|
NWMT THOMPSON SPEEDWAY
MOTORSPORTS PARK
Hard Charging Coby Overcomes Challenge to Win Bud 150
by
Polly Reid |
The
fireworks display on the backstretch going off as
the field went to green flag racing appeared to set
the stage for an explosive night. In the end, it was
Doug Coby of Milford, CT in the Mike Smeriglio III
owned, Dunleavy’s Repair/A&J Romano Construction
sponsored modified that prevailed and crowned the
winner in the NWMT Budweiser King of Beers 150 at
Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park.
After setting a dominating pace early on, Coby
overcame a restart penalty, lining up 17th with less
than fifty to go, wasted no time working his way
back to the front in flawless manner until a final
restart with nine to go. Lining up fourth, Coby was
behind Woody Pitkat who led the field to green.
Pitkat and Coby tore through turns one and two nose
to tail heading down the backstretch when Coby, with
full momentum going into turn three dove low under
Pitkat, shaking up the 88 car, securing the lead
with eight to go and never looked back.
Pitkat crossed the line for second, Todd Szegedy
third; Eric Goodale and Donny Lia completed the top
five.
Coby’s comments in victory lane reflected the highly
emotional night. Clearly not pleased with the
penalty, in the end, Coby said, “My guys told me to
use my head and I wasn’t. I use my head too much and
tonight was the night to put the car in victory lane
where it deserves to be. I want to thank my guys and
Dunleavy’s Truck and Trailer Repair, this car is
just phenomenal at this speedway.”
The win is the fourth of the season for Coby and the
MSR III team, the third consecutive victory at
Thompson and Coby’s 14th career win overall.
“Woody was the only car I touched tonight,” said
Coby. “We had the fastest car- we’re fired up and
ready to go.”
“It would have been a terrific finish if I hadn’t
been cleaned out going for the lead there,” said
Pitkat of Stafford, CT who brought the Buzz Chew
modified home for second.
Sharing the podium was Todd Szegedy of Ridgefield,
CT in the “The race was decent, we struggled a
little bit with the handling the first half,” said
Szegedy. “There is such a discrepancy where you
start on this track unfortunately – the outside is
just much faster unless the guys on the bottom drive
you into the woods. I got pretty lucky and was able
to get into second and kind of rode there until the
pit stop and made some changes. We never really got
a good restart- every time we were on the bottom you
use the heck out of the car. You’re kind of a
sitting duck and you hope you can squeeze up and get
in line on the outside without being too much of a
jerk. That’s basically how it came out. We missed it
a little bit- happy to finish third.”
Patrick Emerling of Orchard Park, NY claimed his
second straight NWMT Coors Light Pole Award and
brought the thirty car field to green. It turned
into a four car breakaway with Emerling leading
Donny Lia, Coby and Ted Christopher. Lia in the
Sypher Construction sponsored modified became the
new leader on lap seven only to be passed by Coby
for the lead on lap fifteen. Three cautions kept the
field close however at the halfway mark, lap 75,
Coby was securely five car lengths ahead of Szegedy
in second, with Christopher, Eric Goodale and Pitkat
the top five.
The game changer was the next caution on lap 85
where the action turned to pit row. First car off
pit row was Coby with Christopher, Justin
Bonsignore, Goodale and Szegedy the top five. Pitkat
was seventh and Ryan Preece was tenth.
Chase Dowling, who had been down pit row on lap 42,
stayed out to become the new leader while Coby lined
up on the inside for the lap 92 restart. At the
green, fresh tires prevailed as Coby, taking the
line with him, pulled into the lead.
Posted by officials as jumping the start, the 2 car
was served a stop and go penalty which happened to
have been taken under the next caution on lap 95.
Ted Christopher, driver in the Chris Our owned 22
car for this race and Bristol next week while Keith
Rocco recovers from a broken hand, inherited the
lead on the lap 102 restart with Goodale, Szegedy,
Max Zachem and Ryan Preece the top five, Pitkat in
sixth. Dowling had dropped back to ninth. Coby lined
up 17th.
Christopher, Preece and Goodale now the top three by
lap 111, Coby had cracked the top ten and was firmly
in 8th place. Preece made a bid for the lead
battling side by side with Christopher while Coby
remained focused on moving forward.
Lap 120, thirty to go, Christopher still leading now
had Pitkat at his bumper. Szegedy passed Preece for
third while Goodale maintained in fifth. Coby gained
another spot.
On lap 125, Pitkat going for the lead, made contact
with the leader in turn four sending Christopher
around bringing out the next caution. No penalty
called for the incident, Pitkat took over the lead
with Szegedy, Preece, Goodale and Lia the top five,
Christopher was sent back to line up 12th and now
Coby was restarting sixth.
A final caution on lap 135 for a multi-car tangle on
the front stretch set up a nine lap dash to the
checkers. It turned out to be the break that Coby
needed.
Pitkat, Szegedy, Goodale, Coby and Preece the top
five came around for the green. Pitkat and Coby
broke from the pack and single file down the
backstretch, Coby made the final pass for the lead
in turn with a ‘to the moon’ pass for first and
shortly after, the win.
Meanwhile, Szegedy now in second, was dealt a ‘to
the moon’ pass from Pitkat who reclaimed second with
five to go.
At the checkers, it was Coby, Pitkat, Szegedy,
Goodale, Lia the top five. Ryan Preece finished
sixth, Patrick Emerling seventh, Justin Bonsignore,
Christopher and Timmy Solomito the top ten.
“As much as Woody is upset with me tonight,” said
Coby, “I have a ton of respect for what he does and
his team. This is racing- this is trying to get max
points and close the gap and I figured that was the
time to do it because he’s so crafty and smart that
if I couldn’t have gotten him right then and pounced
and struck while he was trying to figure out his car
on the restart, maybe he would have driven away from
me. That was my plan- to pounce as quickly as I
could.”
“If that’s how he wants to race,” said Pitkat about
the pass Coby made, “We’ll put that in the memory
bank and remember that coming into these last final
five races. All in all it was a good race. I took
that out on Todd and I didn’t mean to do that. It
was heat of the moment trying to get back to Doug to
voice my displeasure to him and I just couldn’t get
back to him. All in all, it was a good night, we
started 11th- got up front, led some laps, a good
points night.”
Rewinding a bit, Pitkat talked about the contact
with Christopher that put him in the top spot.
“Unfortunately, I got down in there, got into him,
and spun him. I was almost going to burp it to try
and straighten him out but I figured I’d knock the
right front off and at that point, I figured it was
NASCAR’s judgment to either put me to the rear or
not and they didn’t.”
An official announcement to the media post-race
stated, “It was reviewed by race control and was
ultimately deemed a racing incident.”
“Our luck hasn’t been as lucky as the 6 and the 2
when we’re coming through,” said Pitkat. “Everything
we’ve had to battle. Ryan last week- he got through
clean to the pit stop, got to the lead and checked
out. I was doing everything trying to get to the
front- and Doug too. It just seems like – I’m not
trying to feel bad for myself or anything but it
seems like everyone has had it a little bit easier
these ten or however many races- than I have. Which
is fine- I don’t care because I’m a grinder, I’m not
going to stop- I never give up- if that’s how it’s
going to be then that’s how it’s going to be. You
keep knocking me down and I’m going to keep coming
back.”
When officials posted the restart penalty for Coby-
Coby and the MSR III team had to dig deep and
collect themselves with the unexpected set back.
“The hardest part was keeping Doug calm,” said
winning crew chief Phil Moran. “He was rightly
upset.”
Moran quickly reminded Coby there were 50 laps left.
“We got the restart on the outside lane, that was
beneficial for us because both restarts were on the
outside and everybody knows that’s the place to be
here and it helped us a ton. When we got to fourth I
was praying for a caution. I knew if it stayed
green, we weren’t going to get them- they were
stretched out. Somebody heard me. I knew when we
restarted fourth that we would have a really good
shot. Woody was good- Doug just pulled in tight and
went after the lead. Doug never put the car in
jeopardy, he kept it straight- he did a hell of a
job.”
“It wasn’t easy,” admitted car owner Mike Smeriglio
III about keeping the team focused on the task at
hand. “I’m a NASCAR fan first and car owner second.
I think we got the bum end of the deal tonight. It
is what it is. You know the quality of a team we
have – Doug was pretty upset, he wanted to win the
right way. It comes down to the leadership of the
team with Phil Moran and just never giving up. I
think at this point we’ve rebounded from finishing
30th at Loudon – fingers crossed- five race to go- I
just hope whoever wins, wins it the right way.”
There is one thing that is crystal clear, there is
no controversy here about Coby and the dominance MSR
III Racing has had at Thompson this year.
“It’s Phil and the LFR Chassis,” said Coby about
winning three in a row at Thompson. “Phil and Alex-
they just know what they’re doing. Alex came over
with me from the 52 and he has a lot of notes from
John McKenna and obviously we won a few races with
that 52 car. Alex and Phil have meshed the same way
Alex and John had meshed – when he came with me I
was hoping this is what would happen – they’re just
so clever and creative about what adjustments they
make on these impound races to give me the car I
need – it’s not to say that somebody couldn’t drive
the car and do what I do but they set it up for me-
they know me, know what I want and how I drive-
really that’s the answer to it. I’ve never qualified
this good in my whole career, I’ve never been this
good at this race track- it’s that chassis and how
they set it up.”
“After the Icebreaker we felt like we had a really
good car here,” said Moran. “Then after the second
race here, we knew we had a really, really good car
here. Tonight we unloaded for practice, Doug said
the car felt good, we played around with a couple of
things, trying to make it better, just small things,
nothing major and it was good, real good. Doug is
really good here- he knows how to search the track
to find what he needs for the car. We’ve been lucky
enough to hit the stagger right – Timmy’s doing a
great job with the tires and making the right calls.
We made no adjustments at the pit stop.”
The month of August has always been a challenging
stretch with the rapid fire schedule of NWMT events
at so many different venues. Moran shook his head
yes and laughed, “The harder the work, the harder we
work.”
All controversy of the night aside, if you’ve been
part of the modified racing family for a while, then
I’m sure today you too had a thought of John Blewett
III and Tom Baldwin.
After crossing the stripe for the win, Coby took the
checkered flag and did a reverse lap with the 2 car.
Stopping briefly, Coby left the flag in turn one.
Coby became choked with emotion when he talked about
the thoughtful gesture in memory of John Blewett
III. “Time goes by and people forget,” said Coby.
“Janice commented on my Facebook page that she
wishes she could be here tonight. It’s only after
John’s passing that I became close with Jimmy,
Janice, Danielle and all of his friends. I looked up
to John- I felt like tonight- it hit home. I’m
thankful to be here and do what I love to do.
Ultimately it’s out of respect for the family and
what John meant to the series. That includes Tom
Baldwin as well. It’s just a real emotional place
for a lot of people and everybody gets fired up
about winning or wrecking – we forget that there are
some people who can’t even come here because it’s so
emotional for them. The flag up there is for John- I
know the family will appreciate it- we still think
of them, we don’t want anyone to forget.”
The NWMT heads south to Bristol Motor Speedway for
the Bush’s Bean 150 on Wednesday August 19th. The
points are squeaky tight with Pitkat now in the lead
by one with 413 over Preece with 412. Coby gained
and stands at 405. “Like I said last week and the
week prior and I’ll keep saying it,” said Pitkat,
the new point leader. “These guys have run for
championships before. We’ve never run for a
championship before. I’ve never run this good and
this consistent and this is what I wanted to prove
on the Tour. I’ve moved up the ladder, done good,
won championships and run consistent in every
division – this is what I want to prove to everybody
and myself.”
Five events left on the 2015 schedule, every lap,
every position, every point counts.
|
Source:
Polly Reid / TheChromeHorn.com
Posted:
August 13, 2015 |
|
|