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 COBY
CAPTURES A HOT ICEBREAKER VICTORY
by
Polly Reid |
 There
can be no better way to begin the quest to defend a
championship title then to come back for the season
opener and score a win.
2014 NWMT Champion Doug Coby of Milford, CT in the
Mike Smeriglio owned Dunleavy’s Repair/HEX
Performance Chevrolet closed out a ‘perfect weekend’
besting a field of 35 cars to win the NWMT
Icebreaker 150 at Thompson Speedway Motorsports
Park.
Coby was in command leading 127 laps total including
the most important, the last one. Following Coby
across the stripe was Woody Pitkat in second, Bobby
Santos third, Ted Christopher and Ryan Preece the
top five.
Coby backed up his top of the chart practice time by
winning the Coors Light Pole Award on Saturday and a
trip to victory lane on Sunday.
“I just hope this is a springboard for us and for
the rest of the season,” said Coby. “It was a tough
decision for us to switch over to a spec engine,
switch over to LFR Chassis- we still have work to do
– we have a lot of tracks we’ve never been to with
this car – it’s going to be a battle every week -
this series is so competitive. .I’m just happy to be
out front, you know, I’ve never had a perfect
weekend like this- never won practice, set fast time
then won the race, these guys deserve it and I’m
just so thankful. My car owner, Mike Smeriglio, is
not here, everybody knows he’s a CPA so he’s knee
deep in tax season right now- this is for him, this
is his passion. All the guys do this for him – we’re
sorry he can’t be here but his family is here and
we’re going to celebrate and have a good time.”
 This
marks Coby’s 11th career NWMT win, his second at
Thompson, and his first Icebreaker win.
“I so pleased with the decisions made to be
competitive and really, I’m just glad that everybody
on the team did their job including myself. When you
have a car that is this good, the goal is to just
not mess it up and we didn’t. I’m just so proud of
my guys.”
Leading the field to green, Coby held off the
challenges of Ted Christopher then Bobby Santos
through three cautions. The fourth yellow of the
afternoon, waving just prior to the half way mark on
lap 73, brought the leaders down pit road, including
Coby, for fresh Hoosiers. Santos, Coby and
Christopher, the first three off of pit row lined up
behind the eight teams not pitting. The new leader,
Ron Silk came around for the restart on lap 80 only
to be reined in again for another caution.
Coby made significant gains all the way up to third
by the lap 89 restart then to second place one
circuit later only to be pulled back again for a
caution on lap 90. Silk, Coby, Rowan Pennink and
Tommy Barrett led the way on the lap 97 restart and
three circuits later it was Coby making his move to
become the final leader on lap 100. Coby survived
four more yellow flags, nailing each restart,
gaining a dominating distance from the pack each
time.
A four car melee on the white flag lap in turn four
officially concluded the Icebreaker 150 under a
yellow checker.
“It’s a good car and it does what the driver wants
it to do and when you have a car that’s dominant
like it was, you just try not to goof up and that
was my job today. Everybody on the team did a good
job and that’s part of a championship caliber team-
great pit stop, great set up choices for the
feature.”
The final threat for the top spot came from Woody
Pitkat of Stafford, CT in the Buzz Chew
Chevrolet/Elbow East Chevrolet who passed Santos for
second with eleven to go. Pitkat rebounded from a
caution on lap 55 that forced the 88 to pit row
after NASCAR Officials discovered a fluid leak.
“I can’t thank my guys enough,” said Woody. “They
kept their composure, they kept their cool- I told
them I thought maybe it was the power steering
fluid- they got under there, found the leak and
tightened that up.” Restarting deep in the field,
Pitkat came back down pit row with the leaders for
fresh tires just before the half, the crew gaining
him valuable track position. “When we came in with
everybody to put tires on, they had an awesome pit
stop.”
In the top five with fifty to go, Pitkat patiently
worked his way forward passing Santos for second
with holding that position to the end. “It was
definitely harder to finish second this year than
last year, but we have a brand new car, we learned a
bunch this weekend. We made big strides from last
week when we practiced here and I’m looking forward
to the season. I can’t thank Bryon and Buzz Chew
enough for giving me the opportunity to drive their
car- like I said last year, it’s like a dream come
true and it still is.”
The Curb Records/Tinio Corp/Dan Kelley sponsored
Chevrolet with Bobby Santos of Franklin, MA behind
the wheel was in the hunt all day finishing the
Icebreaker a solid third. “The guys gave me an
awesome pit stop,” said Santos who was first off of
pit row when the leaders came in for tires. “We beat
everybody out that we needed to beat out and of
course, it put us on the bottom, the wrong line for
the restart which didn’t help but it was a good run.
I’ve got to thank the team, we haven’t finished very
well here the last two years so to get a top three,
I think everybody’s pretty happy. Starting the
season good, we’re right in there, we have a good
team, we’re as good as anybody- if we don’t make
mistakes, we’ll have a good a shot as anybody at the
end of this.”
“The guys at the shop have been working really
hard,” said winning crew chief Phil Moran. “They
pulled it all together to make this happen. A new
car, a new motor program, new everything, it’s just
a great effort.” The challenge going forward will be
building a ‘notebook’ for each track with the new
LFR chassis. “Every race track will be a new
experience with this car. Now we know what it does
here, so we have something to build off of here.
Stafford, every track, will be new. The LFR Chassis
has run down south and they’ve run good down there,
Jason Myers, Burt Myers, but those are totally
different race tracks,” explained Moran. “I feel the
short track program will be really good, we’ll see
what happens.”
“It’s not easy and no one on our team will tell you
it was easy,” said Coby. “From here, we go to
Stafford and try to win the Sizzler. And if we can’t
win the Sizzler, we’ll try for a solid run and build
the notebook. Other than the fact we had a fast car
here at Thompson and we’re going to go to Stafford
with some excitement, it doesn’t mean we’re going to
have a rocket fast car at Stafford and we all know
that. We’re going to take it one race at a time and
use the information we gain from previous races to
hopefully make us better when we show up somewhere
else. Today was a special day, a special weekend,
now we go to Stafford.”
Next up- another NWMT tradition- the Spring Sizzler
April 26th at Stafford Motor Speedway. If you can’t
make in person, join Denise Dupont on
www.thechromehorn.com for live updates.
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Source:
Polly Reid / TheChromeHorn.com
Posted:
April 13, 2015 |
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