Champ Trail - June 9, 2015

  The stars and cars of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Series made their second stop of the season at the Stafford Motor Speedway on Friday night. Ryan Preece made it two in a row as he won the TSI Harley-Davidson 125. Preece took the lead on Lap 2 from pole sitter Doug Coby and led all but six laps. Woody Pitkat and Timmy Solomito finished second and third, respectively. Todd Szegedy finished fourth and Bobby Santos in fifth. Sixth thru tenth were Ted Christopher, Rowan Pennink, Keith Rocco, Patrick Emerling and Tom Rogers Jr.
  There were 5 lead changes among 3 drivers. Preece took the lead for the final time on lap 107. Woody Pitkat used a power move to the inside of Timmy Solomito in the final turn on the final lap to steal the runner-up spot, while Solomito hung on for third.
  Coby, who had been running fifth in the closing laps was sent to the rear for rough riding after triggering a wreck on lap 118. He came back to finish 13th. Fourteen of the original 31 starters were on the lead lap at the finish.
  The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour will next get the green on Wednesday, June 10 for the Mr. Rooter 125 at Connecticut’s Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park.

  In regular weekly action at Stafford it was features only. Taking down NASCAR Whelen All-American Series weekly feature were Rowan Pennink, who picked up his third win of the 2015 season in the SK Modified® feature, Tom Fearn scored his second consecutive victory in the Late Model feature, Nick Salva was a first time winner in 2015 in the SK Light Modified feature, Andrew Hayes got his first win of 2015 in the Limited Late Model feature, Zack Robinson was a first time career winner in the DARE Stock feature, and Devin O’Connell picked up his second win of the 2015 season in the Legend Cars feature.
  In the SK Modified 40 lapper, Pennink took the lead from Christopher with a move in turn 4 with Joey Cipriano following suit getting around Christopher to drop him back to third place. The caution came out with 36 laps complete as Christopher’s car got turned into the frontstretch wall. Pennink powered into the lead on the restart with Preece locked in a side by side fight for second with Cipriano. Preece got clear to second on lap-37 while Cipriano was now trying to hold off Keith Rocco and Reen. Pennink led Preece back to the checkered flag to pick up his third win of the season. Cipriano held off Rocco in a photo finish for third, with Glen Reen rounding out the top-5.

  Keith Rocco keeps rolling along at the New London-Waterford Speedbowl as he continues to build on his record setting feature win total. Rocco recorded his third SK Modified win of the season at the shoreline oval bringing his track win total to 109 wins. The win also brought Rocco closer to a career overall total of 200 wins which now total 197 which also include victories at Thompson and Stafford Speedways.
  The SK Modified win by Rocco at the speedbowl was pretty much a cake walk as he beat out Rob Janovic and Ted Christopher. Rocco finished a close second to Jason Palmer in the Late Model feature. Other feature winners were Mark Panaroni (Mini Stocks), Chris Correll (SK Lights), Al Stone III (Limited Sportsman), Randy Cabral (NEMA Lites) and Toby Wells (North East Mini Stock Tour).
  The SK Modified event was 35 laps and Timmy Jordan was the man to take the early lead with Paul Kusheba right behind him ready to take the lead away. Rocco took the lead with 19 laps remaining in the event. The first caution came out with 14 laps remaining in the event. Rocco took the lead on the restart and never trailed from that position. following Christopher in the SK Modified event was Tim Jordan and Tyler Chadwick.

  The Valenti Modified Racing Series paid a visit to the Seekonk Speedway on Saturday night. Twenty five cars were on hand for the 100 lapper. Richard Savary took the lead from Dylan Kopec near the halfway mark and held off strong challenges from Woody Pitkat and Todd Szegedy to win the 100-lap Valenti Modified Racing Series feature. Rowan Pennink finished fourth and Anthony Nocella in fifth. Woody Pitkat, Charlie Pasteryak, Norm Wrenn, Dennis Perry and Donny Lashua rounded off the top ten. The win was Savary's first of the 2015 season.
  Savory started the race in third spot, passed for the lead on lap 43 from early leader Dylan Kopec and went on to win the VMRS Seekonk 100.
VMRS teams will return to racing on Friday June 19th for Twin 50 lap features at Lee USA Speedway in New Hampshire.

  The Riverhead Raceway on Long Island presented the Baldwin, Evans & Jarzombek Memorial event. Ryan Preece took the win over John Fortin and Jason Agugliaro.

  Down in the southland at the Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem NC twin 25-lap NASCAR Modified features were on tap. Jason Myers held off his brother Burt Myers to win the first 25-lap race. It was Jason Myers’ 20th win at Bowman Gray. Danny Bohn, who was last year’s Bowman Gray’s Modified division champion, came back from New Jersey to win his eighth race at Bowman Gray in the night’s second Modified race. In the first Modified race, Jason Myers had the fastest qualifying lap of the year and won wire-to-wire to defeat his brother for the win. In the night-cap, Bohn defeated Frank Fleming, David Calabrese and Tim Brown.

  On the speedway stock market scene last week all three speedway stocks were down for the week. The International Speedway Corporation was down 0.38 to 36.85 while Speedway Motorsports went down 0.24 to 21.68 and Dover Entertainment went down 0.08 to 2.30. NASCAR cup sponsor Sprint went down 0.23 to 4.42 while NASCAR fuel supplier Sunoco (Energy Transfer) dropped 1.12 to 55.11 and NASCAR tire supplier Goodyear dropped 0.53 to 31.32. The car manufacturers were also down, Ford dropped 0.59 to 14.78, General Motors dropped 0.85 to 35.12 and Toyota dropped 2.38 to 135.51. In the home improvement sector, Home Depot dropped 1.05 to 110.37 and Lowes dropped 0.19 to 69.79. Some wild swings were seen on big team sponsor's stocks. Coca-Cola went up 12.28 to 125.85 and Fedex went up 9.02 to 182.24. McDonalds dropped 0.39 to 95.54 while Target dropped 0.12 to 79.20 and Aarons Rentals dropped 1.00 to 34.03.

  On the tube this coming week:

  Thursday, June 11
5:00 PM, NASCAR America, NBC Sports Net
6:30 PM, NASCAR America: The States of NASCAR, NBCSN
7:00 PM, NASCAR America: Scan All 43, NBCSN
7:30 PM, NASCAR America: Scan All 43, NBCSN

  Friday, June 12
1:00 AM, NASCAR America: The States of NASCAR, NBCSN
1:30 AM, NASCAR America: The States of NASCAR, NBCSN
7:00 AM, NASCAR America, NBCSN
7:30 AM, NASCAR America, NBCSN
8:00 AM, NASCAR America, NBCSN
8:30 AM, NASCAR America, NBCSN
11:30 AM, NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Michigan practice, FOX Sports 1
1:00 PM, NASCAR Xfinity Series Michigan practice, FS1
2:30 PM, NXS Michigan final practice, FS1
6:30 PM, NASCAR America: The States of NASCAR, NBCSN

  Saturday, June 13
9:00 AM, NSCS Michigan practice, FS1
10:00 AM, NXS Michigan qualifying, FS1
11:30 AM, NASCAR Race Hub: Weekend Edition, FS1
12:00 PM, NSCS Michigan final practice, FS1
1:00 PM, NASCAR RaceDay: Xfinity, FS1
1:30 PM, NXS Michigan race, FS1
8:30 PM, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Gateway race, FS1

  Sunday, June 14
11:30 AM, NASCAR RaceDay, FS1
1:00 PM, NSCS Michigan race, FS1
5:30 PM, NASCAR: Fans Speak, FS1

  Monday, June 15
10:00 AM, NSCS Michigan race re-air, FS1

   That’s about it for this week from 11 Gardner Drive, Westerly, and R.I.02891. Ring my chimes at 401-596-5467.
E-mail: smithpe_97_97@yahoo.com.

Phil Smith has been a columnist for Speedway Scene and various
other publications for over 3 decades.
 

Source: Phil Smith / Champ Trail
Posted: June 9, 2015