was waved on by his
team when it was discovered the left rear tire they
were going to put on was going flat. Preece, who
crossed for sixth, held on in contention until about
40 to go when it was suspected a dropped cylinder
kept them from being in the mix at the end.
“We were going to come in early but we wanted to
lead a lap so when the 45 came in we said we’d stay
out and lead a lap,” said Coby. “Maybe we’d come in
around lap 100 or so then we had no more cautions.
This car is built to last on the long runs I think
everyone saw that in the Sizzler and the 125, that
we know we can go at least 100 laps on these tires
if not more.”
Coby, Christopher, Ed Flemke who also stayed out and
Preece led the restart but as the cautions came,
Coby maintained his lead. Flemeke pitted on the next
yellow, Christopher at the following caution coming
in on lap 66. At the half way mark it was Coby,
Preece, Blewett, Bryon Chew, Rowan Pennink, Justin
Bonsignore, Szegedy and Beers the top eight.
The last caution of the night came on lap 83,
contact sending Chew hard into the outside wall on
the backstretch.
From the restart on lap 88 to the end, the race was
green. Blewett took over second before the 90 mark,
Szegedy into third five circuits later. While
Blewett and Szegedy contended for second, Coby
stretched out his lead.
“We had a lot of cautions in the middle of the
race,” said Coby. “My spotter kept giving me updates
on the lap times and those guys with tires on a
night like tonight they’re not going to make a lot
of ground up- we just never really fell off.”
Coby crossed the stripe for the 22nd Annual Stafford
150 win with a 2.508 second margin of victory.
“I just didn’t want a caution. I was praying for no
cautions,” admitted car owner Wayne Darling. “I was
surprised without putting tires on it that it didn’t
fall off, it might have if we had a caution. It
stayed real fast though out the whole race. We were
one of the quickest cars to the very end.”
Coby talked about the decision to stay out. “We were
going to pit at lap 40 or after, our plan was, if we
were leading, we wanted to do exactly what Eric did,
pit as the leader, make everyone follow us in, then
we’ll be in the top three or four when we get out
and make them now got 100 laps or so, that was our
plan, make them go 100 laps instead of say, 75 which
would give them better tires on the long run. We
know our car can go 100 and we knew we would have a
good car on the long run. So who pits? Everybody.
Who doesn’t? Us. In an instant it was over getting
one bonus point where we said let’s stay out and
lead a lap. Now we got more points because we led
the most laps and then we got the win. We try to
stick to our plan; we always say that, no matter
what. But crew chief says plan changes when you need
a bonus point and I agreed with him. Our car was
still very much tight and racy. I was thinking maybe
by lap 100 we’ll be junk and we’ll have to pit, by
then those guys will have 50 laps on their tires and
we can pass some of them and come back through, it’s
crazy how it works.”
Winning crew chief John McKenna echoed Coby. “The
other teams, they decided for us not to pit. We
decided to lead a lap to get a bonus point not
thinking they were all going to come in. I was
surprised that many came in. Alright, let’s make
them chase us and wear their tires out and we come
down and put our tires on we’ll have something to
come through the field with. But as we were going,
nobody was coming, nobody was coming, nobody was
coming – then when it went the long green, let it
go, we couldn’t pit, even if the caution did come
out. It worked out, but it was luck. The last time,
we weren’t planning on pitting, we got a flat tire
and it worked out. This time, we were planning on
pitting and we didn’t.”
Coming into the 2012 season, there is a renewed
desire to succeed, to be competitive among the best.
A season high second place finish for the Howell, NJ
driver, Jimmy Blewett in the John Blewett Inc/Ling
Trucking sponsored, John Blewett Sr. owned Chevrolet
with crew chief Ed Bennett III, is appreciative of
what it takes to make the podium. “I can’t thank Ed
(Bennett) enough for stepping up to the plate for
me. My crew chief Kevin Crowley, he had to step
aside because of family purposes. I can’t thank Ed
enough for coming on board with us. You’re only as
good as your car is sometimes and my crew guys work
their hearts out week in and week out, we’re
committed to running the full series. This one’s for
my guys.”
Blewett continued, “You know our team, it’s been one
thing after another, we just really needed a good
finish. During the off season, I lost a bunch of
weight just trying to get myself prepared to run
this car for my grandfather. I felt like I have to
give 150 percent. We put a pretty good crew
together, a little bit from my brother’s team, a
little bit of guys that worked for me, a couple of
friends I met when I drove the 14 car and even a
couple of guys that were around the pit area. The
hard work is what makes you. I have a lot more
appreciation for racing now more than ever. When I
drove for Eddie Partridge, it was show up with your
helmet and suit and race. It’s not that I need to
work on cars and build them, I did that with my
brother, my grandfather made us start that way, now
to do that at the highest level is a whole different
story. What makes me feel that way is my brother,
what he did, driver, crew chief, he did everything,
he was the total package. I feel like tonight would
be a night where he would be proud of all of us.”
Szegedy in the Mike Smeriglio III owned, Dunleavy
Repair/A&J Romano Construction sponsored Ford
tallied up another top five finish, four to date
with the 2 Team headed up by crew chief Phil Moran.
“Our season has been either real good finishes or
we’ve been getting wrecked. Everybody ran pretty
good, it got a little wild there with some of the
guys backing up it really us bunched up, but all in
all is was a good run for the Mike Smeriglio Ford.
We just have to keep having these good finishes. The
52 was strong tonight. We took tires and he still
whooped up on us, we’ve got a lot of work to do to
catch up on him. We can’t blame engine power, he
runs a Chevy, we run a Ford but we’re all built by
Bob Brunneau power- it’s a good finish for Bob, one,
two and three. We’re going to Thompson where we’ve
had absolutely horrible luck and hopefully turn it
around with another top five. We’re going to build
off this finish.”
Szegedy will focus on getting where they know they
are capable of being. “ When we finish, they’re
good. We’re good enough to run the top five but
we’re not yet this year been good enough to win.
Tonight I think was the closet night to that. If we
had a green, white, checker, it might have been a
different story, Doug did have older tires and I
think that would have affected him the most, our car
was great on restarts. I think being third, we would
have had a shot at winning the race but it didn’t
happen. I gave it all I could, I didn’t have
anything left. It’s good, but I’m anxious to get the
car better. I want to continue with these finishes.”
To compete in this series, the work is hard, never
ending and requires sacrifice and dedication. A
whole series could be written on what one has given
up to be here. There is one more factor, an elusive
four letter word that permeates the racing world-
luck. That word was heard across the board tonight
from the 52 team.
“Lucky, very lucky,” said Darling. “The last race
here, we had a flat and it worked out for us, the
race at Waterford, that big wreck on the front
stretch, we got hit, but it didn’t do any damage,
Todd ended up in it, we got hit, nerf bar damage,
but we made it through. This race here, no cautions
at the end, right now, we’re just riding the luck.
These guys do hard work, I mean we had a good car
last year and stupid stuff would bite us, cautions
come out at the wrong time, it’s all luck, when you
have it, ride it.”
“I’ll tell you what, I had a blast with Ryan, Eric,
Bobby- that four group of us running side by side,
was really cool. It was really fun racing with these
guys,” said Coby. “When you beat them, you know
you’re beating the best. That’s the most satisfying
for us right now, it’s knowing that when you beat
Ted, Mike Stefanik, Silk’s team, Preece, Todd- those
are top notch teams and for us to run with them and
beat them, it’s really cool. It can change in an
instant. We can have a 60 point lead and it can go
away in a heartbeat. We’re trying to not take
anything for granted, we’ve won four Tour races in a
year, no matter where we finish in points, points
don’t tell the whole story. For somebody like me
whose never finished better than fifth in points or
won more than one Tour race in a season, this is
just like the coolest thing ever. We know we’re on a
wave.”
“We weren’t really surprised (about the car falling
off) that’s what we’ve been working on,” said
McKenna. “My nephew Alex has been doing the setups
on it, we have a new tire guy, we knew half way
through last year that our tire guy would not be
returning since he was going to spend time with his
daughter playing softball so he and Simon worked
together. Tim taught Simon how to do the tires and
he picked that right up, that’s been key. The guys
on the team have been stepping up to do different
things- it’s all of us working hard. We know we’re
riding the wave, we know we’re going to go on the
other side of the wave sooner or later. We’ve been
doing this long enough to know, that’s the truth,
it’s a reality.”
The season is officially half way. Seven races in
the books, seven to go. Coby leads the way with 309,
Preece in second 41 back with Silk only two behind
Preece. Jimmy Blewett stands fourth with Justin
Bonsignore, Todd Szegedy and Donny Lia all tied for
fifth each with 235 points. The tight turn around to
Thursday night at Thompson will be another test for
all. Easy to say the season is just heating up. |
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Source: Polly Reid / TheChromeHorn.com
Posted: August
4, 2012 |
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