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09/16/2013 |
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NWMT RIVERHEAD RACEWAY
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Green Earth Technologies 200
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by
Polly
Reid
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Ryan
Preece of Berlin, CT used patience carefully calculating his move and with
just under 25 to go made a pass on the inside taking the lead from Timmy
Solomito and never looked back as he went on to score a commanding win in
the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Green Earth Technologies 200 at Riverhead
Raceway in Riverhead, NY.
Justin Bonsignore made a late pass to cross for second with Solomito on the
podium for third. Woody Pitkat and Howie Brode rounded out the top five.
It is Preece’s third NWMT win in a row at the famed Long Island short track,
the victory tying Mike Ewanitsko’s record for the most consecutive Tour wins
at Riverhead. “Mike Ewanitsko won three Tour races in a row and to be able
to tie him that’s an honor in itself, I can’t even explain, it’s awesome,”
said Preece in victory lane.
“In practice, we were better on older tires. I wasn’t worried when we
qualified third, it was a great spot. I always want to try and qualify
better but I knew we had a good car. I just wanted to get into second and
hustle my way into the lead which I did on every restart. Everything worked
out our way and I couldn’t be more happy.”
It is the fourth win of 2013 for Preece and the Flamingo Motorsports team.
Bringing the 28 car field to green, Coors Light Pole Award winner Timmy
Solomito of Islip, NY in the Wayne Anderson owned, Eastport Feed/LLL
Industries sponsored modified consistently held off the challenges of Preece
and Brode again and again. As the cautions mounted, Solomito made use of his
Riverhead Raceway experience with confident restarts leading the way after
each yellow.
“Each restart got a little more interesting,” said Solomito. “Racing here
weekly since 2008, you start learning a couple of little tricks here and
there, I think that helped us prevail on a lot of those starts but Preece
ended up getting us there, he saved a little more tire than we did- I’m used
to running 35 lap features so to run 200, we did pretty good. We’ll take it,
any day of the week.”
Thirteen cautions that included two red flags slowed the Green Earth
Technologies 200 and as the field collected up for restarts, Preece
continued to size up the timing of his move for the lead. It came on lap 177
when Preece moved his Sophie’s Restaurant, East West Marine sponsored, Eric
Sanderson owned Ford low completing the pass on the inside out of turn four
to become the second and final leader of the night.
“Timmy would get away a little bit but I wasn’t pushing to catch him,”
explained Preece. “I could tell he was really driving hard to get away so I
was sort of letting him use his stuff up a little more than I wanted to use
my stuff up- we used it when we needed to and we made everything work. Timmy
did a good job there finishing third, he drove a phenomenal race, we just
had a little bit more at the end there.”
The longest green flag run of the night came in the final 32 circuits and
while Preece made his successful bid for the lead, Justin Bonsignore the in
Ken Massa owned, M3 Technology sponsored modified started fifth, settled
into fourth then passed Brode for third with 75 to go. It was the closing
circuits that Bonsignore found his opening, passing Solomito for second, the
Holtsville, NY driver determined as he crossed the stripe the runner up in
the Green Earth Technologies 200.
“I could tell Timmy was getting a little free all the way through,” said
Bonsignore. “So, typical Riverhead, go in high and try to cross him over up
off and we were able to get a good drive off the corner for the pass.”
“We came here expecting to win but to put ourselves up here in the top
three, that’s good,” said Bonsignore who won earlier in the season at
Monadnock Speedway in NH. “The car was tight all night, the cautions just
killed us. We were set up hoping to go green for a while, it finally came to
us but Preece was too far out at that point. It was a good run. We’ve had an
up and down last couple of weeks on the Tour so it definitely paid off to
come back and run weekly here the last few weeks and build up a notebook,
we’re pretty happy with that.”
“Seat time is huge everywhere,” continued Bonsignore. “Look at Preece,
everywhere we go he has a lot of seat time and that helps. So when I come
here, my confidence level is high, I know we’re going to have a pretty good
car, so the experience definitely helps. Little things- like not a lot of
people know how to cross someone up late in the race on old tires-
familiarity, it helps.”
Solomito was the class of the field for the first 176 circuits and had the
home town crowd behind him hoping to be the first ‘Riverhead regular’ to
score a Tour win since 1995. “If you told me on Wednesday last week that we
would come here and qualify on the pole, run up front and finish third I
would have said you were kidding me. All and all a great run. I can’t thank
Freddie Kraft enough for coming up and spotting for me, he knows what he is
doing, I miss that guy. We had a good car, just burned it up a little too
early.”
Six tour starts now on his racing resume, Solomito will return for one more
at the World Series at Thompson next month. “We ran there at the beginning
of year and ended up in the top ten which was nice so hopefully when we go
back there, do the same thing or even better, that’s the plan.”
This just doesn’t get old,” said car owner Eric Sanderson about the 16
Flamingo Motorsports trip to victory lane. “Timmy hung in there, we really
had to work to get by him. I thought we had him earlier but the caution came
out so we went back to second. Ryan, what a race he drove. He was patient,
waited for an opening and when he got it he was gone. This is such a tough
track to pass on- to get a position on somebody, it’s not easy. Ryan finally
got the position and that was that.”
The win boosted Preece to 46 points ahead of Doug Coby with only three
events remaining on the schedule. “Driving for points is one thing, but go
out and win the race, we’re not going to hang back,” said Sanderson who is
aware that it’s not over until the final checker flag waves. “One thing
about racing, you never know what’s going to happen. You have to go out and
do your best and whatever happens, happens. We’ll be trying to win the race
in New Hampshire, we’re not going to back off just because we might lose a
few points. We’re going out to win the next race and the next and the next
race.”
Crossing the line for sixth was Eric Goodale with Rowan Pennink, Ted
Christopher, Todd Szegedy and Patrick Emerling the top ten.
Starting 18th, Doug Coby, the closest threat to Preece for the title run,
had made his way to 11th by the half way mark, the Milford, CT driver
running a solid 10th with 75 to go. Making his way to 8th by the next
restart ten circuits later, Coby suffered a right front flat on lap 138 and
was forced to pit. Coby was able to rebound and finish 14th.
The NWMT heads to Loudon for the next event on Saturday September 21st for
the F.W. Webb 100. |
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Source: Polly Reid / Denise DuPont / TheChromeHorn.com
Posted: September
16, 2013 |
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